Unfortunately the media, because of the financial imput of advertising they need, edit the reporting of corruption in such a way as to leave the viewer/reader believing the purchaser was niave.
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I have been banging on about this for ages, the media has a vested interest in making out that Spain is Utopia. I have lived in Spain for many years , it is a country of contrasts,unfortunately corruption is a way of life.
Contrary to the impression my postings may give, I enjoy my life here and it is certainly better than the UK, I just hate to see this corruption, the total disregard by the authorities to the rights of property owners, the low standard of advice from estate agents and lawyers, the god money being more important than doing a good job. My heart bleeds for people involved in the wrong end of a property deal.
There is a local radio station which has over the years recommended some shocking companies, developers, estate agents the word “demolitions, land grab,corrupt mayors, lawyers,notaries ” seem to be banned from its airwaves.
Now they are bringing people on in adverts saying how wonderful it is to live in Marbella and environs and the MD has said he is banning pessimism and everyone should realise that they live in paradise. I think this attitude is wrong, many people have to be protected from themselves, it used to be said people left their brains if they ever had one in Gatwick or one of the other British airports. This was unfortunately true, they still deserve protection from the vultures , thank God for Mark and his crusade. I am sure he is ruffling a lot of feathers and good luck to him , I in my small way will help to expose scams,land grabs. I wrote to a member of the Shadow Cabinet in the UK a week ago by e mail needless to say no reply received, but I will keep on battling away.
These people , the buyers of the last few years who believed everything they were told, saw the big adverts in the newspapers and the future buyers who will unfortunately forget about the problems and steam into the next bull market need to be protected and made aware that there are lots of sharks,living on the coasts and that they need to be very very careful.
For most people who have invested in Spain, the experience has paid off this I am afraid does not help the Priors, those under threat from land grab, those under threat of demolitions or a costly fight to “legalise” their property. Optimism is OK but it should be tempered with the problems as well.
There is a local paper on the Costa Blanca which lives obviously by advertising , in over 30 years I can never remember them panning a restaurante , there are some very good restaurantes on the CB but I would say only about 10% deserve that tag. 70% perhaps are OK
20% are downright awful surely this newspaper´s critics, have hit one in 30 years. I used to warn friends about one local paper and advised them to believe only the date and treat everything else contained in it with suspicion, a few weeks later the paper even got the date wrong!!!
