Hi there,
Today I tell you about the properties we visited in Spain.
As I told you in a previous post, in spring 2024 we were considering investing in a house in the mountains or in an apartment in Porto to rent.
Given the great incompetence of real estate agencies in Portugal and that there are illegalities and scams with all the houses, we decided to explore in Spain in an area that was 2 or 3 hours maximum from Porto.
The first pleasant surprise is that when we asked questions about the properties, they responded immediately and gave the information in an impeccable way, just the opposite of Portugal.
We made the first selection of 3 houses that we went to visit them on June 9th.
Chalet pareado en venta en Za-114, 1
This house was in Zamora, 2h30 from Porto.
What we didn’t like was that it was a semi-detached house and we imagined there would be noise.
We arrived and the first thing we found was that the outside area was very neglected.
Upon entering the house there were cobwebs from 20 years ago. The people selling the house had supposedly had it since 2007 and had not deigned to give it any care or maintenance. In fact, the closets had only the doors and had never been put back together.
The bathrooms were very small, and the kitchen was disgusting with the amount of dirt it had.
The house had a lot of work to do, not to mention the bathrooms where nothing could be done because there was not enough space.
The place was very idyllic because it had a lagoon and many hiking trails, but that house was far from what I was looking for.
Casa de pueblo en venta en abelardo diaz s/n
We had high hopes for this house because it looked idyllic.
The first disappointment when we arrived was that there were two houses next to each other, so we dismissed it immediately.
In terms of quality and cleanliness, this house was the best. It was impeccable.
We didn’t like the bathrooms too much because they were ugly. The house lacked a garden, it was all concrete and gave the feeling that it was a military base in the mountains.
Also, there were quite a few walls that seemed to have humidities and the explanation we were given was not convincing.
Casa o chalet independiente en venta en Lugar Rebordechan, 12
This house was 2 hours away from our house in Porto.
The whole drive to the house was idyllic; it reminded us of the Azores.
The garden of the house was unkempt, and the pool was green.
The first bathroom we saw was dirty and the sink cabinet was broken.
The kitchen was disgustingly dirty.
There was some problem with the pellet stove and the second bathroom was not very functional either.
The upstairs windows were at ground level so there was a lack of light and you had to bend down to see out the window.
Only one bedroom was serviceable as the other two were extremely small.
I loved that the house was made of stone and wood and if it had been well maintained, it would have been a gem.
The location was also beautiful, and surrounded by mountains.
Another thing that also gave us a bit of a scare was that inside the house it was cold while in the other two houses it was very pleasant. That made us think that maybe in winter we were going to freeze there.
Anyway, none of these 3 houses convinced us.
Casa o chalet independiente en venta en Lobeira
We visited this house at the end of July 2024, and it was 1h45 from Porto.
The house was in a small village and the bad thing was that it had no garden; even so, we thought that for a second residence it might be better to have a house without a garden to avoid all that maintenance work.
We fell in love with the quality of the construction. The house was furnished and was almost perfect.
The bad thing was that it did not have telecommunications installation and apparently, the fiber internet did not get to this area.
We walked around the town and saw that two hiking trails started almost next to the house; also, we had a reservoir less than 15 minutes’ walk away.
We did some sightseeing in the area, and we also liked it because there were practically no people and we were in the middle of summer.
We did some research about internet and no company provided service in the area; there only was satellite internet which was more expensive than conventional internet.
We decided to make an offer of 100,000 euros. The answer was no, which shocked us as it made no sense at the time to have said that he was open to negotiations when he really was not.
The owner’s counteroffer was 112,000 euros; that is, he only lowered 3,000 euros.
Even so, taking into account the qualities of the house, it was a very good price.
The bad thing is that it was a place without public transport, with no conventional internet and that maybe in the future, if we needed to sell it, it would not be easy.
We told him that we wanted to move forward with the purchase of the house and that we wanted to do a more in-depth visit before signing the earnest money contract. Since the tenant was leaving on August 22, we asked to do the walk-through on Saturday, August 24, to thoroughly check the house and verify that everything was in order.
In addition, we asked the realtor to make a list of everything that was left inside the house, including bedding, cutlery, etc. We also asked for the bills for all the appliances. So, on August 24, if everything was okay in the house, we would proceed to verify the list and sign the reservation contract.
We would schedule the signing of the deed as of September 12 since we would be traveling the first week.
The real estate agent told us that the owner had to do some paperwork at the registry so the deed could only be done at the end of October or beginning of November. Therefore, we decided to make the second visit later.
On September 21, 2024, we went again to Ourense to visit the house to check thoroughly that everything was in good working order.
After making the inspection, we noticed that there was a wall where the paint had been lifted. The owner assured us that it would be solved by sanding and repainting.
In addition, we would have to replace the shower heads as they were of very poor quality and water was leaking everywhere. For the future I also planned to paint the tiles as they were very ugly.
On September 23rd we sent an email to the real estate agency asking for the missing data/documentation before proceeding with the earnest money contract.
“Good morning,
As we agreed on the visit of Saturday 21/9/2024, I am sending you Érika’s NIE. You should already have her passport and my DNI, if you need any additional documentation let me know.
As for pending things from the owner we need to have:
- The maximum admissible power, as I have read this can be obtained in the electrical installation certificate (CIE). (We need to know what the maximum power is we could request).
- Invoice of the electrical appliances. This we had already discussed by WhatsApp; regardless of whether they are out of warranty, we need the invoices to know where they were purchased and the technical specifications in case we need technical assistance in the future.
- House plan. It can be the floor plan that is normally done by the realtor and the owner also said he had some plans/drawings from when the renovation work on the house was done.
- Brand and type of white paint (As there are details to repaint, we already asked the owner for this).
- Tourist license. As the owner told us that the house has a tourist license, we would like to know if it is valid, if it is possible to change the name and if there is any cost for issuing/renewal.
- Invoice for the fuel. The owner told us that there was a quantity of diesel in the tank that was not included in the price of the property and that if we were interested in buying it. We said yes. We need to know exactly how much is in the tank, the price and who is going to issue the invoice at the time of payment (so we can also add this to the contract).
On the other hand, at the time of the second visit we saw dampness on the garage wall and on the chimney wall. The owner assured us that this is due to a leak from the past and that what you see on the wall is merely aesthetic and could be solved by simply sanding and painting.
Please add this to the contract as well.
Then, on your behalf we would also like to know in which notary’s office the signing of the deed would be done. Please send us the link to look it up on the internet so we can decide whether to do the deed in this notary’s office”
After 3 days, the real estate agent appears by WhatsApp to say that there are no invoices and that they had no plans.
We replied that the owner said he had some designs from when he did the renovation, that they should send us those. That they should respond to the rest of the questions in the email and take the opportunity to send the reservation contract with the inventory of the things that were left in the house.
The real estate agent neither answered the email, nor sent the earnest money contract, but 2 weeks later called to say that the regularization that the owner was supposed to do in the registry and that supposedly it would be ready for the beginning of November, now he had been told that it could only be done in August 2025 and that we should tell him if we wanted to buy the house like that, that is to say, in an illegal situation.
We didn’t even bother to give him an answer, as we had been deceived from the beginning. The house was illegal and the owner was not going to legalize it.
So we started looking for houses again.