Buying of plan, the dangers are skimmers, they sell on just before completion,or just after ,leaving you with all the problems,how can you beat them,do you know.

Simple dont buy them !!
Give me a 3 year old house anytime , all the problems sorted , structural defects will be on show , no land grab problems . electrics sorted ,adsl on ,Address allocated etc etc..

Get your points pete, by why do brits continue to by of plan,and hope they can skim,WHY,cant just be greed.

Well there speculating and playing the property market i guess , makes sense if they play it right i reckon they make a nice profit for very small initial outlay i assume they only ever part with the deposit money ! so could be highly profitable ..

True, but people that are buying for there future, lose out,because they are not market players they are buying for life.

Easy way round it.
This is what I would do
Increase capital gains tax to 85% for sales up to 3 years after purchase reducing to 50% after 5 years, and 15% after 10 years.
Get rid of the greedy speculators, and leave the buying of homes to the people who want to actually live in them.

They used to do this in my area, buy two or three at a time, now they cant sell and are struggling to get renters to pay the mortgage on them. So sad ;-)

I remember people speculating on London property in Docklands, then there was the last big crash around '88 and buyers walked away from their deposits, leaving builders with cash flow probs to complete their projects.
Was chatting to a friend last night who has had her fingers severely burnt in the property game. Went to one of these seminars. All seemed so easy.. they offer flats at a discount because they have made a block puchase, they arange the finance by re-mortgaging your existing property ( she had major equity on her London flat). Bought flats in Glasgow docklands and Manchester. Serious problems renting them out. Finally sold the Glasgow property at a 20 grand loss not including having to support a £900 a month mortgage as there were large voids. Trying to sell the other. She has learnt her lesson. Said she will never ever buy a new build as they are the worst to sell on. I know this is Britain, but there are parallels. Do be careful. If only she had talked to me before jumping in headfirst.

What do you mean leaving you with all the problems? I am buying an almost ready (May) villa in an area we fell in love with Hondon de las Nieves. It ticked all our boxes and we want to retire there, well semi-retire I guess. What problems are we going to come across do you think? Not having a go just curious

Its a long thread but if you can read some of the history on the Costa Esuri thread ,now at part four,it might explain some of the disadvantages of buying of plan, the people on there seem to be dealing direct with the builders,there are some other people,skimmers, that will sell you a property,knowing the problems ,that they have had just getting to completion,never mind the snaging later,most of plan properties seem better value but there is allready a premuim on top. ,

Yes but with all due respect why does that tar all off plan purchases with the same brush ... there are many off plan buyers who were completely happy. Obviously I'm fully aware of Chiclana etc and other such problems, but it doesn't mean in general it is a bad road to take

And Big P, three years old doesn't get you out of VLG possibilities

Is that right about no land grab problems on properties older than 3 years? I also think I might still be getting mixed up between land grab, and urbanization charges. Would love to be put straight on this, because had heard that urbanization charges could be a problem on OLD established houses bordering a village, which is then incorporated into the village and an urbanization charge slapped on it!
Please help me someone, ANYONE?

The urbanization charge is each property's share of the costs of:- tarmaccing the roads, laying pavements, street lighting and mains drainage etc.

The charge is based on the square metreage and frontage of your plot.

When I bought my house it had already been urbanized, but I took over the outstanding instalments.

The total cost was about 6,000€ for my 800sq metre plot. I only paid the final two 600€ instalments.

Well make it 4 then The point is lets be honest here ? You know you have done the move ..
Moving to live in Spain or anywhere is probably the most stressful thing in your life i should think ? I am not even there yet but just getting over to view stuff and select areas and stuff is hassle !!

So there is no way i am going to Take a chance and add to the stress by buying anything less than 100% legal , with everything all done ..

So resale for me , all above board no silly back handers in envelopes , to come back to haunt me .. Address known , electrics on , telephones on , Villa surveyed , no waitting for builders to fix that leaky roof ,Pool and gardens established .etc.
Buying off plans is risky in my view !
They show you a pretty picture of what it will look like , but you dont really know who your neighbours will be ? How many other new builds will be wedged in ? etc . You could buy it with a great view and then phase 4 starts noise and dust day and night and that oh so lovely view gone !!

The only stress i want is sorting out minor issues like residence and stuff and enjoying life ! Not waitting a year for addresses , hoping to god that the land stuff comes through , praying that them yobs in there English footie tops you saw walking with the tattood old couple looking around the empty next door house arent gonna buy !!! etc etc.. Fingers crossed the plumber did all them joints correct ,

thats my view anyway, Why give yourself the stress ??

Trouble is pete they can stick another block in anywhere, see how they filled in between the two rocky parts with concrete and built right in front of the other block that has been up for years.

The third picture shows a building they put on a strip of land about 3 mtrs deep, they drilled into the rockface and concreted in steelwork to connect to the building as it was built up. The top of it will be big enough for apartments.