The Dark Side Of Spain

Honest is a world away

2008-12-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

Its true !!! It just doesn´t exist in this country. People make an special effort to tell lies, about everything from trivial to big ones. Its as if the listener has no intelligence and can´t see what the hell is going on,and if you happen to be a foreigner its even worse ,they treat you like an idiot.I have traveled a lot round the world and have seen many countries and nations doing the same thing but they all belonged to the under developed or very backwarded countries . They all tend to take advantage of you as soon as they notice you are not one of them,or don´t speak the language or not very fluent. They just bullshit you until you´re sick of it , and thats about everything speacially when it comes to money and material things.Spain is no exception although there are exceptions!!!! But generally speaking they just lie through their teeth to dump you something.
My wife teaches English, if a student does not want to turn up ,the number and type of excuses are astonishing, that is if they have the courtesy to call, but they are always the same ,someone is dead is the most popular.

what a hell this is

2008-12-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

It has been hell for the past week. They have been digging roads for several months for water tubes.It may sound good for houses with low water pressure specially in summer where every house waters plants and grass while there is a serious danger of drought ,totally ignoring the incompetent government´s warnings over water shortage,but who cares,the spanish need their car clean,fuck the environment and other people and other regions suffering from water shortage.
what is the matter with these people?why are they so ignorant towards the rest of the country?why can´t they just care a little bit more?why can´t they just be considerate ? Anyhow they have been digging everywhere to lay water pipes but the whole fucking neighbourhood has been cut off from the rest of the world. It takes more than 20 minutes to just find your way out of this stupid maze the idiots have created. I called the town hall and played hell,what do I get? Did you not get the letter to inform you of the works that would take 3 fucking weeks? yes I did I said, you stupid imbecile but would that resolve the situation I asked? How can old and frail come to their homes? walk for 400 meteres every time they go to doctors?What should people do with tonns of shopping you piece of shit?
There is no common sense in this country,there is no one who gives a shit about people and the town hall is full of these shit heads.
Every day you wake up with a new headache that you really can do without.Every day you encounter a problem created by a bunch of useless people in charge of running the country who have absolutely no clue about their job and their rudness is above all annoying.

Dog shit country

2008-12-02T03:13:00.000-08:00

Civilization the spanish style !!!!!
Everywhere you look is covered with dog shit.You can not walk on any pavement no matter where and not see a pile of dog shit. These people have no shame about this absolutely ridiculous and unhygienic situation. I have to walk very carefully so that I don´t end up cleaning my shoes of a load of fresh dog shit. The spanish love canines apparently has blinded them to the fact that it makes them look total imbeciles and idiots.Imagine keeping 3 or four large dogs in an appartment and everyday having to take them for walkies to do their job on the pavement in the city centre or take them to anywhere but front of their own house not realizing that someone else would do the same thing and they all end up with a pile of shit in front of their drive.
It is so stupid.You would see even educated people doing this.Is this really civilized behaviour? Can they really call themselves Europeans? Do they really live in Europe?Are they or can they be part of a civilized europe? Can a nation be so stupid and self centered to let their dog shit all over this country?well they are doing it every day.Every idiot has got a few dogs large and small, and constantly barking at anything that passes.Talk about noise pollution. No wonder this nation is sick and backwarded.Even animals have more respect for other animals in remotest places of Amazon!!!! Animals live happier than this miserable nation.All you have to do is to live within their communities to discover the extent of their misery and sadness.Imagine tens of dogs barking at the same time at any time of the day and night.Can anyone have peace and quiet? Of course not.You must live in this country and by that I don´t mean where tourists stay,I mean where Spaniards live to see and feel the level of noise pollution.It is like living in a zoo,n fact a zoo is quieter than Spanish towns cities. Anation of absolute no ethics and no manners behaving like pre historic men.A nation that is driving a country in to shit hole.

2008-02-04T04:14:00.001-08:00

Shame on you,you are a disgrace to humanity

The above picture is another show of level of civilization is Spain .Look at these stupid thugs thinking they are ridiculing Lewis Hamilton.And they consider themselves as Europeans?. Read the story,

Racist thugs hurl abuse at Lewis Hamilton during test drives in Spain

Racist motorsport fans who hurled abuse at Lewis Hamilton could cost Spain its Grand Prix if they strike again.

A group of Spanish spectators blacked up their faces and wore wigs and T-shirts daubed with 'Hamilton's familly' (sic), before hurling abuse at the Formula One star at the weekend.

Witnesses said the group shouted "black s***" and "f****** blacks" whenever Hamilton made a pitstop at Barcelona's Montmelo circuit, as he tested a new car on Saturday.

Banners with insulting slogans aimed at Hamilton were removed by stewards. The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has condemned the behaviour and threatened Spain with punishment if further racism is reported.

An FIA spokesman said: "FIA are surprised and disappointed at the abuse directed at Lewis Hamilton.

"An act of this kind is a clear breach of the principles enshrined in the FIA statutes, and any repetition will result in sanctions."

Test team manager Indy Lull said: "It is not right the way Lewis is being treated."

