4 bed 4 bath Villa/Detached in Orihuela Costa Costa Blanca South Spain R...

This brand new luxurious villa is situated on a very large and private plot within the distinguised Las Colinas Golf and Country Club. The Villa Milano boasts 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Throughout this exclusive property are large, double glazed windows which provide lots of natural light. The large kitchen is fully equipped with high end appliances. Underfloor heating throughout will make you want to stay here all year round and enjoy the beautiful panoramic views this stunning property offers.
The property is very spacious and the terraces and pool area overlook the golf course, the lush green landscape and the Mediterranean Sea. The beautiful golf course lingers throughout the exclusive Golf & Country Club and ends by the magnificent Club house. As a resident within this complex you will also have access to the Beach Club

3 bed 2 bath Apartment in Orihuela Costa Ref 92426 

€ 174,900

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Great urbanization of apartments with 2 or 3 bedrooms in a prime location on the Orihuela Costa, just 1 km from Villamartin Golf Course, about 10 minutes’ drive to the beach and the Zenia Boulevard shopping centre, and with bars and restaurants walking distance.
Quality properties, being built around a green area with 2 swimming pools, one of them with spa, jacuzzi and gym, benefit from pre-installed air con and underground parking. There are different options from ground floor apartments with a garden, first and second floor properties with a balcony and fantastic penthouses with a private solarium including a jacuzzi; all them with a modern design boasting a lounge/dining room with sliding doors out to the terrace; open plan and superbly fitted kitchen; 2 or 3 double bedrooms with fitted wardrobes and 2 modern bathrooms. This location is the best, close to Villamartin Golf Course and two more golf courses just around the corner, surrounded by everything you need and good communication to Murcia and Alicante airports. Great opportunity for a low maintenance holiday home.

3 bed 2 bath Townhouse in San Pedro del Pinatar Murcia Costa Calida Spain

3 bed 2 bath Townhouse in San Pedro del Pinatar 

Ref 92651  € 209,000

Exclusive complex of townhouses located in San Pedro Pinatar. Containing 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms spread over 2 floors. They also have an open and bright living room and a modern kitchen with direct access to the back patio area. The ground floor features an en suite bedroom and toilet under the stairs. The back patio features a laundry area equipped with a washing machine. 
On the upper floor we find another 2 bedrooms with access to the terrace, studio area and a big double bathroom.
All town houses include pre installed air conditioning, white goods, shower screens in bathrooms and fitted wardrobes in the bedrooms.
They also have a garden, private pool and parking on the plot.

Tourist Licence For Your Holiday Home Spain 3

The last video on Tourist Licence For Your Holiday Home  Spain 3

Tourist Licence For Your Holiday Home in Spain !

This is a 1 of a 3 part videos about getting your Tourist Licence for the Costa Blanca 

Is renting your house as a holiday let still a viable option? Part 5– a few house-keeping matters

Is renting your house as a holiday let still a viable option?

Part 5– A few house-keeping matters

We have already mentioned paying tax on your income, but just a quick clarification.  At present, (summer 2018), anyone resident in an EU country pays tax on their rental income at 19% and anyone resident in a non-EU country pays at 24% in Spain.  If you are a Spanish resident, then you would declare your income annually in your normal Spanish tax return and pay the tax at the same time as your other tax liabilities.  If you are non-resident in Spain, then the rental income must be declared quarterly, and in the first two weeks following the close of each quarter.  So, January to March must be declared in the first two weeks of April, and so on through the year.  The tax is then payable immediately.

There are allowances that can be declared to reduce your tax liability, such as a percentage of your Community fees, a percentage of your Suma, certain cleaning and keyholding costs and we are also allowed some of the cost of the air conditioning service, insurances and professional fees, plus a few other sundry costs.  Exactly how much is deducted will depend on how many days the property is rented out.  Some of these costs have changed over the years so it is best to consult a professional to ensure you are claiming the correct expenses and therefore paying the correct tax.  Our non-residents tax is reduced pro-rata by the number of days the property is rented.

You are also required to declare your rental income in your country of residence, which for us is the UK.  This is declared annually from April each year.  Now comes the tricky bit – both countries may want you to produce original receipts!  We keep the receipts in the UK but can send scanned copies to Spain if required, and so far that has been ok.  In the UK we can claim far more in the way of expenses against our rental income, so the net income from the rental declared in the UK is different from that declared in Spain!  I pay someone to file my Spanish tax return quarterly and the cost is very reasonable.  In the UK I have another business so have an accountant for that business and he checks over my booking keeping for the house rentals and then adds it onto our annual tax returns accordingly.  Due to the dual tax agreement between Spain and the UK we rarely pay tax in the UK on the rental income, but we must still declare it.

