• Life on a Construction Site, part 2 (Aug 2004)
• Life on a Construction Site, part 1 (March 2004
• In our view... (Feb 2004)
• Aerials or not... (July 2003)

My former wife and I are not writers but once in a while you feel that you really want to share your experiences with others and this is one of these moments. Let's start off with some background.

Background
Some 3 years ago my former wife and I decided to go for a tiny place in Spain. To make a longish story somewhat shorter we decided to buy an apartment in the Club Salino area. It looked very nice in the brochure, the green area was very inviting, nice pools and it was within walking distance to the town centre. On top of that, the layout of the apartment was very much to our liking, apart from one of the windows that would, according to the plan, point directly into the staircase which we found a wee-bit peculiar. We're not going to bore you with all the hassle we had with a certain estate agent since the window ended up in the right place. Why it did that is still a mystery given all the arguments we had on why it couldn't be moved....

Anyway, we signed the papers in November 2002 hoping to be able to move in September 2003 without a thought of any delays. What a naive attitude it turned out to be....

The summer of 2003
Like everyone else buying a house down here we were eager to see some progress. All these progress reports where there was a tick here and a tick there was more or less useless. What we wanted to see was real progress so we booked a three week holiday down in Torre very well aware that it would be a construction site at this point in time. We rented a house through some of our friends already living down here and a car so we could easily check out any progress. By the way, a lot of the photos in the "Photo Gallery"-section on this site is actually from that holiday if you want to check them out.

We spent more or less all three weeks at the construction site checking out every tiny detail not only in our house but all houses. I think we could more or less tell where everyone's electric wires are in case someone would need such info :-). Some say we're nuts, spending a three week holiday on a construction site... Well, there you go, that's just us.

At the end of these three weeks we sat down for a while and discussed what we had seen and at that point we put two and two together and came to the conclusion that they would probably not be ready in September as promised, but that wouldn't pose a problem to us since we planned to move in completely in June 2004. By that time they MUST be done with the house, pool and green area. It would after all be roughly 9 months after schedule so we didn't even think in the direction of "not completed"... Another thing we realized was that, after spending three weeks on a construction site, we were glad that this was the last time we would have to do this. Next time, when we come down here, it won't be a construction site and the house will be completed...

September 2003
At last. Time for getting possession of our new house or...? We were expecting to hear something from this estate agent of ours but we heard nothing. That is, we heard nothing until it was September 30. And what did we get? Yep, you sussed it. "We regret to inform you that there has been some delays..." Can you believe this? No one had any clue what so ever that the house was going to be late when we paid our third payment which according to the contract was due 3 months before the house was completed. They do seem know how to get the money all right but do they know how to stick to a timetable, hardly. But even if we were a bit disappointed when we received this letter we more or less knew it based on what we saw in the summer months. So, the new date for completion was now January 2004. Fair enough we said to ourselves. It is still well within our timetable. It was not until June that we were going to move in so we said: Next time, when we come down here, it won't be a construction site and the house will be completed...

January 2004
At last. Time for getting possession of our new house or...? Perhaps the header should have been December 2003 since we had the opportunity to get hold of some really cheap tickets but we had to buy them before January 1st. The only thing missing was clearance from a certain estate agent so we phoned them up and explained the situation with the tickets and that we were ready to come down whenever they wanted us down there. It was, after all, late December and the house was to be completed in January 2004. Unfortunately they couldn't give us an answer with regards to exactly when the house was going to be ready. Instead they said that we should await clearance from them and that they would call us back with more details before January 1st. Does anyone reading this believe that they did so? You're absolutely spot on again, nop they didn't. We phoned back and this time we got the well known phrase "We regret to inform..." and this time the new date was February 2004.

Hmmm we said. Could it be so bad so our well designed plan to move in in June would fail? We did after all have a margin of 9 months... Nop, we couldn't believe this so we were still hopeful that we would be able to take possession of the house in February 2004 even though we couldn't book the cheap tickets. Once again we said: Next time, when we come down here, it won't be a construction site and the house will be completed...