Hamilton is unpopular in Spain due to his tense relationship with former McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso last year.

Many Spanish fans see Hamilton as the reason Alonso quit the McLaren team early to re-join Renault after a pit-stop incident at the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Spain is set to host two Grand Prixes this year - the Spanish race at Circuit de Catalunya in April and the European Grand Prix in Valencia in August.

This latest incident isn't the first time Spanish sports fans have been accused of racial abuse.

In 2004, English football players Shaun Wright-Phillips and Rio Ferdinand were subjected to monkey chants by some Spanish spectators at a friendly in Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.

FIFA fined the Spanish football association £44,750.

The same year, Spanish football coach Luis Aragones was fined £2,000 by UEFA after he was filmed calling French Arsenal player Thierry Henry "a black s***".

Last year, Aragones successfully appealed the fine.

In October, Spanish Motorsport Federation president Carlos Gracia claimed he was surprised a "racist" country such as Britain had chosen a mixed-race driver to represent them.

He said: "It is perfectly normal for a British team and British fans wanting to succeed in formula one but it is ironic that the racists in England are having to rely on a coloured pilot."

2008-01-31T08:11:00.000-08:00

Agony of car registration

I eventually decided to register my German plated car .I bought the car three years ago and every time i wanted to change the registration to Spanish some hurdle came up.They ask for really stupid stuff.One amazing thing in Spain is that although Franco is dead and gone but his images are everywhere.By images i mean you always see characters asking you for really none sense information that has absolutely got nothing to do with them nor the job your are doing.The number of papers you end up holding in your hands are enormous,like a bloody thick book and thats just for changing registration of a car.They come up with any excuse to put you off and I mean anything.Anyway i am determined to finish this.day one started with paying the first tax,purchasing tax at 4% of the value of the car.Went to the Hacienda to pay it,what pay?are you kidding?you don't pay here oh no we don't accept money you have to get the form fill it in and then go to the bank and pay the sum.where is the office?the other end of Valencia. Now the banks don't accept any payment after 10.30 am so it will have to be tomorrow.
My wife paid the money to the bank the day after and off we go again to the office in another town to find out and with a little luck pay the freakin tax at 7% of the value of the car for importation but I asked this car is from Germany and it is second hand so all taxes have already been paid why sjould I pay another tax? Ah he say with that stupid look beer stinking breath ,no this in not tax,so what the fuck is it then?it has a different name in Spanish,really?very clever.Well he says it can't be done now or here,you'd have to do it on the internet, What?
You sound as if 99% of Spanish housholds have internet connection,oh another thing ,it can not be done from a netcafe has to be private.fuck me!!!!
Came home went on the internet and got a fucking stupid code.The day after went back to see what this time?The idiot was not there and had to find another wanker again stinking of alcohol at 10.30am.
What do I do with this code now I said to the wanker,he looked as if i was talking Arabic.He has no intention of telling me what to do, just watches me in total silence.Please don't bother me now I am too pissed and need a nap so be kind enough and come back in twenty years time.fuck off now.
Gave up and decided to give it to a gestor(go between) who promised to do it in 2 days,bull shit,2days my foot,in this shit hole third world toilet nothing can happen in 2 months never mind 2 days and I know soon or later she is gonna come back to me and make 100 excuse to bump up her share.
I am absolutely pissed off with the fact that no one wants to work in this country,just get paid and do the minimum possible.People's time and money is worth nothing here.its worthless but they are used to this shit and nobody seems to complain.
I'll let you know what happend next.

2008-01-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Corruption in Spanish politics

Earlier reports that corruption in Spain could be in decline were rather optimistic if the number of possible cases of political corruption being reported by the Spanish media are anything to go by. The list seems to be endless, and every week lately new cases of possible bribes, illegal commission for building licences, unchallenged illegal building developments etc. come to light.

Most of the corruption cases center around real estate speculation and development. Yesterday Cadena Ser reported that Spanish police had found 13,000 illegal constructions in Spain in the past year and a half. Here are just some of the corruption charges in the news at the moment:

Corruption in Marbella: The biggest case of corruption to be uncovered in Spain so far. A police investigation into money laundering and drug trafficking in southern Spain codenamed operation white whale and involving phone tapping overheard conversations between politicians in Marbella which led to a parallel investigation being set up to investigate bribery, corruption, manipulation of public tenders and compensation for illegal building licences. Over 150 police participated in "Operation Malaya" and six months ago over 20 people were arrested, including the then Mayoress and Deputy Mayoress of Marbella. The investigation is still going on, and the profits made by people participating in this massive network of corruption is expected to be millions and millions of euros.

Corruption in Madrid: The authorities of various town halls in the suburbs of Madrid are suspected of accepting commissions for allowing building to be developed on protected land, accepting commissions or being involved in the purchase of cheap land where building is not allowed, then modifying the urban laws so that building becomes legal, and then reselling the land for huge sums of money to property developers. Earlier this week it was revealed that an uncle of the President of the Region of Madrid made an enormous profit on land which was re-catagorised as building land shortly after he bought it a few years ago.

