Below you will find an email received from the Bowling family who had their villa demolished in Almeria last year:

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:58:38 +0000
From: bowlingstortuga@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Fw: Re: demolition of my home in Spain 

The link below will take you to the English page of the El Defensor del Pueblo (Spanish Ombudsman).

http://www.defensordelpueblo.es/web_ingles/Index.asp

The page gives full details on how to present your complaint in English by email.

Let’s get writing with complaints about Masa and the Council.

Weekly Report 16.10.09

Ricardo Costa kicked out Ricardo Costa, General Secretary of the PP in the Valencia Region and spokesman for the party in the Regional Parliament, has been forced out of both posts, after the national leader of the biggest opposition party, Mariano Rajoy, ordered President Camps of the Valencia Government to kick him out. Camps resisted the decision as long as possible. Why?

Prices further down Prices in Spain , according to the official index, continued their downward trend in September, with the index falling 0.2% and thus bringing the annual fall to minus 1%; the seventh consecutive month with negative prices which confirms the continued recession in Spain .

Moody’s: Banks must reserve 57,000 million The Rating Agency Moody’s, has revealed that Spanish banks and saving banks must reserve 57,000 million euros to meet possible non-payments from building promoters and individual clients. The agency calculates that total anticipated losses may be 108,000 million euros. The banks have of course refuted what they call the Agency’s “catastrophic” information, and points to the possibility of “recuperating assets” meaning, re-possessing the mortgaged properties.

David wins over ‘Goliath’ in Parcent Three projects for large-scale urban developments with a total of 1,800 houses in the small village of Parcent ( Alicante ) have been finally trounced by Alicante ’s Urban Planning Commission, due to an insufficiency of the water supply. The inhabitants of the village have fought courageously for fours years against the ‘Goliath’ promoters (including crooner Julio Iglesias) who paid the previous town council heavily to have their projects approved.

Re-sale properties fall most The latest numbers from the Statistical Institute confirm that the fall in sales of dwellings is still continuing. In August the fall was 9.9%, with re-sale dwellings noting a fall of 13.7%. From January to August sales of such properties fell 37%. We expect the percentages to moderate in the coming months, since the number of transactions, mostly among Spanish, has reached a bare minimum.

Anger over “health tourism” Spain is angry over alleged “health tourism” where foreigners come to Spain to get the operations they have to wait longer for at home. The Spanish Union of Doctors blasted what they termed “scalpel tourism” where Britons temporarily become resident in Spain to skip queues at home. The Union reported that foreigners account for 15 to 20% of people treated in local hospitals. The Director of Malaga’s Costa del Sol Hospital , Antonio Perez, has also complained of an increasing number of the foreigners taking advantage of the fact they own a home on the Costa del Sol to use the Spanish health services.

Bloomberg on Spain

October 6th, 2009

Maria Jose Lozano, a civil servant from Madrid, left a recent property fair empty-handed after discovering that home prices were still out of reach in a market where sales have dropped 50 percent from their 2006 peak.

“We came here expecting to find a bargain, or at the very least some reduced-price homes, but we’ve seen nothing,” said Lozano, 49, after browsing through the offerings, including properties that lenders such as Banco Santander SA and Caja Madrid acquired in exchange for canceling developers’ debts.

Banks bought about 110,000 homes to keep losses off their books as Spain’s property bubble burst, according to real estate researcher RR de Acuna & Asociados in Madrid. Now they’re using strategies reminiscent of the boom times — 100 percent mortgages, low interest rates and free cars — to sell homes, potentially slowing a drop in prices that’s needed to spur recovery from Spain’s worst recession in 60 years.

“Maybe you can create some accounting value with all these tricks, but in the end it doesn’t make the situation any better and in the long term makes it worse,” said Luis Garicano, a professor of economics and strategy at the London School of Economics, in a phone interview.

Spanish lenders acquired at least 20 billion euros ($29 billion) of real estate in the past 18 months, according to data compiled by analysts at Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG. There are as many as 1.6 million ( some reports say 3 million) empty homes in Spain, an overhang that may take seven years to clear with annual demand running at about 218,500 units, Acuna & Asociados estimates.

Financing Terms

Instead of cutting prices, banks are offering more generous financing terms for their own properties than those being sold by third parties, said Fernando Rodriguez de Acuna, president of Acuna & Asociados.

“The banks are reducing financing costs to get rid of their housing stock, but this solution has its limits,” he said in an interview. “The only way banks will be able to sell homes they haven’t sold in the mid-term will be to do so at a loss.

” Santander, Spain’s biggest lender, has acquired more than 4 billion euros of real estate and is selling homes through Altamira Santander Real Estate, its property arm.

Altamira offers clients variable-rate mortgages at the one- year euro interbank offered rate plus 0.4 percent, according to its Web site. That’s 1.64 percent at current rates. Santander offers a variable rate mortgage at Euribor plus 1 percent, according to data published by El Pais newspaper.