Your keyholders are vital to a successful holiday rental.  I can honestly say we have had good, not so good and excellent over the years.  We even sacked one!  But a professional company will take a pride in their work and we currently have both a professional and friendly keyholding company who make our guests feel very welcome.  I view the keyholders as our partners in the business.

We do our best to ensure our guests are suitable for our community.  Our target market is multi-generation families (grandparents, parents and children holidaying together) as this tends to mean the children of any age are always under adult supervision.  Renters do sometimes flout the community rules – either because they haven’t read them or don’t think it matters, but we include a copy in the contract and display them on the back of the door, highlighting rules that are of particular relevance to them.  All our neighbours have our telephone number and email address and have been asked to contact us directly if there are any problems.  There have rarely been any issues over the years, but we have always acted promptly if told about anything.   In fact, we are told when people on the community complain about holiday makers that they don’t mean our renters but the ‘other ones’!  Neighbours have even become long-term friends with a couple of our guests!    Returning guests are probably an owner’s greatest compliment and we are fortunate enough to have several who book from year to year or bi-annually, others have recommended our property to family and friends.  The returning guests are a reflection of getting things ‘right’ and I must give credit to the keyholders as well for that.                  

                                              Beverley

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Utilities in Spain

We are often asked about the utilities in Spain.  If you buy in a town you will almost certainly have mains water but if you have a villa on the edge of or outside the main town you may not have mains sewage but have a septic tank instead.  This surprises a lot of people but in parts of Spain this is normal.  If you buy a rural property you may not have mains water but use a private well or have water delivered by tanker to fill your huge storage tank.

 

Generally mains water is of drinkable quality these days, gone are the days when you had to buy it bottled.  To get around shortages of water there are now a number of desalination plants around the coast taking sea water and cleaning it up for local use.  There are also a number of reservoirs now that are also small hydro-electric plants.  Water supply in the Alicante region doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore.

 

Gas has until recently been bottled only in most areas but towns are slowly having mains gas installed.  Again this surprises many Brits looking to buy in Spain, and of course using bottles of gas for central heating is pretty expensive.  Using portable gas heaters is common practice and fairly economical too.  Modern air conditioning units have settings for cooling or heating and are sufficient for use in a bedroom, although not necessarily that cheap to run.

 

For many years Iberdrola were the only electricity company but in recent years de-regulation has allowed competition and there are now other options.  Also duel tariffs are available too now, so cheap electricity at night and in the morning with a slightly raised rate for the afternoon and evening means savings can be made.  Solar has come a long way too and with 320 days of sunshine a year in south Costa Blanca developers now include solar in their new build homes.

 

There are a few ‘anomalies’ that I have come across over the years.  For instance, where our house is located the water company are also responsible for collecting the rubbish so instead of the cost of rubbish collection being included in the local council tax it is added to your water bill instead!

 

 

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My family abroad: Mum and Dad’s villa plans

Dad retired at 60, just over four years after they bought their plot of land.  They had chosen the plan for the villa, taking one of the builder’s standard designs and modifying, extending and altering it in numerous ways to suit their needs.  Oddly their UK neighbours also chose the same basic design and also modified it so that by the time the two houses were finished they were quite different.

The main living area was a three bedroom single storey villa which formed the upper floor, reached by a set of stairs build around the curved front of the villa.  As the hill sloped away another lower floor (or underbuild) was created which Mum and Dad would use as the garage, utility room and huge games room with a full size table tennis table, darts area and table and chairs, with doors to a covered outside bar, barbeque area and lower garden.  (The future owners would convert this into a separate, independent apartment for guests.)  The pool was on the main living area level and above that was another garden with petanque courts and fruit trees, and above that two further high level gardens for cacti.

Their friend’s house also had the main living area on the top floor, although this was slightly below street level.  They too had a utility area and garage in the floor below but as their plot was steeper they also had another underbuild below that which in time the friend’s turned into a home cinema with the rock of the hillside protruding into the room on one side as a feature!  Below that was the pool and garden – it was a long way down from the house terrace to the pool, if I remember correctly it was well over 40 stairs!  I think that was possibly my first lesson learnt about buying in Spain – find a reasonably a level plot if you intend staying there into your old age!