Today El País publishes a conversation held 3 years ago in which a former PP councillor of Tres Cantos, Madrid, in reference to the concession by the Town Hall of a massive property development to a private company is reported as saying "I want my 11 percent of the 30,000 million" (pesetas)"Give me the dough and I'll go". According to el Pais, the ex-PP councillor has acknowleded the declarations but said they were made in the heat of the moment. Meanwhile the same paper today reports that two former mayors of another Madrid suburb, Ciempozuelos, this time from the Socialist party, recently paid 916,000 euros into personal bank accounts in a bank in Andorra. The PSOE party forced the current mayor to resign when the public prosecutor ordered an investigation into possible irregular operations in the urban policies of Ciempozuelos last week and the Socialist party has announced a "Zero-tolerance" policy on urban corruption on all sides.

Corruption in Avila: Earlier this month building on a golf course in Avila was bought to a halt after ecologists protested that the developer - a private company set up by the local and regional administration - was ignoring a court order to stop cutting down trees in a protected area.

And the list goes on.....

2008-01-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

63 year old Briton, Len Prior, who has a heart condition, collapsed at the scene as the demolition took place on Wednesday

British pensioner, 63 year old Len Prior, collapsed onto the ground as demolition men moved in to knock down his home in the La Loma area of Vera, Almeria on Wednesday. He is known to have a heart condition. He and his wife purchased the retirement property in Vera unaware that they were entering into a network of corrupt builders and lawyers who allegedly paid backhanders to local officials.

The Priors were told that their home had planning permission, and Mayor of Vera, Félix López, agrees they were given permission in 2002, but the Junta de Andalucía insists the building was erected illegally on rustic land, and the Judge agreed with the regional government and ordered demolition. The local Mayor told the local Ideal newspaper that he is very angry at what has happened, saying it has made Vera the illegal development scapegoat in Almería province.

The Councillor for Public Works of the Junta, Luis Caparrós, said that the Andalucian Government had respected the order of the judge which was firm, and that by doing so legality had been restored. A total of 17 homes in La Loma de Vera face demolition.

British newspaper The Daily Mail claims the couple was given just two hours to get out of their home. Wife Helen Prior, also aged 63, said that thankfully the neighbours helped them to get all their possessions out in time.
It’s thought to be the first case of a British owned home in Spain to be demolished in such a way.
Tho following is the comment from a Spaniard:
Would you buy a home in Spain? Anyone who even thinks about it needs their head examining. We have a Prime Minister (idiot) who is merrily looking the other way while his ship of state sinks into recession right under his feet, and a so-called justice system that allows local politicians (thieves and liars) to change or manipulate the rules to suit themselves. I hope this tale of corruption, greed, and blatant disregard of Len Prior’s human rights finds its way to the front page of every newspaper in Europe.

2008-01-17T06:32:00.000-08:00

Bullying and Violence in Spain

The term "bullying" was first introduced in Spain in a pioneer study that came out in "Bullying an International Perspective" edited by Roland and Munthe in 1989. Since then there have been several studies undertaken in Seville by Prof Rosario Ortega and in Madrid by myself. A third study was done in the city of Murcia. The results of the different surveys allow us to say that "bullying" is a hidden and subtle problem in all schools in some degree with varying percentages from one questionnaire to another, from one school to another, but cause of public and private concern.
more click here: http://www.gold.ac.uk/euconf/posters/spain.html

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2008-01-17T06:24:00.000-08:00

Guardia civil in action

This is the Spanish Guardia Civil "supporting" an illegal eviction by local right wing government of Eivissa. The eviction is to allow this government to build an up to 8 lane highway that crosses the entire island from one side to another and mortgaging the entire island budget for years.
Enviromentalist wore nothing but their hands to face the aggression.

2008-01-17T06:19:00.000-08:00

A very British coup: The Brits running for election in Spain

Story from Daily Mail

They don't speak the lingo and insist on English food. But expats on the Costas are so fed up with Spain's corruption and crime they're out to seize power in tomorrow's elections - and the locals are running scared.

Bob Houliston is an unlikely revolutionary in an unexpected setting. His clipped tones, neat shirt and immaculately pressed beige slacks suggest the career diplomat that he once was in postings as far apart as Brussels and New Delhi.

"This is a capital of corruption," he states, staring balefully from under a cafe parasol, across a picturesque beach, on which a number of his fellow countrymen are attempting to get an early-season tan.

"The current mayor can't stand again because he is under criminal investigation.

"The previous one was convicted of corruption, although he's managed to avoid jail, of course. We aim to shake things up around here. Get rid of the rotten political culture."

Tomorrow, as the head of a new party, Mr Houliston hopes to be at the forefront of a democratically elected root-and-branch change in the local government of a major European country.

A perusal of the candidate list may suggest that this is taking place in the Home Counties; Crawford, Blake, Edwards, Ince and Lewis are all found among scores of very British surnames.

But this is not Bexhill-on-Sea nor Bognor Regis. This is Orihuela near Alicante, and Britons like Mr Houliston are hoping to take office in town halls all along Spain's Costa Blanca and beyond.

