A new "Cowboy" in town.

Wow, I cant believe it's 8 months since I last wrote on here. Time flies so quickly, and although I remember saying that when we lived in the UK, I swear that it goes even faster here..............or is it just that I am getting older? Who knows?

Well, the now extremely strict regulations for building in Catalunya has really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons!

It seems that quite a few established (and some not established) estate agents in Catalunya are now "trying their hands" at selling in Aragon........maybe they think, oh well, it's Aragon, so people can build anywhere,

WRONG

Maybe they think, only one hectare is needed, so we can build on anything over that size.

WRONG

Maybe they think, "oh look at that finca on the river" we can build a house there,

WRONG

and maybe they think, "oh it's Aragon, so there's no protected areas".

WRONG

Aragon in general has a much more relaxed view on building on rustic land in comparison to other regions of Spain, and obviously we only work and specialise in a very small area of Aragon, but it still has it's own rules and regulations.

Quite recently, on http://www.kyero.com/ a new "estate agent" has sprung up out of nowhere, making all kinds of wild claims about what you can build, where you can take water from, what grants he can get for you, permissions already in place (what a joke) etc. etc. etc.

Please, please, please be careful, if something sounds too good to be true......................then it usually is.

We have worked in this area now for a long time, and we have yet to find a rural property where:
1) the "permissions are in place" to build.
2) Nor have permissions been agreed to take water from a river!
3) Definitely no finca has been given permission to build 3 houses on it!
4) "Mains water & electricity" can be connected at little cost!!!!
5) Some villages you need a minimum of 2.5 hectares to get building permission, but this "new estate agent" is trying to sell smaller fincas, saying you can build! I can go on and on and on!

The thing is, there really isn't any need to lie or "embroider" the truth about this area, because you really can build legally, and the few places where the rules are slightly different, we know where they are, therefore we dont advertise a finca that doesn't have enough land to get building permission.

We have in fact seen many beautiful fincas that would have sold in no time at all, then we have to explain to the owner that foreign buyers almost always want to build, therefore we cannot advertise their property as it's just not big enough. Sometimes it can be quite upsetting, especially if the people are old, and they need to sell a finca to survive, but, we have to think about YOU, the client who might possibly be ploughing life savings into the purchase of this finca.

Imagine how you would feel if we hadn't done our homework, and you ended up buying a finca that was too small and you basically end up with a very beautiful piece of land, that you cant even build a Lego house on! Well, unfortunately some of these "not big enough" fincas, are now being advertised on Kyero.com and not by us obviously........SO PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL OUT THERE!

As most of you know Finca-Casa-Aragon S.L. advertise on numerous property websites in Spain and also in the UK. Any of our clients will tell you that we have a certain way of laying out the advert, so that you can definitely recognise that it's one of ours.

Well, if another "cowboy" on the block wasn't enough to contend with, he's even tried to copy the style of our adverts, with the exclamation mark at the end of each sentence on the description, in fact the only way you can tell it's not ours, is that the guy is Spanish, and his grammar sometimes is incorrect.

I suppose we should be flattered, that he wants to copy what we do so well, but I'm afraid that maybe his ulterior motive, is to steer you towards buying from him with his outragious claims.

If I receive any more information, I will put it on here ASAP.

Jools