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My family abroad: The beginning

My aunt and uncle were the first people in the family to buy a property in Spain.  In the mid 80’s they bought an apartment on the Costa del Sol, a small Spanish fishing town called Fuengirola near Malaga.  I didn’t visit there until 2012 and by then it had grown to a huge and very busy town busting with people.  Initially they bought the apartment as a holiday home, about 10 minutes’ walk to the marina/port area in a small apartment block overlooking a park.  Their neighbours were all Spanish, they had deliberately avoided an ex-pat community.

My aunt and uncle worked hard on learning Spanish as they intended to integrate as much as possible into the local community when they moved there in their retirement.  They had a neighbour in the UK whose sister had moved to the town in the 60’s with her daughters and the lady, Doreen, agreed to look after the apartment while they were in England.  They had several years of visiting the apartment before their retirement and it was on one such trip that they took my widowed Grandad with them.  I was told that when he and Doreen met it was love at first sight!  There cannot be many who emigrate at the age of 86 years old but before my aunt and uncle retired my Grandfather packed his bags and moved to Fuengirola to be with Doreen, who was only a couple of years older than my Dad.

Not that long after my aunt and uncle moved permanently to Spain.  Grandad stayed after Doreen passed away, spending his last few weeks in a Spanish nursing home at almost 95 years old.  My uncle passed away a few years later but my aunt has stayed, still in the same apartment, and now in her early 80‘s is still active and leads a busy life in her adopted country.

Also in the 80’s my parents were visiting various parts of Spain, searching for a place they felt they wanted to call home.  And so my family abroad had begun.

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Memories of a young Traveller - Don’t drink the water!

Don’t drink the water!

There was once a (rather bad) sitcom named that.  But in actual fact back in the 60’s and 70’s the tap water in Spain, even in the hotels, wasn’t of drinking quality.  Although none of my family experienced problems we did hear of others who suffered tummy upsets.  Buying water in a bottle was another new experience, the UK didn’t have shelves of bottled water in the supermarkets in those days.  Trying to clean your teeth without swallowing the tap water was another new experience too and one as a 5 year old I remember as being rather tricky.

As we didn’t use tap water we didn’t have orange squash either, something all British children drank at that time.  And there was no lemonade, it was orangeade or cola or fizzy lemon.  To a child this was very strange.  And another daily drink missing was fresh milk, so no warm milky drink at bedtime.  Milk came in strange cartons and tasted funny because it was treated so it didn’t have to be refrigerated, (fridges were a luxury item still).  To a child used to full cream milk in bottles delivered by the milkman before breakfast daily it was all a bit odd.  In those days we still had cold milk at school too at morning break time, a third of a pint if I remember correctly.

And there was wine!  Wine was not allowed for 5 year olds but it seemed the Spanish consumed vast amounts and it was very cheap and available everywhere at any time.  In 60’s Britain wine was drunk at a dinner party, bought from a local off licence that could only open for a few restricted hours a day and certainly wasn’t cheap.

And another strange food was olive oil, copious amounts used on the food that was presented.  It tasted odd, sort of nutty and fruity at the same time.  My grandad complained about it being greasy but the food wasn’t greasy.  We had no idea it was healthy and would one day be a mainstay in British cooking too.  Can you imagine certain TV chef’s reactions if they were told they couldn’t use any olive oil – they would have to completely re-write their cookery books!

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Memories of a young Traveller Childhood Spain – more oddities.

Childhood Spain – more oddities.

One year I remember the hotel advertising that one night they would be showing an English film in one of the bars.  Rumours abounded about what it may be but a Bond film was the clear favourite.  We all settled down to watch, too many people packed into room so it was hot.  A Tom and Jerry cartoon came on and we laughed at the antics of the feuding friends.  A nice touch for the children before the film, so we thought. Then another Tom and Jerry, then a third and even a fourth.  It was getting a little boring, we had seen them all before!  Eventually, Tom and Jerry-ed out, we welcomed the interlude.  My sister and I, along with most of the other children, were packed off to bed while our parents settled down to watch the much publicised film.  In the morning we were told that our poor parents had had to endure another hour of Tom and Jerry cartoons!  I have no idea why the Spanish hoteliers thought a couple of American speechless drawings represented the best of the British film industry but, being British, no-one had any intention of complaining!