Why? Because they believe that they can run this part of Spain better than the Spanish.

Until now, some 750,000 British expat residents here have not shown a great willingness to integrate with the local Spanish population or adopt their lifestyle.

Only a very small number speak the language, they still tend to mix with other expats and use British-owned shops and businesses.

In their "barrios Brittanicos",they used to take little part or interest in the local politics which determine the world around them.

After all, most had come to retire and forget about that sort of thing.

That apathy is changing in a remarkable fashion. They are becoming politicised.

After ploughing all they own into Spain - only to suffer rising crime, poor infrastructure, indifferent schooling for their children and above all iniquitous laws and official corruption linked to property ownership and the rapacious construction industry - many of the Brits here want to take action.

One of the biggest causes of discontent on the Costa Blanca has been the so-called "Valencia land-grab laws", which allow property developers to apply to local authorities for rural land to be redesignated as urban.

These bizarre regulations have seen thousands of expats with country homes facing the threat of compulsory purchase orders on their properties or large bills to subsidise the buildings of new roads and infrastructure around them.

Thousands of expats have also discovered that their properties were built without proper planning permission, often on land designated as green belt.

These are now threatened with demolition or confiscation by central government. Many new homes don't even have access to running water.

Yet expats are rashly buying them unseen "off plan". The common denominator in all this has been the venal relationship between builders and elected officials willing to turn a blind eye for a backhander.

Now comes the reckoning. As EU citizens, the British have been eligible to vote in Spanish local elections since 1999.

Tomorrow, when Spain goes to the polls for countrywide local and regional government elections, an unprecedented number of Britons - more than 100 - will be standing for public office.

Several hundred thousand more expats have registered to vote, mostly on the Costas and Balearic Islands where their communities are focused.

This is no statistical footnote. In 15 electoral districts along the coast here, foreign-born residents, mostly from the UK and Germany, now outnumber the Spanish. Multilingual posters and leaflets are everywhere.

And, as the expats' concerns and problems are shared and suffered by many of the native-born voters, a number of very powerful new political alliances are being forged.

Many of the Spanish are equally sick of the endemic political corruption and chicanery, which recently, for example, saw the entire Marbella local authority sacked after a scandal over property developments.

Through sheer weight of numbers - the system of election is proportional representation - the British have got clout and are, at last, about to use it.

But, predictably perhaps, as the decades- old status quo is being challenged by "the outsiders", the campaign in some areas has got very dirty indeed.

Anonymously produced pamphlets have targeted at least one leader of a British-dominated party. Accusations that some Brits want to turn Spain into a Little England are muttered by those already in office.

Thousands of voter registration forms, which are necessary to allow expats to take part, have never been delivered.

The reason? "Buildings are going up at such a rate that many have yet to be approved and be given street names or numbers," says Mr Houliston.

"People live there but officially they don't exist, so they can't vote.

"It's scandalous for a modern European country."

The La Marina residential development near San Fulgencio, a couple of miles inland, is a strange and fascinating place.

Locals say that it is the largest of its kind in Spain, if not Europe. And judging by the five cranes hovering over the high-density mish-mash of architectural styles, it is still growing, with or without planning permission.

Typically Spanish it is not. Garden gnomes bask on front porches in the midday heat and elderly men in shorts walk collie dogs, perhaps later enjoying a burger and a pint at Dreams Bar.

At the supermarket, where "English bread" is on sale, the woman at the check- out says to a customer:

"See you later, love," and her friend replies: "Ta-ra, now." On the noticeboard, British plumbers, builders and electricians advertise.

La Marina has been described as a British ghetto. Most of the 8,000 or so residents were born in the UK and in tomorrow's election could play a crucial part in changing the balance of power in the San Fulgencio municipality, which has only 10,730 residents in total. In 1999, just 3,000 Brits lived here.

The current proportion of foreignborn residents - 80per cent - is the highest in Spain. And like elsewhere in the Costas, they are about to exercise their power.

A new political party called AIM will field 13 candidates, nine of whom are British. Among other manifesto pledges, they are lobbying for better schooling for their children.

More than half of the local school intake is English-speaking and some parents claim that if their children can't speak Spanish they are simply ignored.

As it is, they are taught in temporary cabins because there is not enough room.

The expats also want more police officers, better public transport and medical care, and, most provocatively perhaps, the town hall and school to be moved to La Marina, where 80per cent of San Fulgencio's population resides.

The target of their ire, sitting in his office in that disputed town hall, some three miles from La Marina, is the mayor of 12 years' standing - Mariano Marti Sanchez.

At first, when we meet, he is blandly welcoming of the new expatdominated party. But gradually his annoyance becomes explicit.

"When you move to another country, you should not try to colonise it," he says. "We have our own language, flag and culture and you cannot change it.

"I have spoken to the British Consul about the British failure to integrate and she said to me: 'The first stage is for them to learn Spanish, but they don't want to.' "

He fumes: "You go into English restaurants in La Marina and the menus are in English only, which is illegal. And it is divisive."