February 2004
At last. Time for getting possession of our new house or...? Does anyone believe it was ready? Nop again but this time it isn't that far from being completed the estate agent said. They also said that before they let us move in they will do a thorough check of the house to see that it was in an immaculate state. Ahhh, immaculate state... Does anyone in the area feel that they have received their house in an immaculate state? Is there anyone who hasn't put down item after item on the snag-list? We find it hard to believe but never the less. Now then, after several calls, emails and yet more calls we now got a new date, March 2004. At that point we were both really fed up dealing with this estate agent and we said, enough is enough. We have now had so many delays and we have told our family and friends that they can come down and visit us during the summer and in order to get a decent price one has to book a long time in advance so they had all booked their tickets for the summer. Given this latest delay we begun to think that it would perhaps not be completed before June. What do we do then? Four lots are coming down this summer and we don't even have a house, blimey. Let's hope that: Next time, when we come down here, it won't be a construction site and the house will be completed...

With this in mind we told the estate agent that we had now booked tickets for March and that we were going to stay a week in order to finalize the deal and that we REALLY hope that they do their part this time. Believe it or not but a few days later they phoned up and said that we had clearance to take possession of the new house. I have doubts that it had anything to do with us booking the tickets so it could easily have been a trip in vain...

March 2004
At last. Time for getting possession of our new house or...? :-) :-) Yes, we got it...... but was it a painless operation? Spot on again. Nop, it was quite a week. We were expecting the estate agent to know exactly what was going to happen during this hectic week but it turned out to be quite different. So here we go, fasten your seat belts.

On the Monday morning this young lad from the estate agent picked us up as agreed. First time as far as I can remember that anyone in Spain actually was on time. Good start we thought but it was soon to change. Once in the car he asked where we would like to go? Ehhhh? We explained that we were led to believe that they would have a master plan for all the activities this week and that we had no idea on where we were going and in what order and so forth.... He calls the office to find out what to do. We have to admit that he was ever so helpful but what we needed was someone who knew the routines not someone who had to find out what to do as we were there.

After a few phone calls he obviously knew where we were going so we sprinted up the N-332 and ended up in loads of different offices. We signed loads and loads of papers giving so many people access to our bank account (what a nightmare). At the end of the day we were all dizzy but we finally got the KEYS. Yes we got the keys to the house. We also got a promise that we would get the furniture the same day. They would deliver it between 4pm and 8pm so we had to wait in the house to let them in. No problem we said. We would really like to have a bed to crash on after a day like this.

And we waited, and waited, and waited and the time became 6pm, 6:30. Then the estate agent's rep had to pick up some people at the airport so he left leaving us in our empty house waiting for the furniture to show up. And we waited, and waited and the time was now 8:20pm and still no furniture. We must admit that we were rather annoyed at that time since we saw a cold night coming without a bed to sleep in. All that was left was the cold floor alternative and that wasn't that tempting. Fortunately we knew a few people that had already moved in so we borrowed a couple of lilos and blankets but we didn't sleep much that night.

Waking up the next morning after only a few hours sleep we phoned up this estate agent and kindly asked where our furniture, that was meant to be delivered the day before, had disappeared. The answer was quite something. The rep phoned up the furnishing company and they claimed that we weren't there when they wanted to deliver the lot. Then I really blow my fuse and had a go at the rep...... But never the less, a new agreement was reached. This time it was the same afternoon, between 4pm and 8pm. Well, well, well we thought. Let's see if they show up this time but they did and it only took roughly 2 hours to unload the lot. Rather impressive we thought at that point. We have later on discovered the quality of their work but let's leave that for now. The rest of the week was following the same schedule. Bank, notary, leaving a key at the "middleman company" so they had access to the house (for the electricity), applying for a NIE number in Elche, writing the snag-list which held quite a few items, etc.

Finally the week was up and we were about to go back home. How can a week go so quickly we said? It was just Monday the other day.... Anyway, we then sat down for a while, totally exhausted, and discussed what we had done and seen on this visit and it was only then we realized, after looking out through the window, that we were still living on a construction site. The last crane left the area in March but it was still a construction site. Blimey.... What can we say apart from: Next time, when we come down here, it won't be a construction site and the house will be completed...
 

Kent