Environmentalists ask for development halt in Mar Menor

Ecologists & nature organisations have asked the government of Murcia to call an urgent stop to any projects for property development in the Mar Menor area.

Speaking to the press after a meeting with the regional president on Monday, Pedro García, the president of the nature organisation ANSE, said that Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund/Adena & SEO/Birdlife, all share his organisation’s concerns at the ‘intolerable foolishness of the development madness and hastiness which is taking place in parts of Murcia, such as the Mar Menor, Aguilas & Lorca.’

García asked the regional area president Ramón Luis Valcárcel at their meeting to call an urgent stop to any pending land reclassification for construction in the area & to not accept any new projects in the area.

The Mar Menor, Europe’s largest salt lake, is covered by five protection orders, four of them international. García has said that construction of up to 70,000 new homes has been authorised to be built there, as well as seven golf courses & a new road crossing the salt lake.

The ANSE president said that the regional government’s application to build 4,100 new homes & a golf course on protected land in the Sierra de La Almenara, in Aguilas, will have a serious effect on one of the last pairs of Bonelli eagles left living there in the area.

The government, which says it supports sustainable development for natural spaces, has now set up meetings with the ANSE representatives to review their report on the situation in hand.

Full story on typicallyspanish.com

Spanish land sell off for €120m

The insurance group FBD Holdings announced today a conditional cash deal of up to €120m to sell a major portion of the building development land that it owns in La Cala Resort of Spain.

The buying company Desarrollos Lar Sol which is owned by Spanish property development company Groupo Lar SA & MSREF, a property investment fund controlled by Morgan Stanley.

Cash proceeds of the sale are estimated to be up to €120m in part payments. The FBD Board intends to distribute the proceeds of the sale by way of two special dividends.

FBD remains the majority owner & operator of the resort's leisure interests & will complete & promote its current residential building developments.

Philip Fitzsimons, the FBD Chief Executive, said the deal was very satisfactory, & that the potential identified originally at La Cala in Spain has been developed, with substantial value created for shareholders.

Shares in FBD closed up 5% this evening, adding 1.95 to finish at €40.15.

Record number of Brits leave for better lives in Spain & other countries

New reports out show record numbers of people leaving Britain to live & work abroad. More than 350,000 Brits are emigrating every year, a rise of 30 per cent in the last 10 years, The Independent reports.

Experts are particularly concerned that the number of people in professional occupations leaving Britain has doubled since 1994.

And figures from the Office for National Statistics show that an amazing 359,500 people migrated from Britain to other countries in 2004, up from 236,500 in 1994.

While the outflow of people was offset by 582,000 foreigners coming to live in the UK for at least a year, there are concerns that Britain is proving less attractive to migrants, whom it desperately needs to plug staffing shortages.

Of the people leaving the UK, 207,600 were British citizens, the highest since current records began in 1991. The number of people in the professional classes emigrating almost doubled from 69,000 to 122,000 in the same period.

More detailed figures for 2003 show that the number of people going to live in Australia, for the first time, went over the 20,000 mark.

Nursing organisations have been warning that Britain's policy of recruiting nurses from abroad is backfiring as many of the foreign recruits are simply using the UK as a stepping stone before going to the United States, where salaries are much higher.

Figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council show that, last year, 4,393 nurses left Britain for jobs in Australia and New Zealand, double the number who went in 1995.

Howard Caton, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "It seems that nurses may be attracted to Australia and New Zealand early in their careers. But we are also seeing large numbers of nurses going to America. The opportunities for career advancement can be very good there.

"We have heard of foreign nurses being recruited by agencies to come and work in Britain, and then, six months later, they are approached by the agency to go and work in the US."

Poor workforce planning has also meant that hundreds of newly qualified junior doctors have found that there are no jobs for them in Britain, despite the fact that the NHS needs more staff. Andrew Roland, deputy chair of the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee said: "These are people who have trained for years to work in the NHS and have then found that there is no job for them.

"Doctors are not going abroad for an easier life, but to start their careers. The problem is about whether they come back or not."

