Easter Holiday, April 2007

Oranges at market and Orange Blossom

April is a beautiful time of year in our area of the Costa Blanca. Within a five minute drive we are into the lemon and orange planting areas and in springtime the smell from the blossoms is stunning. We quite often turn off the air conditioning in the car and open the windows whilst driving through the groves in order to enjoy the perfume.

Spain produces over 2 million tonnes of oranges per year and the Valencia or Murcia orange is one of the sweet oranges used for both juice extraction and for fresh-fruit. It is a strange plant in that the blossom which produces next year's fruit can be on the tree at the same time as this year's fruit making for both colour and perfume.

Oranges in the local street markets are quite cheap and one can buy a large bag of say 5kg for just a few Euros. People can be seen packing them into their bags to be taken home for producing fresh orange juice.

Having taken delivery of the apartment we are now anxious to visit as often as possible.

Kathie was determined to concentrate on home-building and so we started to improve the home we had recently acquired. Extra furniture was carefully chosen, security grills were installed, and we called in a manufacturer of awnings to quote us for the installation of an awning to shade the balcony in the height of summer.

It was amazing to see the service we received from two of these companies.

The security grills were fitted by an English company who first of all promised to have the work done within two weeks and to post our keys back home as we were only visiting for the Easter holiday. As it turned out he fitted them within two days as he wanted us to see them installed properly before we left.

The representative of the awning company called and quoted us for the fitting but then advised us that we should wait until El Presidente (the president of the Community Committee) had agreed what colour scheme should be adopted within the whole block. He could easily have sold us the awning but was honest enough to give us this advice and leave without an order.

It is good to see such good service.

Moving In, Christmas 2006.

Enjoying Christmas Day on the beach

(The apartments may be seen in the background)

Enough of the banging on about the terrible service we received from our agent and the uncertainty of dealing with Spanish builders (see previous blog). On to happier times..........

In December 2006 we eventually received news that the builder had relinquished control of his Company to his daughter, and that we could finally move in to the property. We travelled to Spain, collected our keys, and were living there within 24 hours. Atlas had as part of our purchase package installed the furniture and cleaned the apartment (after a fashion) so things were more or less ready for us.

Now the enjoyable part of buying a home in Spain could begin. Trips were made to the stores where we had been previously only window-shopping, and this time we were able to buy the things we wanted. We filled up the car with crockery, cutlery, glasses, patio furniture, and other household items. We visited a store where we had previously ordered a quality bed and twice had to cancel it and this time we actually took delivery of it.

It felt so strange to be driving in the same areas where we had been previously wishing and hoping for good news and now to realise that we had a home to return to each day.

We were asked to examine the apartment and report any faults and we were happy to be able to report that no faults were to be found. The one thing we did find however was that, in the winter, the sun, being fairly low in the sky, reflects off the sea whilst we are eating breakfast on the balcony. This can be quite dazzling! Such is life however, J and somebody has to do it!

We met and became good friends with some of the other tenants and that first Christmas was spent visiting and comparing homes, swapping horror stories, and inviting one another for drinks and meals,

We were now able to begin planning properly and the future was often discussed during long walks along the cliff paths. The path which we like best runs some 10Km from the beach at the bottom of our road, going north towards Torrevieja. It was on one of these walks, whilst stopping at a convenient bar for cocktails, that we decided that we would both retire at the same time when Kathie reached her 60th birthday in 2010. That would mean a shortfall in pension but it was decided that we would manage one way or another and before long the date was agreed upon and plans were set accordingly.

Roll on February 2010!!

A long story. 2003 to 2006.

Breakfast on the Balcony

Kathie and I were Francophiles for over twenty years spending many happy holidays in the South of France, Burgundy and the Alps. Winter holidays were taken on the ski slopes of Switzerland or Austria.

In about 1997 we spent our first winter holiday in Spain and found out (a long time after most other people) what a super place it is and how much less expensive it is than France. In those days two coffees on the Riviera would cost about £4.50 whereas the same snack on the Costa Del Sol would cost less than £1.00. The cost however was a very small part of the "conversion". The speed of life, the climate, property prices etc all played their part.

As we spent more winter holidays in Spain we realized at long last how good it could be to wander about in December, January, or February in our English summer clothes. Bougainvillea, Coleus, and Poinsettia were growing outdoors in gardens and window boxes. A wish to live in this kind of environment began to grow but we had no plans or finances to enable this to happen.

We had always said that when we retired we would sell-up and "Bugger off to Burgundy" and this became our motto and target for retirement. Burgundy has a wonderfully soft and year-round pleasant climate, and property prices are such that we would have been able to afford a very nice place there. Add to that our reasonable command of the French language and it seemed an ideal solution. Our winter holidays in Spain however shifted our aiming point to the Costa Del Sol but finances decreed that it would be many years before either option was likely to happen.

Until circumstances changed that is......

In 2002 we had the opportunity to fund our dream by selling the family home and moving into our son's house whilst he was working abroad. This we did and by the end of the 2003 we had sold-up and arranged a Viewing Trip to Spain with the largest Selling Agent in Europe. During the previous months we had decided that we could afford a much better property on the Costa Blanca rather than the Costa Del Sol and so this is where we targeted our efforts.

Our dream place had now become an apartment overlooking the sea.

Just before Christmas 2003 we flew to Alicante to meet with Atlas International who were to show us the area and offer us various types of property within our budget. After the first day we had almost decided upon an apartment and on the second day we confirmed our decision and laid down a deposit. The agreed completion date for the apartment was September 2005 so we signed the papers, shook hands, and came home to wait.

Atlas International promised that we would receive regular updates on the progress of our new property by email and indeed for the first year we did. At the beginning of 2005 communications dried up from Atlas and I had to start asking for reports. The usual answer was that nothing was available, interspersed with the odd builder's report. Towards the contracted completion date reports dried up completely and Atlas reported that as the apartment block was multi-storey, their inspectors were forbidden access to the site so could not tell us anything. Presumably the builders were incommunicado and information of any kind was unavailable. The completion date passed and Atlas announced that the builder had opted to take up an obscure clause allowing him to extend the completion date by a further three months.

We eventually took possession of our apartment in December 2006, some 15 months late. Atlas International provided very little help as they have a clause in their contract which states that they are merely agents and are not responsible for any actions taken by the builder. Their fee was allegedly about 32,000 Euros for selling us our apartment so it would have been nice had they done more during what was a very traumatic year.

The lessons we learned were NEVER BUY OFF PLAN and DO NOT ALWAYS RELY ON THE SERVICES OF AN AGENT despite their size.

We always now recommend that people should consult a reputable Estate Agent, arrange a short viewing trip, and purchase a ready built property on a properly completed urbanization. Properties in Spain are almost always sold furnished, so on the day you exchange contracts you can move into your new home.

First Blog

Well here I go with my very first Blog.

I hope I have a few friends left and that some of them will want to share with me the days leading up to my Retirement, and (please God) some of the days afterwards when Kathie and I hope to be living in the Spanish sunshine.

Here are a couple of pic's, one showing the winter I hope to leave behind and one showing the apartments where we will live. In coming blogs I will post more pictures so that we can all see where we will be spending our time.