Until recent years there were no UK daily papers available on the actual day, you could buy them at an extortionate price the day after they were published.  Hence we would never really know what was happening back in old Blighty while we were on holiday.

It strange to today’s youngsters to think that we didn’t have any contact with our friends or family for an entire fortnight.  No English TV, no internet, no mobile phones, no emails.  How did we survive?!  Each year Dad would ensure my grandparents and a friend knew the name of our hotel, its location and through which travel agent in town we had booked our holiday so if we needed to be contacted we could be.  I don’t ever remember any emergency requiring Dad to be called so maybe, just maybe, we did ok surviving without today’s technology.

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Memories of a young Traveller Childhood Spain – with my Grandparents

Childhood Spain – with my Grandparents

On our second visit to Spain my Dad had thought it would be a great idea to take my Grandparents (his parents) away with us.  My Grandmother had never been outside the UK and my Grandad’s only previous experiences had been whilst serving during WW2, mainly in North Africa.  My relationship with them was probably unusual, I was not close to either, although my relationship with my Grandad grew closer over the years.  My Grandma had never forgiven me for being born a girl and I can honestly say although I saw her almost every week of my childhood we were almost estranged.  I wasn’t therefore particularly excited about them coming along.

My strongest memory was that I saw my stern and fierce Grandma, a woman who usually frightened me, laugh and smile.  My Grandfather I remember as being fun but always saying or doing the wrong thing.  I suppose today you would call his comments racist and bigoted but it was the 60’s, pre EU days, his memories of sights from the War still playing over in the back of his mind.  My Dad was forever apologising to people for his behaviour.  He hated the food, the ‘foreigners’ and the heat!  He told a ‘bloody crout’ to ‘go back to his own country’ and when Dad pointed out that as we were in Spain we were actually the foreigners he replied that he was British so couldn’t possibly be foreign!

However my strongest memory of them is at the beach. Grandad with dad taking me into the sea and between them swinging me high as I ‘jumped’ the waves.   Grandma sitting under the thatched sun shade knitting, wearing her flowered frock and hat - and still in her stockings!  Despite everything they both said it was the best holiday they had ever had.

My Grandma died in 1985 and a year or so later my Grandad holidayed in my Aunt’s apartment on the Costa del Sol and when he met the lady who looked after the apartment for my Aunt it was love at first sight.  Doreen had lived in Spain over 20 years so was not inclined to move back to England now she was a pensioner in her early 60’s.  So at the age of 86 my Grandad moved to Spain to spend his last years living as an ex-pat.  He and Doreen had 7 happy years before she died of cancer and my Grandfather outlived her by another two years, staying in Spain, living to the ripe old age of nearly 95.  A happy but rather ironic story!

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Memories of a young traveller Childhood Spain-Barcelona

Childhood Spain - Barcelona

One year we stayed close to Barcelona.  To be honest my strongest memory of this holiday was that it was quite unremarkable!  I know I met a fun bunch of people and spent hours in the pools messing about with my friends.  Our parents got on well but it wasn’t a friendship that was to last much beyond the holiday.  The beach wasn’t the best either, the sea becoming too deep for me quickly and the waves were large, so we stayed around the pool at lot.  The food was different too to that eaten on the islands and further south.

My strongest memory is of the excursion into Barcelona, a city with unique architecture and atmosphere.  It’s Spanish, but not quite so, due to the strength of the Catalonian culture.  Franco was still in charge on my childhood visit so the city residents were supposed to speak Castellano, the national language, but Catalan could still be defiantly heard.   After touring the city, of which from that visit I remember surprising little, we visited the famous Barcelona football ground.  Stood near the top of the stand looking down on the pitch it would be fair to say that as a non-fan of the game I was decidedly underwhelmed by the experience.  One memory stands out clearly, the pride with which we were told this pitch had the ‘greenest grass in Spain’ – as a child from the UK I just couldn’t understand why I was supposed to be impressed by the stuff that grew the same colour in my own back garden!

Many years later I returned to the city, this time with Dave, and it had a totally different effect on me.  The Catalan culture and language plus its unique architecture give Barcelona a very different feel to the Costa Blanca.  It is a city I intend to visit again one day.