A report by the World Bank last year found that one in six graduates leaves the UK, more than any other Western country. Professor Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at Warwick University, said: "We have a severe problem in holding on to our best graduates. A junior academic economist in Britain will earn about 25,000 GBP's a year; in America, they start on about 50,000 GBP's to 60,000 GBP's."

Observers said that the growth in ownership of second homes may also be both a cause and effect of the migration out of Britain.

Enquiries to the currency specialist HIFX about buying a property in Australia have tripled since the beginning of this year.

Mark Bodega, marketing director of HIFX, said: "The traditional markets for buying a second home are France and Spain, but we are increasingly seeing people buy in places such as Australia and Dubai."


Full story from Workpermit.com

Illegal Building: The Expat Nightmare

Spain is notorious for illegal builders, but how bad is the problem really?

If it's not the state grabbing half your land, it's muggers grabbing your handbag; if it's not these, then it's the media telling everyone you live in a hell hole dominated by beer swilling expats, corrupt officials and murderous thieves.

Add to which, these days, an increasing number of tales of bad builders; at best incompetent, at worst criminal.

The bad shepherds are finding new ways to fleece their ever increasing flock of lambs to the slaughter. But how bad is it, really? The answer is, bad, but mainly only for those who fail to do their homework.
Sally and Joe Alden, originally from Bradford, in Britain, bought their home near Calpe, on the Costa Blanca, from a British estate agent, acting on behalf of a British vendor.

No, you don't need a solicitor, he told them, I'll do all the searches for you.

Betty Anggold was assured her house would be ready by October, 2005 but it wasn't. nor by November, or even by Christmas. It still isn't. It wasn't until they moved in that they learned that proposed development adjoining their land would cost them at least 25,000 Euros in infrastructure charges.

Furious at this apparent deception, they took both agent and vendor to court.

They lost, and had the defendant's costs awarded against them.

The reason for the court's decision? Simple, the oldest rule in the book: Caveat Emptor; Let the Buyer beware.

The onus, they were told, was on them to have researched the property; the agent and vendor, who both knew of the proposed charges, and did not tell them, walked away, and the Aldens were left some 50,000 Euros out of pocket.

Outside Spain, rules and regulations are to be obeyed. In Britain, for instance, they employ a solicitor to carry out searches when buying a house, even though it is usually safe to assume that full planning permission was originally granted.

However, when Britons buy in Spain, alas, all too often they make the same fatal assumptions, only to find that their new home is completely illegal, and should never even have been built. Frank and Billie Somers, from Sussex, in Britain, bought a tumbledown finca near La Herradura, Granada.

They were assured by the agent that they could demolish it and rebuild, anywhere on their 18,000 square metre plot.

Too late, they learned that they could only rebuild on the original site of the ruin, (which backs on to a dog pound!) right against a main road, and only to the original size.

Again, blind trust in what an agent told them had cost them dear.

Most agents are genuine and reliable; most builders trustworthy and dependable.

But enough are not, to have started a whole new genre of horror stories.

Full story from Expatica.com

New Construction now at 1999 levels

News from the Costablanca-news says that the college of quantity surveyors & architects has said that the predicted slowdown in construction has finally arrived and that the number of new houses built in 2005 dropped by 11 per cent.

A spokesman said that in 2004 a total of 52,737 new properties were inspected; this fell to 46,687 last year. He also said that the number of projects involving large urbanisations dropped by nine per cent during the same period. These figures, say the college, now puts construction at the same level it was at in 1999.

In a report issued this week, the college also evaluates the type of homes being built. It says that constructors are building smaller properties in order to get more into the space available.

Although the report highlights a slowdown in construction, it also points out that in coastal towns such as Benidorm, Alicante, Elche, Pilar de la Horadada, Santa Pola, Orihuela and Villajoyosa building is still going on at a frenetic pace.

Resale Property on the Costa del Sol

Resale property on the Costa del Sol is still a huge favourite for expats looking for a property in Spain, but not to the surprise of Estate agents in Spain and of course the Costa del Sol, resale property is more expensive in Marbella than anywhere else on the Costa del Sol, according to a new report from idealista.com.

