We can help you through the spanish property maze
Showing posts with label property in the costa blanca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label property in the costa blanca. Show all posts
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Spanish Dream property Video for property on the Coata Blanca Propertt maze
We can help you through the spanish property maze
Thursday, 9 February 2017
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
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!
http://www.aipp.org.uk/members/spanish-dream-property-beverley-townsend/2
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Thursday, 17 November 2016
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.
http://www.aipp.org.uk/members/spanish-dream-property-beverley-townsend/2
Saturday, 12 November 2016
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.
Saturday, 5 November 2016
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!
Sunday, 30 October 2016
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.
Sunday, 25 September 2016
The importance of the towns squares
The importance of the towns squares
In larger towns the traditional buildings are townhouses with maybe a courtyard or a roof terrace and low rise apartments with shops and bars at ground floor level with squares at regular intervals throughout the town for safe social areas. My parents’ last home in Spain was in the centre of Moraira town, a fourth floor apartment. The front terrace overlooked the street and the back terrace looked down onto the square, almost enclosed by other apartment blocks. One side of the square had seating and trees, the other side a children’s play area.
In the mornings the main users were older folk sitting chatting in the shade of the trees. Late afternoon the square was very noisy with happy children of all ages playing on the equipment, ball games or bike riding and mothers huddled in (loud!) conversation. This was repeated in several locations around the town. The Spanish like to socialise! In the evening it would be quieter again, people strolling through on their way home from work or with shopping, or maybe heading off to meet friends outside a restaurant or watch a football match in a local bar.
The weather in the south coastal areas of Spain means it is comfortable to be outside all year round, and it seems no-one expects children to be quiet! You see multi-generation families in the squares together, eating, drinking or just chatting, in a way I have rarely witnessed in the UK but have seen in other Mediterranean countries. In summer the children will stay up very late as it is too hot to sleep, a practice often criticised by the British holiday makers, but the children will have had their siesta earlier in the day so don’t need early nights.
Sunday, 4 September 2016
More Frustrations of renting holiday villas in Spain 53
More Frustrations of renting Part 53
More Frustrations of renting
There are many frustrations when renting out your second home. Because it is not a pure investment property we have emotional attachment to the property ourselves. We love it and as with all things that we care about it hurts when it is mistreated. As we have said before, MOST guests are courteous people who appreciate the effort we put in and we have a good percentage of returning guests.
The most difficult situations are the ones where the guests complain about the keyholders in some way. I’m glad to say this is rare now as our current keyholders are so good. However we had a recent incident where after returning home the guest emailed, the following day, to say she had lost a small item of jewellery at the house. By then the cleaning had already been done so I was surprised the keyholder hadn’t told me about finding it. It turned out the house had been left in a really untidy state, lots of rubbish just lying around, unwashed meat tins in the oven, food spilt in the store cupboard, food marks on the sofas, the barbeque not cleared out after use and food crumbs and sand in the beds.
The holiday makers had a great time, they were a lovely family, but they hadn’t shown respect for the house. All the crockery and cooking utensils had to be re-washed as they didn’t look or feel very clean and the usual 4 hour clean had taken 2 people well over 8 hours. The result was that as she bagged up rubbish – sweet wrappers, hair ties, tissues etc in the bedroom the jewellery item had just got swept up with everything else. As it had been left lying around with rubbish it had been assumed it was just item of discarded dress jewellery no longer wanted. Had the guests have cleared away their own rubbish (as they should) it would have been a different matter – one item left behind on the dressing table or even found under the bed, would have been noticed and put to one side while emails were sent and postage arranged.
Fortunately the situation was resolved. But I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I couldn’t be honest to the guest and say the reason it had happened was due to the level of rubbish left lying about and general unhygienic, dirty state of the house. How do you tell someone that?
More Frustrations of renting
There are many frustrations when renting out your second home. Because it is not a pure investment property we have emotional attachment to the property ourselves. We love it and as with all things that we care about it hurts when it is mistreated. As we have said before, MOST guests are courteous people who appreciate the effort we put in and we have a good percentage of returning guests.
The most difficult situations are the ones where the guests complain about the keyholders in some way. I’m glad to say this is rare now as our current keyholders are so good. However we had a recent incident where after returning home the guest emailed, the following day, to say she had lost a small item of jewellery at the house. By then the cleaning had already been done so I was surprised the keyholder hadn’t told me about finding it. It turned out the house had been left in a really untidy state, lots of rubbish just lying around, unwashed meat tins in the oven, food spilt in the store cupboard, food marks on the sofas, the barbeque not cleared out after use and food crumbs and sand in the beds.
The holiday makers had a great time, they were a lovely family, but they hadn’t shown respect for the house. All the crockery and cooking utensils had to be re-washed as they didn’t look or feel very clean and the usual 4 hour clean had taken 2 people well over 8 hours. The result was that as she bagged up rubbish – sweet wrappers, hair ties, tissues etc in the bedroom the jewellery item had just got swept up with everything else. As it had been left lying around with rubbish it had been assumed it was just item of discarded dress jewellery no longer wanted. Had the guests have cleared away their own rubbish (as they should) it would have been a different matter – one item left behind on the dressing table or even found under the bed, would have been noticed and put to one side while emails were sent and postage arranged.
Fortunately the situation was resolved. But I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I couldn’t be honest to the guest and say the reason it had happened was due to the level of rubbish left lying about and general unhygienic, dirty state of the house. How do you tell someone that?
More Frustrations of renting
There are many frustrations when renting out your second home. Because it is not a pure investment property we have emotional attachment to the property ourselves. We love it and as with all things that we care about it hurts when it is mistreated. As we have said before, MOST guests are courteous people who appreciate the effort we put in and we have a good percentage of returning guests.
The most difficult situations are the ones where the guests complain about the keyholders in some way. I’m glad to say this is rare now as our current keyholders are so good. However we had a recent incident where after returning home the guest emailed, the following day, to say she had lost a small item of jewellery at the house. By then the cleaning had already been done so I was surprised the keyholder hadn’t told me about finding it. It turned out the house had been left in a really untidy state, lots of rubbish just lying around, unwashed meat tins in the oven, food spilt in the store cupboard, food marks on the sofas, the barbeque not cleared out after use and food crumbs and sand in the beds.
The holiday makers had a great time, they were a lovely family, but they hadn’t shown respect for the house. All the crockery and cooking utensils had to be re-washed as they didn’t look or feel very clean and the usual 4 hour clean had taken 2 people well over 8 hours. The result was that as she bagged up rubbish – sweet wrappers, hair ties, tissues etc in the bedroom the jewellery item had just got swept up with everything else. As it had been left lying around with rubbish it had been assumed it was just item of discarded dress jewellery no longer wanted. Had the guests have cleared away their own rubbish (as they should) it would have been a different matter – one item left behind on the dressing table or even found under the bed, would have been noticed and put to one side while emails were sent and postage arranged.
Fortunately the situation was resolved. But I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I couldn’t be honest to the guest and say the reason it had happened was due to the level of rubbish left lying about and general unhygienic, dirty state of the house. How do you tell someone that?
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