Long story shortened – OH’s Dad has a house in Spain that we need to sell. He has early onset dementia sadly & the house is rapidly becoming more of a burden than a pleasure.

The house is currently on the market with an agent in Spain. They seem a bit sh*t frankly, and dealing with things over there from the UK is a royal pain in the arse.

I’m wondering if we can get a UK agent involved? We have all the property details and photos etc. I don’t think we are tied into the agent over there. Can you have multiple agents involved?

It’s probably not the best time to be selling in Spain so we’re not expecting it to sell quickly, but the more we can do to increase it’s exposure the better.

Where’s the property? It’s a pretty crap time to be selling in Spain, and Spanish estate agents are just as bad as British ones.

Get the house listed on http://www.idealista.com/ as well, it’s one of the biggest Spanish websites. One thing: watch what you sign with the agent. You may have given them exclusive rights to sell the property…

It’s in the South East(ish) – place called Alcalali, close to Calpe/Benissa/Xavea. It’s a lovely spot & I wish we could keep it, but being realistic, we can’t 🙁

I’ll take a look at idealista, thanks

You could always try renting, although that could be a pain… I imagine the market will pick up in spring, maybe you’ll get more interest then.

Another place that might be worth taking out an advert would be the English language newspapers, there’s at least one on the coast I know of: http://www.costa-news.com/

There are others, no idea about rates or audience:
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/costa-blanca-north/itemlist/tag/Calpe

Cheers mogrim, food for thought. We’d thought about renting it out, but managing it would be a pain and no doubt expensive.

Right move, eBay

hi Woody, I live in Denia so if I can help in any way just ask. If the house has decent passing traffic I’d stick a private for sale notice up – houses do sell but to get a quick sale you’d have to price it lowish.
If I were you I’d hold onto it & wait for the market to pick up.
Feel free to contact me via pm, I am not an agent btw.

How about advertising it in Russia? Seriously.

My estranged grand-fathers place has been for sale forever over there, seems a minefield to deal with, especially the agents. My uncle (who lives out there) has said we might get some pocket change out of the sale… at some future date

PS: Going by my uncles life style (in the mtn’s above Malaga), I’d move out there asap…

z1ppy – that’s been more or less our experience up to press. Just hard work because we’re not there, and when we do go, there’s always something to sign somewhere, visits to the notary and so on.

GTI – I’m not sure his neighbours would appreciate us selling it to some nouveau-riche Russian gangster, but if we get desperate then anything goes 🙂

poolman – thanks for that 🙂

As others have said carefully check what rights the original estate agent has. The laws are quite different over there to here.

I is also worth talking to a property lawyer to see what the tax implications of selling the property as a non-resident and any other hoops you will need to jump through. From when my parents were dealing with their property they discovered the rules for residents and non-residents can be different. They should also be able to advise you about how to handle the property and your liabilities should your OH Dad takes a turn for the worse.

Once you know this you can make a more informed decision regarding how you dispose of the property. Sadly I expect that if you are selling from outside of Spain and you are not fully informed you will get stuffed on the deal.

cornholio – we’ve already had that advice, so we know where we stand from that point of view – cheers.

It’s probably not the best time to be selling in Spain so we’re not expecting it to sell quickly, but the more we can do to increase it’s exposure the better.

Irrelevant of which country you are selling in, price is key. So if you need rid, price accordingly.

The rule of thumb seems to be (hearing from a number of people that have had property in Spain) that foreigners can buy property over there relatively easily but when they come to sell there always seems to be a large number of permits, licences, certificates which are now needed, and should have been obtained before the original purchase, and which will involve paying the local Mayor a large sum of cash or else it will be discovered that the title still belongs to the Mayor’s brother-in-law.

Mum and dad in law have a place in Spain that they are trying to sell too. They have rented it out before and ended up with a couple of problems.

Rent and renew on 11 months or less. If it goes over 11 months, the tenant can stay in for upto 5 years before you can get them out (spanish law) and if they don’t pay the bills you’re stuck. We had this and bang at the end of 5 years he left. House was a crap hole and took some time to put right. He was spanish so knew how to play the rules.

Then rented to an english family who left after 6 months. Couple of problems but think they were suss.

Depending on where it is try holiday let, 1 – 2 week or try selling.

The market is picking up and houses are selling. Our house is on with an english man who looks after rented houses and sells them too, not a spanish agent. He’s shifted a few in the last couple of months without huge chunks being knocked off the asking price.

There are some UK solicitors that have offices in spain. You deal with the UK office and they deal with spain. Maybe cost a few quid more but worth it as they can’t just fob you off.

There are some UK solicitors that have offices in spain. You deal with the UK office and they deal with spain. Maybe cost a few quid more but worth it as they can’t just fob you off.

This is definitely what I’d do. As has been pointed out the Spanish do love their paperwork, and while the blackmail BigJohn mentions is not something that I’ve ever heard of, the amount of licences, notary signed papers and the rest certainly does ring a bell. It’s not massively complicated – if you’re here to do it all.