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We Have Moved Offices!

New ICP Office

If you have ever visited our old office on the Cártama road in Alhaurín El Grande, you will know that we were already long overdue for a move. The office seemed to get smaller and damper by the month! Now we have a lovely, shiny, bright & spacious new office that is not only better for us but also for our clients. We even have two new sofas, in ICP trademark Orange, for you to sit down and relax whilst you wait.

The move went well after weeks of intensive preparation. The new office needed four coats of white paint to cover all the old green, blue, red and black paint that was used by the previous tenants! We have a new alarm installed and are now Authorised Agents for “Securitas Direct” alarms, which means we can give you a great discount on a similar installation in your own home or office.

Where exactly are we located? Just two minutes walk from our old office. We are on Calle Gerald Brennan, number 83 in what was the old “Videoclub Milenium”, next to the “Casa Paco” Fish Restaurant and directly facing “Cafetería Fahala”. If you get to the BP Petrol Station then you’ve gone too far!

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.

The infamous “Decreto (Decree) 218″

At the mention of the “Decree 218″, any self-respecting Estate Agent will start to shudder. The reality of this decree, passed in 2005, is becoming ever more clearer as the Andalucian governing body are sending out their inspectors in droves. Many estate agents, albeit the smaller ones, are being forced to close down due to their inability to pay the huge fines for non-compliance with the decree.

Having said that, there doesn’t seem to be much official help available for people and agencies who wish to comply with the decree. Granted, there are numerous sites and forums with many conflicting opinions but they don’t help the panic stricken individuals trying to comply with the lengthy decree before the untimely visit of an inspector from the “Junta”! My purpose in writing this is to (hopefully) help make things a bit clearer and share our experience with other agencies in a similar situation.

We had an inspector visit us at the end of 2008 and to be honest, it came as a welcome relief. We had been waiting for what seemed a lifetime, hoping that all the effort, time and money we had put into bringing our paperwork  in line with the guidelines would finally pay off. I think our hearty welcome actually unnerved him a little! To cut a long story short, he was very pleasant and we passed with flying colours… and we have the paperwork and stamp to prove it!

So just what is the “Decreto 218″? It is basically the Junta de Andalucía’s way of trying to protect the buyer’s or tennant’s interests when dealing with Real Estate. Anything you advertise with regard to a home has to be backed up by official documents. What are they? We’ll discuss that later. Suffice to say that for this blog I have attached an official copy of the “Decreto 218″. Yes, it IS in Spanish but then all the legal documents you create for your properties will need to be copied verbatim from the various appendices. I will try and find an English version to use as an aid to understanding its content.

In summary, there are 6 main sections and each one relates to a different section of the Real Estate market:

• ANEXO 1 (page 2): This applies to all homes.
• ANEXO 2 (page 6): For homes in the planning stage or that are under construction. Your resulting document should be 8 pages long.
• ANEXO 3 (page 7): Refers to the sale of new homes. Your resulting document should be 9 pages long.
• ANEXO 5 (page 9): Refers to resales of homes (second hand). Your resulting document should be 3 pages long.
• ANEXO 6 (page 9): This applies to rental homes. Your resulting document should be 5 pages long.

It’s worth mentioning that this decree applies to homes “viviendas” only. It does not apply to plots of land, commercial properties etc. You will also notice that after each appendix I have mentioned the number of pages that your “Information Document” should be. It is important to stick to this when creating your info documents for each property you have for sale or rental but I will go into this in another blog.

DOWNLOAD DECREE 218 IN SPANISH

DECREE 218 IN SPANISH (File Size=188Kb)

To view the above files you will need Adobe Reader, which you can download for free from here:

If you are looking to download the Decree 218 in ENGLISH, please CLICK HERE.