A little later, over at La Marina social centre, an AIM "fiesta" is being held. Petula Clark is belting Downtown from the PA and a large Union flag hangs next to its Spanish counterpart.

When darkness falls, there will be fireworks for the largely retired British gathering.

Over a soft drink, the party's mayoral candidate, Spanish-born Manuel Barrera Garcia dismisses Senor Sanchez's criticisms, and says: "Corruption is everywhere. The opposition want to stop us at any price.

"Someone has even been spreading pamphlets saying that I am a sexual deviant and a criminal, which is not true. We are not afraid of this mafia." (He has also been hauled into court accused of ripping down his opponents' election posters - a charge he also denies.)

His number two is Mick Blake, a retired civil servant, aged 59, from Cambridge. He says:

"Some residents have been encouraged to see us as outsiders by the authorities who have been running the place as a family business for decades and using us as a cash cow.

"There is no infrastructure here to reflect the money we have put into the country. We know where the money goes. . ." He slaps his back pocket.

"This place has got to be roused from its time warp." Not all the Brits agree with each other on who is to blame for problems.

Don Falcone, 46, moved to San Fulgencio from Chippenham, Wiltshire, a year ago with his wife and three children.

Two months ago he was behind a protest against poor schooling in the area.

He said: "We have been extremely disappointed with the secondary school. The primary school has been fine, but our two teenagers, aged 13 and 15, have had serious difficulties.

"Obviously, they spoke no Spanish when they arrived and we were told they would have special Spanish classes to ensure they picked up the

language properly and did not fall behind.

"But they have just been left at the back of the class and, at best, ignored by the teachers.

"My 15-year-old daughter now won't go to school because she's so upset by the racism she's had to put up with in class - from the children and the teachers."

Tony Cabban, from Tonbridge, Kent, is sitting in a cafe in the charming Old Town district of Javea, which the Madrid elite has long considered to be the jewel of the Costa Blanca.

It is an hour's drive north from Alicante, past the high-rise disfigurement of Benidorm. You would struggle here to find a single "kiss me quick" hat or advertisement for egg and chips.

Yet today, of the 31,000 residents of the municipality registered, the majority are expats of 86 different nationalities. By far the most represented are the British, of whom there are 7,500.

Mr Cabban, a 65-year-old retired chartered accountant, is one. And, having in the past founded an organisation to fight the Valencia land-grab law, he is now the vice president of the Nuevo Javea party, which is fielding five Britons in its list of 21 candidates.

Why does he think that expats are standing and voting here in record numbers?

"It has nothing to do with integration," he says. "I would guess 99 per cent of the British here don't speak Spanish, other than to order a beer or a meal.

"The reason people are taking part in this election is that they are very, very disgruntled about the way things are run.

"On a basic level, the town is dirty, the transport system poor, the administration chaotic. And the political system is corrupt. A lot of Spaniards run for office to serve their own self-interest.

"We have a current mayor for whom the prosecutor is demanding eight months' imprisonment and a suspension from public office for seven years. The previous major is in the same position.

"All three main Spanish parties are mired in corruption involving building projects. A recording was recently made of two building companies bidding for a contract. Some £200,000 was offered in bribes during these meetings.

"I have lived and worked in the Congo, which was good training for politics in Spain."

He claims there is resistance in some quarters to the British and other foreign nationals taking part in the political process.

"But the people here have to remember that they got rich from selling land to us and building our houses.

"Most of us do not have any place back in the UK. We moved here and our home is here. We work, we pay our taxes, spend our money and have the same interest in things being right as the Spanish."

And that, whether the local political elite like it or not, is modern European democracy.

It remains to be seen whether, if elected, these sons of Albion can run another country's councils better than we can run our own.

2008-01-17T03:15:00.000-08:00

Land of lies and deceit

Many years ago back in the UK I read an article about judges salary.I was shocked to see the figures as they were extremely high,then one day I had an appointment with my solicitor to discuss a case with him,when our business talk was finished I asked him why are the judges getting paid such high salaries.He replied "to avoid corruption".He saw me confused so continued that if the judges get a decent salary and have a good standard of living then there won't be a chance of them taking a bribe or become corrupt.Well thats fair enough and totally understand and agree with that.After all we all see injustices but the courts and the judges are our last hope.

however in Spain it is a different story.Judges are normally the low paid lawyers who have had little experience if any.So their only hope of a full time job is to become a judge and because the system does not really give a shit what happens to the people as long as they window dress the judicial system to show that they have an independent judicial system and please the rest of the European countries and the European Union .

even the corrupt lawyers admit that the judicial system is rife with prejudice and discrimination and racism and corruption.True,they have nice buildings for the courts and nice robes and videos in every court and all the rest but the bottom line is that the whole system is corrupt and is falling apart.If you sign a contract with a Spanish contractor make sure it is water tight because if there is anything overlooked by you and you have any dispute with the contractor it is almost guaranteed that the judge will pass his judgment in favour of the Spanish .
This is the land of lies, deceit,dishonesty and bull shit.Do not believe what you hear from them no matter who its from.