The bank also offers 100 percent financing, mortgage insurance and aid to buyers of holiday homes, according to the Web site. Altamira said in August that it had sold at least 1,100 of the 2,550 newly built properties it had on sale.

No Timetable

A spokeswoman for Madrid-based Santander declined to comment on whether the bank’s policies were slowing a recovery. The spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified because of company policy, said Santander’s booth at the property fair was informational, and it didn’t try to sell homes at the event because it believes prices have adjusted to the market.

Banco Popular Espanol SA, Spain’s third-biggest commercial bank, bought 2.3 billion euros of property and is selling homes through its Aliseda Gestion Inmobiliaria unit. La Caixa, Spain’s biggest savings bank, throws in a free car for anyone under 35 who buys an apartment through its property company.

Banco Popular has no intention of selling homes for less than the bank thinks they’re worth because low interest rates mean the cost of holding them is comparatively cheap, Chief Financial Officer Jacobo Gonzalez-Robatto said in July.

“We don’t have any timetable,” he said at the bank’s earnings press conference.

Lagging Behind Ireland

The tactics employed by banks mean house prices are adjusting more slowly in Spain than other countries, said the LSE’s Garicano.

Spanish property prices have declined 8.3 percent from their peak in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the National Statistics Institute. That compares with a 25 percent drop in Ireland, a report by Irish Life & Permanent Plc shows. The decline is 12 percent in the U.K., according to Hometrack Ltd.

By other measures, Spain has been harder hit by the global recession than other European countries.

Eurostat data show that Spain has the highest unemployment rate in Europe at 18.5 percent, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts the economy will continue to shrink next year as other European nations start to recover. The Spanish economy may contract 0.9 percent next year, making it the worst performer in the 30-nation OECD after Hungary and Ireland, the Paris-based group forecast in June.

Orderly Decline

Carlos Solchaga, Spain’s finance minister from 1985 to 1993, said banks have succeeded in putting a break on price declines and preventing the fire sale seen in other countries.

“The banks are doing what they have to do,” said Solchaga, who now heads Solchaga Recio & Asociados, a Madrid- based consulting firm. “The reality is that they are contributing to the process of price reductions.

” Caixa Catalunya, a Barcelona-based savings bank, slashed prices on some homes as it sold 600 of the 3,700 properties it had on offer. About half of the homes sold for 30 percent less than the offer price and a quarter brought discounts of 10 percent to 20 percent, said Pol Clota, the bank’s commercial director for real estate. The rest were sold for full price.

“If we have this real estate, we have to do something with it and the competition is very fierce,” Clota said in an interview at the property fair.

Unfair Competition

Developers say they now have to compete with banks, as well as each other, to shift stocks of unsold property.

“Sometimes that competition is unfair in that they can offer better financing,” said Ignacio Iglesias, a spokesman for Nozar SA, a closely held developer that filed for protection from creditors in September.

Spanish banks acquired homes from developers to cushion the impact of a property crash that increased loan-loss provisions by 70 percent to 9.7 billion euros in the first half, according to central bank data. Bad loans as a proportion of lending rose to a 13-year high of 4.73 percent in July and may exceed 8 percent over the next year, Credit Suisse estimated last month.

The problem is that banks may have taken real estate onto their books using valuations that don’t describe their true value, said the LSE’s Garicano. In a market where transactions have collapsed and some appraisals are based on sellers’ asking prices, valuations may bear little relation to what buyers are prepared to pay, he said.

While the Bank of Spain requires lenders to set aside a provision equal to 10 percent of a property’s balance sheet value, they may be forced to report additional losses if asset values drop below the amount of the original debt.

Significant Losses

“Some banks won’t let prices fall because they don’t want to recognize their losses,” said Pedro de Churruca, general director for Spain of property broker Jones Lang LaSalle in Madrid. “Significant losses would emerge if they did that.

” Back at the property fair, Lozano and her husband, Fernando Cano, watched as lines of would-be buyers formed alongside the stands run by Caja Madrid and Pryconsa, a developer that now has to compete with banks to sell its properties.

About 40,000 people attended the three-day fair, according to IFEMA, the organizer of the event. Three more are planned during the next year.

“Prices haven’t dropped and buyers won’t return to the market until they do,” Cano said.

Now that the winter is nearlly upon us and the threat of colds, flu and other ailments grow the CRA Liaison Committee would like to remind all of its members of the fantastic discount scheme being offered to them by the ICA Medical Clinic.

For only 15 Euros per month per person free access to the doctor and nurse are available however many times you need to see them in a month.

For further information please refer to the Discount Scheme page accessed from Homepage and read of all the benefits you get for your money.

It is not accepted to go to the centre and join the scheme at the time when you need an appointment.

