Well, with a bit of help from a neighbour who has a computer and who has been good as gold to my wife and I, here is the story of one pair of silly old codgers who sold up and bought into the dream here in Orihuela Costa.
We bought off plan but were told by everyone that the builders were good and that the house was in a fairly established area of Orihuela Costa.
Great excitement and eventually after delays, we moved into our house and started to make it into a home.
For a while, things went well but then we encountered our first problems in that the water and electric kept going off. As a little group, we made enquiries and found out that we were not on a public supply. Months and months on, we remain in that state, with water and electric going on and off.
The water must be of poor quality because we have had to replace our water boiler and the man said that it had completely furred up.
Right then. We decided to get a television aerial installed because as we found out after a little while, you really can't sit on a patio drinking wine in the sun all day and night long although I know that is the dream of many.
So we spent out and went with a recommended local provider, Telmicro. You know the rest I expect.
We then noticed some alarming cracks appearing in the wall of our house. Quite normal we were told. We even had a Councillor come to visit our little estate and he said the same - apparently (we don't find ourselves able to keep up with speed Spanish)
The cracks in our houses got bigger and bigger and we decided to get together and tackle the builder. The lawyers fees are now growing larger and we have found out it could take years to sort this out because the builders seem to have, well, disappeared, reorganised, gone into administration - the story changes each day.
House insurance - well you can imaging what fun we've had arranging that - no one wants to come near.
As for bin collections etc. Well, our street is not recognised and so we have to walk quite a distance over unmade roads and across unused ground littered with all manner of delights to get to the bins.
So there you are. We are 67 and 65 and this is what we have come to.
We have made the worst move in our lives and oh do we miss good old blighty even with all its faults, its bad weather and so on.
As least we had walls that didn't move, water and electricity, TV and so on.
We are not alone here, I know but didn't need this at our time in life.
So I say to you and having read with my dear neighbour some of the things on here, if you are looking in from back home, think long and very hard before doing what we have done.
Yes, everyone's on our side, lawyers, newspapers, CLARO, etc etc. but here we sit in misery.
Sell up and go home you wail. We would love to. Two problems though. Who would want to buy this and having had two agents visit us, both said that even if we had perfect houses, their valuations only came to 60% of what we paid out. To those of you who holler down people on this website for stating the obvious and you ought to see the views from our window over what we were told would be a park (ha ha what a joke that turned out to be) I say, we wished we had never heard of Orihuela Costa, yet alone Spain.
I see a lot of estate agents operate on this website so I don't suppose this message of mine will last that long but there it is.
We bought off plan but were told by everyone that the builders were good and that the house was in a fairly established area of Orihuela Costa.
Great excitement and eventually after delays, we moved into our house and started to make it into a home.
For a while, things went well but then we encountered our first problems in that the water and electric kept going off. As a little group, we made enquiries and found out that we were not on a public supply. Months and months on, we remain in that state, with water and electric going on and off.
The water must be of poor quality because we have had to replace our water boiler and the man said that it had completely furred up.
Right then. We decided to get a television aerial installed because as we found out after a little while, you really can't sit on a patio drinking wine in the sun all day and night long although I know that is the dream of many.
So we spent out and went with a recommended local provider, Telmicro. You know the rest I expect.
We then noticed some alarming cracks appearing in the wall of our house. Quite normal we were told. We even had a Councillor come to visit our little estate and he said the same - apparently (we don't find ourselves able to keep up with speed Spanish)
The cracks in our houses got bigger and bigger and we decided to get together and tackle the builder. The lawyers fees are now growing larger and we have found out it could take years to sort this out because the builders seem to have, well, disappeared, reorganised, gone into administration - the story changes each day.
House insurance - well you can imaging what fun we've had arranging that - no one wants to come near.
As for bin collections etc. Well, our street is not recognised and so we have to walk quite a distance over unmade roads and across unused ground littered with all manner of delights to get to the bins.
So there you are. We are 67 and 65 and this is what we have come to.
We have made the worst move in our lives and oh do we miss good old blighty even with all its faults, its bad weather and so on.
As least we had walls that didn't move, water and electricity, TV and so on.
We are not alone here, I know but didn't need this at our time in life.
So I say to you and having read with my dear neighbour some of the things on here, if you are looking in from back home, think long and very hard before doing what we have done.
Yes, everyone's on our side, lawyers, newspapers, CLARO, etc etc. but here we sit in misery.
Sell up and go home you wail. We would love to. Two problems though. Who would want to buy this and having had two agents visit us, both said that even if we had perfect houses, their valuations only came to 60% of what we paid out. To those of you who holler down people on this website for stating the obvious and you ought to see the views from our window over what we were told would be a park (ha ha what a joke that turned out to be) I say, we wished we had never heard of Orihuela Costa, yet alone Spain.
I see a lot of estate agents operate on this website so I don't suppose this message of mine will last that long but there it is.
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