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2008-01-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is typical of the sick, corrupt, dispicable, unfriendly and self financing face of the Spanish

By Leslie Crawford Published:

May 13 2006 03:00 | Last updated: May 13 2006 03:00

Lieve de Clippel and Hubert van Bel spent 18 years carefully restoring their villa on the Mediterranean, joining four 18th- century farm buildings into a single, 1,000 sq m home that overlooks a terraced valley of orange groves and almond trees. The couple, antiques dealers from Belgium, travelled the length and breadth of Spain to find materials for the restoration: stone columns, antique doors, old oak for the beams and 300-year-old terracotta tiles for the terrace. It is now a stunning home that would not look out of place in the pages of Architectural Digest or House & Garden. Tall, gently swaying palm trees mark the highest point of their estate, which has dramatic views of the Rock of Ifach jutting out of the deep blue sea at Calpe, on the Alicante coast. But thanks to Valencia's controversial town-planning laws, Lieve and Hubert's home will probably be razed to the ground, and their 30ha property carved up into tiny plots for a new housing development.

Last November, the couple received a letter that shattered their lives. It informed them that the municipality of Benissa, to which they belong, had approved a new housing development for 104 homes to be built on their property and the terraced slopes of the adjoining valley, known as Coma del Pou. According to Valencia's town-planning laws, existing landowners do not have to be consulted before new housing projects are approved. Land can be confiscated with only minimal compensation, and landowners may be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of euros for the "urbanisation" of their plots, even when services such as roads, piped water and electricity already exist. Thousands of homeowners have been affected by Valencia's "land- grab" laws, and the problem is spreading as other regions, including Andalusia, Murcia and Madrid, adopt similar town-planning regulations. More than 15,000 affected landowners have banded together to denounce Valencia's town-planning regulations before the European Parliament. Last month the European Commission took note and began legal proceedings against Spain to force the government to correct breaches of EU law contained in the Valencian law.

For the moment, the Commission is concentrating on the fact that housing projects in Valencia are not put out to public tender in violation of EU public procurement laws. But other actions could follow. In addition, Irwin Mitchell, a large UK law firm that specialises in human rights cases, is preparing to challenge Valencia's land- grab law before the European Court of Human Rights. All of this, however, may come too late to save Lieve and Hubert's home. Because town halls do not make town plans available to the public, Lieve and Hubert had to pay €550 to a notary public to obtain a copy of the Coma del Pou "urbanisation plan". It confirmed their worst fears. Not only was their property to be carved up into 17 plots; there was no trace of their house in the plans submitted by the property developer. By some mysterious, and as yet unexplained sleight of hand, the land registry office had deleted all records of the 18th- century dwelling. "I took along the tax receipts I had paid on our property over all these years," Lieve says. "But the land registry officials just shrugged their shoulders. They said it would take months to investigate the matter." With no proof of their home's "existence", Urba-Benissa, the company that will develop the Coma del Pou housing development, will be free to raze the property, replacing a meticulously restored villa with 17 identical, pastel-coloured holiday homes.

If Lieve and Hubert want to keep part of their land (about half of it will go to the property developer and the town hall), they will have to pay more than €1m for services they already have, such as roads and sewerage. "This is legalised robbery," says Hubert. "The property developer does not need to show proof of financial solvency to propose a housing project. Urba-Benissa has a paid-up capital of just €3,000, but it will be able to kick-start the project with the fees and land it confiscates from existing landowners. The company will start with our property because it has the best sea views. It will be under no obligation to finish the entire 104-house project. And then original landowners, like ourselves, will have no one to claim compensation from even if we were to fight this in the courts." Lieve and Hubert have filed challenges to the urbanisation project with Benissa's town council, but received only threats in response. Juan Bautista Rosello, Benissa's mayor, warned Hubert that the more they complained in public, the less chance they stood of keeping their home. Rosello declined to be interviewed for this article. But it is clear that Spain's 10-year-old property boom - heavily concentrated on the Mediterranean coast - has inflated the ambitions of the Benissa mayor, who recently raised his salary to €50,700 a year - more than the earnings of a supreme court judge. Rosello's latest plan is to create a suburb of 2,000 homes along a new ring-road around his small town (population: 11,700). The ring-road will be wider than an airport runway and have palm trees planted down the middle. The new houses will be built on the land of nine farmers, who will have to contribute €22m towards the €30m cost of the project. If they don't cough up, they will lose their land. Lieve and Hubert, meanwhile, are close to giving up the fight.