Join the scheme now and take the safeguard now. No insurance is available at this rate.

A programme of dance and drama activities for children, young people and adults led by Murcia Dance College and Murcia Theatre School 

ICA Underbuild, Sector B, Camposol 

Every Thursday

 5.00-6.00pmTheatre Dance for Adults. A range of musical theatre dance styles to be taught for fun and enjoyment. Styles include Bollywood to Hollywood and Tango to medium tempo Jazz. Cost: 8 euros per class or 50 euros for a block booking of ten classes. Please note there is no refund if classes are missed.
 
6.00-8.00pm : Murcia Theatre School. Age group 8+. A programme of energetic dance, drama and singing activities that will raise self esteem and build confidence in a fun, safe and caring environment. Class activities will lead to a performance in January 2010. Led by Louise Bremner, BA Hons, BBO Teaching Diploma and Nicola Morris, BA Hons, QTS (Qualified Teaching Status), LLAM.  Cost: 10 euros per class or 80 euros for a block booking of ten classes. Please note there is no refund if classes are missed.
 

Every Saturday from October 24^th

 11.00am-12.00pm – Primary Ballet age 5-7 years

12.00-1.00pm – Grade 1 Ballet age 8-11 years
 
Cost: 8 euros per class or 50 euros for a block booking of ten classes. Please note there is no refund if classes are missed.

For further information on classes and enrolment please telephone Louise on 655421120. 

Spanish property market doomed until 2016 says report October 3, 2009 by Alan Harten

In the last couple of weeks have seen some pretty astonishing reports and figures coming from several companies, with regard to the condition of the Spanish property market.

So why are so many newspapers and estate agents talking up the Spanish property market? And it is not just Spanish companies who are claiming that the drastic fall in Spanish property is bottoming out. The problem is that many outlets, including those in the UK, are seeing this perceived leveling off of appalling property sales and values, as somehow being a clear indication that the Spanish property market is about to move into boom-time.

Many British online and off-line Spanish property sellers say that visitor numbers and enquiries reached an all-time high over the summer months. That in itself seems a little odd, as summer is actually the slowest part of the year for Spanish property sellers.

If we are to believe these reports they indicate that this summer was the exact opposite. One company even reported that they had nearly 50% more visitors this summer, than last summer to their property website.

The same company also claims that their monthly visitor numbers grew steadily from spring through to the end of summer; this also seems strange, as Internet traffic in general declines dramatically in Europe during those months.

According to R. R. de Acuña & Asociados, who are Madrid-based analysts who specialise in real estate, there are approximately 3,000,000 properties languishing on the Spanish market waiting for buyers.

They estimate that there are nearly 1.7 million houses and apartments that lie empty, as well as 325,000 properties that are “under construction” but have no viable completion date.

To add to these already huge numbers there are around 1.1 million residential property units for which planning permission has already been given. The big problem with these Spanish construction permits is that the building must be completed within 24 months.

When you add up all the numbers that is over 3 million properties that have been, or are due to be built in Spain, over the next year or so. This adds up to a catastrophic over production of new properties as well as a massive glut of resale residential units.

Then there is the slight problem of the credit crunch, and the difficulties facing buyers who actually do have an interest in purchasing a property, as banks and other lenders are not totally enthusiastic about handing out a reasonable percentage of the cost of buying a second home in the sun.

The Spanish buyers are few and far between, as estimates say within months there will be somewhere between 25 and 30% unemployment in Spain. Not to forget the 700,000 people that have been employed thanks to the Spanish stimulus project “Plan E”, which if not renewed face unemployment by October/November. Not exactly the best climate for anyone trying to sell off these huge numbers of new and resale properties.

Yet despite these figures, and a general common sense feeling, that any kind of a recovery in the Spanish property market is a long way off, two sectors seem to have gone into overdrive pushing the concept of yet another Spanish property boom.

The first is obviously the real estate agents, based in Spain and other European countries, who had become well accustomed to selling and renting properties in huge numbers, in particular to foreigners, throughout the 90s and early part of this decade.

Those same agents are now languishing with books full of un-saleable properties, so there seems to be a concerted effort to “talk up” the Spanish property market, by interpreting a possible end to falling prices, as a sure sign that people who buy now, can only make a huge profit on their investment.

The other set of organisations with an interest in seeing the good side of any slight chink of property light, are the newspapers, in particular local English-language Spanish papers, who for many years relied on page after page of property display advertisements filling up their classified section and bank accounts.

While Mark Stucklin of Spanish Property Insight, suggest that “recovery won’t come until 2013, by which time the sector will be just half the size it used to be, if that,”, the report from RR de Acuña & Asociados suggests that there is no recovery in sight until 2016.

The only conclusion can be that there is a huge number of available properties, and anyone who does have the cash available to buy, should not be sucked in to buying any of the 3 million properties, that is not an absolute bargain.