The Inspector Cometh!

“Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water…” or in our case, open up shop, along comes another Inspector (from the Junta de Andalucía). That’s the bad news. The good news is that we passed with flying colours… again! Our last visit was in September 2008 so we were a little surprised that another one showed up this morning, only 6 months later. His explanation was that we could expect a visit every year, especially as on his list he only had 3 Estate Agents listed here in the village. Does this mean then that we are the only 3 agencies legally registered? Hmmm, a point to ponder! Apparently the Junta has a campaign every year which lasts about three months so we can breathe easy until next year. The truth is that we really didn’t have anything to worry about as we always work hard to make sure that our paperwork etc is up-to-date for the benefit of our clients and also our own.
The main area the Inspector wanted to know about was the sale of NEW PROPERTIES and those under construction, as they present a real nightmare with all the required paperwork. However, because we only do re-sales (second hand homes), we had nothing to comply with and had no “DIA” forms to show. He also commended us on our good use of the “Public Advisory Notices”, both in the display window and next to the “Claims & Complaints” notices inside the office. By the way, both of these signs are available for free download on our Blog (As always, please leave a comment if you do so!).
He reiterated the point that the price shown on the advertising display for each property should be the price that the CLIENT (prospective BUYER) pays and not the current owner of the home. As such, our commissions don’t have to be broken down and listed separately on the Window Card as these are paid by the current home owner. As the fees for each property vary as regard to the Notary and Registry, at the side of the price we put (in Spanish of course) “plus expenses and taxes” (“+ Gastos y Tributos”) and then list these on a separate document, clearly visible in the Window Display.
It is worth mentioning that the Window Cards need to be in SPANISH by law. This is what the Decree 218 states as being information clearly understandable and accessible. Given that the official language of the country is Spanish then that information MUST be supplied in Spanish. You can have it detailed in other languages as well but the Spanish descriptions must be clearly visible and prominent.
If the number of bedrooms is shown on the Window Card then the “Metros Útiles” (“Useful Metres”) of the property MUST be shown as well. That is not to be confused with the “Metros Construidos” (“Constructed Metres”) of the property.
Finally, there also needs to be a validity date (“Periodo de Validez”) on the Window Card, stating the date the prices of the property are valid to.
That’s our interesting news for the day and here’s hoping that your inspections go equally as well.