They are planning to return to Belgium, where they are building a house. "Even if we saved our home here, it would break my heart to see the Coma del Pou valley destroyed. I do not want to live surrounded by identical holiday homes," Lieve says. Alicante becomes drier, more desert-like, the further south you travel. The Moors built an oasis at Elche, diverting the brackish waters of the Vinalopo river into a network of canals to irrigate a lush green forest of palm trees, which is still there and is now a UN world heritage site. Real estate developers have shown no such sensitivity towards their environment. Due to the construction boom, Alicante's coastline is paved in concrete, and developers are now attacking the dry, barren hills behind the coast. Maria Harling (not her real name), a retired nurse from London, settled here to escape a cruel relationship. She thought a warm climate would be kinder to her health after suffering two heart attacks in the UK. She did not have much in the way of savings, but found a modest bungalow with an orange grove close to La Granja de Rocamora, just south of Elche. Maria enjoys pottering around her citrus trees and cooking fried fish in her open-air kitchen. She was the first black person to settle in the village, but says she encountered no racism and quickly made many Spanish friends. In January this year, La Granja de Rocamora's town hall approved a housing development on Maria's orange grove and surrounding farms - but not before friends and relatives of the mayor had been let in on the scheme and had begun to acquire farmland at rock-bottom prices. (Maria says water for irrigation was cut off last year to lower the value of farmland in her district.)

Municipal governments have the authority to reclassify "rural" land into "urban" land, making it instantly available for development. When land is reclassified, its value can increase more than 100- fold. With building land increasingly scarce, reclassification has become the biggest racket on Spain's Mediterranean coast. Municipal officials take bribes to reclassify land, while friends and relations are tipped off to buy rural plots earmarked for reclassification so they can make a killing overnight. "I can't get hold of the title deeds, but I can tell farmers are selling because they are buying new cars," Maria says. Francisco Rocamora Bernabeu, deputy mayor and the cousin of mayor Jose Ruiz Rocamora, admitted in an interview he was "a small landowner" in the area earmarked for development. He said it was "likely" that Procumasa, a big Alicante building company selected to "develop" the new housing project, was also buying. The area has not yet been reclassified "urban" because the housing project is waiting for clearance from the Valencian government. Rocamora Bernabeu insists that the plans were discussed at a meeting with landowners "about a year ago", and that a vast majority of the affected property holders approved the housing project. But neither Maria, nor any of her neighbours, were invited to the meeting.

Ruiz Rocamora, the mayor, has told Maria that half of her orange grove will be confiscated for the housing development, and she will have to pay €240,000 towards urbanisation costs. "At my age I cannot take out a mortgage on my property, and if I don't pay the urbanisation costs, the mayor says the property developer can confiscate a further 40 per cent of my property," Maria says. "What will I be left with then?" Her neighbours, Jan and Maurice Leach, are also retired and, like Maria, are living with the threat of expropriation and huge "urbanisation" fees. The uncertainty has taken a severe toll on their health, and they were too unwell to be interviewed. But in a letter, they wrote: "We found out about the urbanisation plan by accident. We cannot believe a law would be so cruel. The town hall says the urbanisation agent will take 50 per cent of our land. NO PAYMENT. They want €18,000 per 1,000 sq metres for infrastructure. We already have water, sewerage, electricity, street lighting and a pavement. They want €24,000 from us to build a road at the back of our property (we do not need one as there is one at the front). "They say that should we be unable to pay these charges (and we cannot) they will take the rest of our land and possibly our house. What do we do then? We have no other property here or in England, and no funds to dig into. We only have our monthly pensions. We could end up homeless." Spanish families are also affected by Valencia's land-grab laws, but they are wary of protesting for fear of upsetting town hall officials who are generally powerful figures in small communities. Some mayors rule their towns like private fiefdoms - dispensing jobs, contracts and favours as the whim takes them. Spain is a young democracy, and few public officials, particularly at local level, feel the obligation to be accountable to their constituents. "We feel totally unprotected and abandoned," says Teresa (not her real name), whose family farms 40ha in La Granja de Rocamora. All their income comes from raising young cattle and chickens, and from selling cereals, oranges and some vegetables. "When the housing scheme is approved, we will lose the right to farm here, and we will have to hand over half of our property to the urbanisation agent, Procumasa, which was handpicked by the town hall. We will be forced to pay for the entire costs of urbanising our land, even though half of it will be expropriated. I cannot afford the €1.5m bill. So I have only two choices - sell my land to Procumasa, at a price it dictates, or find an independent buyer. But who will want to buy my land with that kind of liability attached?" Procumasa is the fourth-largest builder in the province of Alicante. Its website advertises the company, in English and Spanish, as "a leading company in promoting and developing new residential areas". But a spokeswoman said she had no information on the Granja de Rocamora housing scheme. Nor could she confirm that Procumasa had been buying farmland in the area. Maria says that since the development scheme surfaced, she "lives, eats and dreams urbanisation". She would like to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but after two heart attacks, she doesn't think she could stand the pressure of a prolonged legal fight. It is pointless to fight the property development laws in Spain. Magistrates rarely authorise injunctions to halt construction of a disputed development, and when they do, it is usually for just a few days. "There is no redress for aggrieved property owners through the Spanish courts," says Chuck Svoboda, a retired Canadian diplomat and Benissa resident who founded Abusos Urbanisticos No ("No to Urban Abuses") to fight town-planning corruption on the coast. Chuck Svoboda is a tireless campaigner, a phenomenal networker and a thorn in the side of Rosello, Benissa's mayor.