The average figure is an amazing 3,000 € a square metre in Marbella with other towns where tourism is big business such as Torremolinos, Fuengirola and Benalmádena.

Where the tourism is domestic, in places such as Vélez-Málaga or Rincon de la Victoria resale property prices are much lower.

Six fold increases in 20 years

In recent weeks the newspaper El Pais in Spain published figures released by the appraisers group, Sociedad de Tasacón, reporting that prices of Spanish property prices have rised a staggering amount in the past 20 years.

Even with the price increases over the years, the government are still confident that it will not affect on the property market. Jose Luis Esteves-Guillmain, the chairman of the appraisers group, estimates that house prices should rise by approximately 8% this year, confirming a slow-down in the market. "Since 2003, the increases have been decelerating continuously. What's more, prices in cheaper areas have been rising more, while they have moderated in the most expensive capitals." He estimated that house prices would continue to slow over the next three to four years, until they approach the inflation rate, which last year was 3.8%.

Barcelona has become the most expensive city to live in, average price per sqm is 3,700 euros, fractionally above Madrid, where the cost is 3,629 euros and San Sebastian priced at 3,585 euros per sqm. The cheapest of the provincial capitals were Badajoz and Lugo, where the price per sqm hasn´t exceeded 1,300 euros.
The largest recorded increases were in Lleida, Valencia and Coruna at 16-17%. The smallest were in Pamplor and San Sebastian at 6.5 and 6.8% respectively.
The Sociadad de Tasación estimated that 700,000 building projects commenced last year and supply is expected to remain strong this year, although less so in the centre of cities, land shortages leading to high costs.

Spanish Property still healthy

Statistics from the government in Spain that buying a property in Spain remains one of the most sensible and attractive options for residents of the UK looking to enter the property market overseas.

It is quite clear that Spain is no longer dominates the market for buying a property abroad with British investors the way it did in the 90s, however the huge growth in the property market in Spain, the love affair the British have with Spain as a holiday resort and for buying a second home or holiday home make the country a very safe investment and investors continue to buy there.

The government statistics show that house prices have increased by an average of 12.8 per cent in 2005. This is admittedly down on the 17.2 per cent increase in 2004, but it has been welcomed by government officials and investors alike.

Director general of Architecture and Housing Policy, Rafael Pacheco, celebrated "more reasonable" increases while property investors appreciate that a 12.8 per cent rise shows that the market is remaining strong and has avoided a crash in Spain.

Also, with developing property markets such as Bulgaria providing increased competition, Spain now has to prove it can remain competitive, so the more sensible price increases may prove to be beneficial to the long-term strength of property investment within Spain.

It is obvious that Spanish property is made more desirable because of the decision by the European Commission to refer the Spanish government to the Court of Justice because of allegations of prejudiced property tax laws.

At the moment, Spanish residents are required to pay 15 per cent tax on gains from property sales, whereas non-residents are taxed at rate of 35 per cent. If the Court of Justice rules that this is indeed discriminatory, investors from abroad will look forward to much lower taxation levels which will clearly benefit those hoping to sell on properties in Spain.

According to many estate agents in Spain, it is currently an extremely good time to invest in a Spanish house, with high construction standards across the country creating a good reputation and making the process of reselling much easier.

Predicting that the lead price for a typical two-bed, two-bath apartment in a prime location will be around £113,000 during 2006, the company's Terry Walker has said conditions for buying a house or building a property portfolio are ideal.

"That is still very affordable for new buyers as the mortgage interest rate remains around three per cent, which when factoring in the still low inflation of Spain is actually much less in real terms," he said.

"The typical second home development is also better value as they are designed and built better, with specification and standards raised every year to a much higher level. Marble finishes, added air-con, two bathrooms, increased security and smart home technology are becoming the norm, while sunshine space such as terraces, balconies and solariums are bigger by demand," he added.

The likes of Bulgaria and Cyprus will inevitably chip away at Spain's dominance of the market, but UK investors have shown few signs of turning away from their favourite property investment country. With Barcelona and Valencia continuing to attract interest and the tourist industry in the Costa del Azahar growing in popularity each year, it would seem Spanish mortgages will remain prevalent for a long time.