Get delicious recipes like this from Home Cooking Made Easy.
In this new series property expert Andrew Winter goes on an international rescue mission across Europe to help British homeowners who are having major problems selling their foreign properties.
In Selling Houses Abroad Andrew meets homeowners dealing with stagnating markets, property confiscation, legal battles and subsidence. The series also reveals the results of a specially commissioned survey of 6,000 people about other foreign property nightmares, from frustrating bureaucracy to confusing property law and language difficulties.
In the first episode, Andrew travels to Europe to meet Margaret and John Cox, who sold everything they had in the UK to buy a 100 year-old farmhouse in south-west France. They renovated it themselves but now no one wants to buy it...
From Italy to Cyprus and Spain to Montenegro, Andrew leaves no stone unturned in his quest to secure that all important sale.
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
In this episode of SELLING HOUSES ABROAD, Andrew meets Steve Livesy and Julie Spivey in northern France. Back in 2000, Steve a former firefighter, seized the opportunity to get a toe on the property ladder and bought two dilapidated semis in a remote hamlet in Normandy for just 30 thousand pounds.
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
In this episode of SELLING HOUSES ABROAD, Andrew meets Fae Planton, who as a first time buyer priced out of the UK market, bought and moved into an apartment on the shores of lake Orta in northern Italy.
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
SMS And Email Reminders
Record
Sir or Madam
RE: SELLING HOUSES ABROAD CHANNEL 4
I am writing in shear desperation and having watched your programs, the latest being help in Silves in Portugal and France I decided to write and ask whether your program would be able to help me also .
The brief circumstances of my plight is in 2005, I purchased my semi-detached property in Prai da Luz (above picture on the right) I paid 212,000 Euros and it is a 4 bed, 4 en suite villa with its layout as 2 x 2 bedroom 2 en suite, both with private entrances) which I used as a holiday home.
In 2009 with my boyfriend we decided to sell our two Isle of Man homes and move to Portugal to live, running the Luz house as a small business and semi retire. We made a fundamental huge mistake, having secured (in principal) two sales on both our of houses my boyfriends contracts were to exchange whilst we were away for the two weeks holiday in Luz and my contracts to be exchanged upon our return.
During our holiday we saw and fell in love with a detached villa as above on the top left of the page, we offered 750,000 Euros and explained our circumstances that our houses had not exchanged but were due, in case of any glitches with the contracts offered a £250,000 deposit with a completion date of 6 months. which was agreed.
Unfortunately, upon our return home 2 weeks later found that my boyfriend’s buyers had pulled out as their father had suffered a stroke and now had to search for another property to accommodate this. The market was still buoyant in the Isle of Man and didn’t think it an issue to re-sell but reduced slightly for a quick sale. Only 2 weeks later my buyers lost their sale and we were now both houses not sold.
Private Marketing and estate agents continued, however, to no avail to secure both sales. I decided to part exchange my house with my buyer’s smaller property to release my equity to put towards the Portugal house but our 6 month date was soon upon us. We were faced with losing £250,000 or finding the remaining 500,000 to complete, NIGHTMARE….
Pooling all monies we had, we had to approach the Millennium bank bcp for a mortgage of 445,000 Euros, outlined our circumstances and secured an 18 month interest free mortgage with the asset of Luz being secured on the loan. This we thought would suffice and as soon as the Isle of Man houses sold we would be able pay off the mortgage.
During this time
1. The housing market collapsed both UK and Portugal
2. The euro plummeted from our initial deposit at 1.27 to 1.00 which in exchange meant we needed to find nearly 100,000 Euros more with fees and taxes because of the exchange rate and mortgage rate
3. We moved out to our new villa in September 2009 to try and make a go and decided to put our Luz villa on the market.
4. The Housing market in western Algarve was awash with ex pats properties on the market and the bottom has fallen out.
5. The new villa although was a new build had encountered numerous problems which we had tried to get rectified via our advocates after a long winded process we were refused and so had to pay out even more money for a list of faults
This has been the most stressful and haunting time of my life during the last 2 years. I spent the last 6 months of the remaining interest free mortgage writing and emailing the Millennium bank via my advocates , personally and finally in desperation drove all the way to Lisbon head office and refused to leave the office until someone finally discussed this matter with us as I was getting fobbed off left right and centre by them,
This culminated in a refusal of extending the interest only rate mortgage. The mortgage went from 700 Euros monthly to 2800 monthly. No house sales either in the Isle of Man or Portugal very stressful relationship problems my partner left Portugal and went back to work in Isle of Man leaving me and my 13 year old daughter in Portugal.
