We are in the final stages of completing on a rural property purchase in Almeria. The estate agent has not been at all helpful and hasn’t given us any information about the different stages etc and to be honest has been a extremely unprofessional towards both ourselves and the sellers; including copying an email to ourselves and the sellers thus giving the sellers open access to contact us, and failing to provide information to the seller or pass on important information.
I have therefore taken to the internet to check different stages for the house purchase and found a really good guide that is promoted by HM Government and is a joint publication between the Spanish Land Registry and the UK RICS. This was promoted about a year ago on this site. In this publication it states that the 10% deposit that is paid when we enter the contract prior to finalising the purchase should not be paid to the sellers but held in escrow. As the estate agents have been so useless and I really don’t have any faith in them, I am happy to have it left with our or their lawyer and only paid on completion of the purchase.
In addition, we have a small area of land that we have to cross to get to our property, that land is owned by a third party and although the agents have spoken to him, there is nothing yet in writing stating that we have a perpetual easement of ingress and egress for ourselves, our visitors, servants and agents. So if this is not signed and sorted out we will not proceed, and if we pay the sellers the deposit we run the risk of not getting our money back or at least having a fight to get it back if the agreement does not proceed etc. In addition the purchase is dependent on the sale of our UK home due to the collapse of the £/€ post Brexit – prior to that we had sufficient in the budget to get a bridging loan but that has been eaten up by the increased cost.
So really the bottom line is, we are now being put under pressure by the seller directly, to pay the deposit to them directly but absolutely do not want to do so. Our lawyer says that this is possible but is unusual …… I’d just like some guidance/advice really on the ways to pay the deposit.
I’m sure someone more knowledgeable than me will give you the advise you need but definitely do not pay the deposit direct to the owners and re the access if you don’t have it in writing and witnessed walk away as for the estate agent well enough said.
Lisa it sounds way too risky to pay the deposit direct to the vendor. If they are keen to sell then they should agree if you pay it to your lawyer to hold in escrow. If the private sale contract is well drafted both sides should be protected. But walk away and don’t even pay a deposit unless the access matter is 100% sorted. Why take the risk? There are bound to be other properties for sale without these problems.
Would you mind letting me know who the agent is by private message? Send me a link to the agent’s website. This business is full of incompetent clowns, cowboys, and crooks (the three Cs) and I like to know who they are.
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