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Memories of a young traveller Childhood Spain – Sunburn and donkeys and coach trips

Childhood Spain – Sunburn and donkeys and coach trips

We didn’t use sun screen in those days, we used oil on our bodies.  No one worried about skin cancer and getting sunburnt was just part of the holiday.  We used large amounts of ‘after sun’ to cool our hot skin every evening.  We even laughed about how red we were and how you could spot the new arrivals as they were so pale or so pink.  I blistered on several holidays on my shoulders and back, but it was never considered a concern – how times have changed.

Highlights of the package holidays were the excursions.  Early in the holiday you would select your choices and on the appropriate day we would pile onto the coach with our hotel issued paper bag containing out packed lunch.  We visited caves with underground lakes, old Spanish villages that clung precariously to the hillside, waterfalls of icy mountain snow melt, vineyards with bodegas, potteries and glass blowing factories, to name just a few of the trips.  At each we would buy souvenirs that would take pride of place back home on the mantle until our next holiday.

I collected a huge array of Spanish dolls dressed as Flamenco dancers, all sizes and colours, taking at least one home each year.  Each year at least one person boarding the plane would be carrying a two foot high donkey wearing a sombrero, wondering why it had seemed such a good idea to buy it!  But to me that was a symbol of the Spain I knew and loved – donkeys wearing sombreros pulling carts.  Privately owned cars were few are far between in the rural areas in the 60’s and early 70’s, people used bicycles, donkey and cart or walked.  Spain was a relatively poor country and the roads were full of potholes and bumps.  The other common sight on the roads were old tractors – rusty, noisy and belting out black fumes – but pulling a cart in which sat the family.

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Memories of a young traveller Childhood Spain – friends

Childhood Spain – friends

It seemed each year we met a particular family that became our friends, some for just the holiday but some became long-term friendships, a few even life-long for my parents.  In fact we remained friends long enough for me to attend at least two weddings of my childhood holiday friends.

On one visit to Majorca our new friends had two children with whom we later holidayed again a couple of years later in Ibiza and when teenagers we hired a couple of boats on the Norfolk Broads.  Their son was two years older than me and one very bored siesta time, when we were supposed to be resting away from the heat of the day, about ages 8 and 6, I remember sitting with him on the balcony trying to aim Spanish Smarties (that didn’t taste that nice) at unsuspecting sunbathers four floors below!  Fortunately we were never found out!

One year we met a family on the plane and got chatting.  Their youngest daughter, Tracey, was a year younger than me and we became firm friends.  It was a friendship that was to last many years and as teenagers we visited each other’s houses for holidays without our parents, she lived in a very rural location in the Cotswolds and I in suburbia in Surrey, and we both envied the other’ one’s location!

That particular holiday when I met Tracey there was a children’s fancy dress competition, the catch being that all the costumes need to be made from crepe paper, which the hotel supplied in reams of all colours.  My sister, Tracey and I entered as ‘The Three Bears’ in wonderful costumes made by Tracey’s mum (who was a good seamstress) and I had a notice written on card saying ‘The Three Bears’ hung around my neck.  I was the middle size so I was Mummy Bear.  The winner was a ‘fried egg’(!) and we came second, but were announced as ‘The Three Blind Mice’.  And our runner-up prize?  One pair of swimming arm bands to share between the three of us!

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Memories of a young traveller Childhood Spain - hotels

When we holidayed in Spain in the 60’s we stayed in hotels.  My memories of those places are mainly about playing in the pool, learning to swim, making friends with children who spoke strange languages and getting very sunburnt.  The younger children had a meal earlier in the evening than the parents and it was considered perfectly acceptable and safe to leave your children alone in the upstairs bedroom while the parents were at dinner and later dancing the night away in the hotel’s disco.

By the time I was seven or eight though I was eating strange Spanish foods at dinner with my parents and joining them for the evening’s dancing.  One year there was a song that everyone requested, sung in Spanish but the chorus was easy and sung with gusto by alcohol happy Brits.  A couple of months later it was the big summer hit in the UK charts, words now in English except that one line that all the holiday makers had sung so loudly - E Viva Espana!

As a child I made friends with German and Italian children staying at the hotels, as well as British.  It didn’t matter that we spoke different languages as smiles and laughter are a universal tongue and our own inventive sign language made up the rest.

Over the first two summers my father taught me to swim, ironic as he himself at that time was still a non-swimmer.  I repaid the favour years later when on holiday in Rhodes and helped him take his first hesitant stokes in the Aegean Sea!  The hotel pool and beach were the focus of these early holidays.

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