I had rented my house in Isle of Man and in September 2010 my tenant left.
I was ill emotionally and physically so I decided to come back to Isle of Man leaving both of the houses in Portugal on the market with estate and agents, and private adverts in an effort to seek employment again. I have never been unemployed in all of my 48 years having worked in the emergency services. Unfortunately, the recession has now hit big time laying off staff within government departments including the services and I still haven’t been able to secure employment to date.
My partner and I are trying desperately to pay now 3 mortgages, with 4 houses seeking employment and recovering emotionally and physically.
I know you can not produce miracles nor can your program get us out of the economy but I would dearly love to hear whether you think I should refurbish my older Luz property to make them up to date or more attractive or to leave them as they are. I have discussed this my estate agent who feels that they should be left as they are but I am not sure where to go with this. They have not sold now for 18 months not even an offer.
Just selling this property would be such a HUGE weight lifted and being able to reduce at least the Portuguese mortgage would be a life saver.
PLEASE,PLEASE HELP I have attached copies of the house sale adverts and if there is any advice or recommendations I would be so very very grateful.
In order to make a program I am more than willing to be on a show.
Yours in desperation I eagerly await your comments.
Kind regards
Deborah Wolfendale
We have a villa in Portugal and been waiting for a programme like this to come along so people can hopefully hear about our problems. We bought the plot 1992 and had the villa biult by a local Dutch builder. It was completed in 1994 to a very high standard which we have never had a problem with. We moved here in 1995 to live full time. In 2006 we decided to down size and sell the villa when I had built a couple of apartments in a nearby village and we would use the sale proceeds as our 'pension'. We got a purchaser via the internet, a Spanish architect from madrid looking to invest in the Algarve. We had a phone call from his Portuguese lawyer who arranged a viewing with his client. He liked the villa and wanted to proceed with the purchase at the full asking price €585,000 euros. He said he would be requiring a mortgage and arranged for Baniff bank to send a valuer round. In the meantime on 30th June 2006 I sent copies of my passport, fiscal number , habitation licence, the deeds etc. A young lady came round on behalf the bank did the valuation and all seemed fine.
In September the lawyer rang to say the bank had granted the mortgage and he qwould be intouch soon so we could sign the promisory contract. This event never took place. After numerous phone calls to the lawyer and various excuses I assumed the deal had fallen through. In October I returned from a business trip in Turkey to find a fax from another lawyer asking me to contact him as he had something of importance to me. I assumed that the purchaser had instructed another lawyer to act on his behalf....WRONG. Thgis lawyer told me that the Spanish guy and his so called Portugues lawyer were in fact fraudsters and part of a gang who were going around falsifying documents and obtaining the mortgages from the banks with no intention of buying the properties or indeed paying the loans back.
My signature had been forged to give them Power of Attorney and my house no longer was in my name and it had a €300,000 mortgage on it. In January 2007 we had a notice posted on our front gate by the bank saying the house would be repossessed because of outstanding mortgage payments.
Fortunately the lawyer who had brought this to our attention had put a 'freeze' on our deeds so the bank could not repossess the property. The police caught the gang and I had to go to the Criminal Court to give evidence. In the meantime the Banif Bank had taken proceedings, a Civil Case against me, saying I was involved, to get their money back or take the villa. After 4 stressful years, the loss of all our investments to live on, a nervous breakdown and several bouts of ill-health we won the case against the bank and was cleared of all involvment concerning the fraud. This was in April 2010. Great, now we can get on with our lives again and sell the house.....WRONG....Now in February 2011 we are still waiting for the 'Final' paper from the court with the 'official' stamp on it to say that The house can be put back in my name and the charge to the bank removed. Of course the value of the house has dropped about €100,000 but we still can't sell it until we get this letter from the court. We have been living in our apartment and renting the villa for holiday lets to generate some income while waiting to get our house back. Portuguese Beaurocracy!!!!!