Without him, Valencia's town-planning laws would never have come to the attention of the European Commission. His lobby group now has more than 17,000 members. Svoboda says Valencia's town-planning laws have transformed the region into "Ruritania on the Med". "You cannot halt the bulldozers tearing through your property with a court injunction. If you refuse to pay the 'urbanisation fees' demanded by property developers, your house is embargoed. And you cannot sell your house and walk away from the nightmare, because the moment a new residential plan is approved, your house will lose all its value," he says. Svoboda says Valencia's town-planning law makes no attempt to define the "public interest" - the only legal argument in Spain that justifies the confiscation of property. "The fundamental flaw with the law is that responsibility for town planning is handed over to property developers, who are allowed to initiate schemes and propose new areas for development. As a result, it is not the public interest that is being served, but private profit." Imaculada Rosas, a property lawyer in Marbella, agrees. "The costs of legal action against property developers are prohibitive," she says. "A magistrate could take a year just to read your petition. It could be 10 years before he hands down a sentence, by which time the properties are already built, the new owners have moved in, and the property developer, in all likelihood, is no longer in business. So there would be nobody responsible for paying compensation even if the courts did find in your favour. There is no redress for property abuses in Spain. "Criminal proceedings are rarely pursued against property developers," she says. "A judge will often ask for an administrative court to rule whether building permits are valid or not, and this also takes years. "The legal system is bankrupt. The law is not responding. We need special courts to act with speed against corruption in the construction business."

The plight of land-grab victims, however, has come to the attention of Irwin Mitchell, the British law firm. It has now lodged land- grab cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, with the intention of setting a legal precedent and establishing the grounds for more cases to be determined in favour of victims of abuse. Normally, land-grab cases would have to work their way up the Spanish legal system before being heard at the European Court of Human Rights. But Irwin Mitchell argues that the Spanish legal system is so slow, that "justice delayed is justice denied". Based on this principle, the Strasbourg tribunal is being asked to examine the grievances of property owners in Spain. Irwin Mitchell believes town-planning laws in several Spanish regions violate human rights. "There is the right to the peaceful enjoyment of private property, and the issue of timely access to justice," says Hugh Robertson, a lawyer with the firm. "The abuse of town-planning laws often hits people who can least afford to fight back: old people, retired people who live off their pensions and cannot afford to pay the urbanisation fees demanded by property developers or meet the cost of litigation."

Last month, the Spanish government took the unprecedented step of dissolving the city council of Marbella, a somewhat jaded Costa del Sol resort, following the exposure of a construction racket run by town planners. So far, more than 20 suspects have been arrested, including the mayor, Marisol Yague, and Juan Antonio Roca, the former town-planning chief. Roca, who is being held in prison awaiting trial, is accused of building a €2.4bn empire with 120 front companies that invested the bribes he received for granting thousands of municipal building licences for illegal property developments. Prosecutors allege that Roca approved 600 housing developments during his time as chief town- planner, receiving in return at least 10 per cent of the villas, flats or land involved. Police have also seized 340 works of art, a live tiger, 133 thoroughbred horses, a helicopter and two palaces in Madrid that belonged to Roca and his associates. Prosecutors estimate that 30,000 illegal homes have been built in Marbella in the past decade - of which 4,500 face court decisions on whether they will be demolished or legalised. Most of these illegal buildings were sold to unsuspecting holidaymakers.

Spain's Socialist government has made clear that it wants to stop the rot in Marbella, the most notorious example of the construction-fuelled corruption that has infected municipal governments along the coast. The only surprise is that it has taken prosecutors so long to act. Other resorts are coming under investigation. What remains to be seen is how far the Spanish government will go to halt the town-planning abuses that have lined the pockets of officials, undermined public faith in local democracy, and caused so much misery to tens of thousands of Spanish and foreign property owners.

Leslie Crawford is the FT's bureau chief in Madrid

15th May 2006

2008-01-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

Here is another story from an expat

“What a ridiculous and naive take on moving to a new country??!!
In the first instance Spain is in fact one of the worst countries for relocating due to the relentless red tape and beaurocracy that is involved in purchasing property. It is also notorious for many a dodgy deal happening with unscrupulous sellers (apparently the ex-pat Brit is often the culprit) selling properties with all manner of debts attached to them which automatically become your problem. Furthermore, you’ll never actually own the land that your home sits on and therefore can be moved on at any point in the future should the Spanish government decide they want to build a through road right across your land (as with friend’s of my parents).
Work is hard to come by and badly paid. As for teaching, I myself am a qualified English Language Instructor and Spain is one of the lowest paid countries to secure well payed employment (in comparison to living) and it’s not uncommon for people to be paid the same rate whilst working in a bar (again crap pay).
I have been fortunate enough to have travelled extensively and to have lived in many different countries and I have no hesitation is saying that Spain is top of my list for worst places to live (unless of course you’re happy to live in an ex-pat ‘Eldorado’ community). Whilst I do have many Spanish friends, my own personal experience of the Spanish themselves was that they are an unfriendly, unhelpful hostile bunch who do little or nothing to make the tranistion less painful. I had even arrived with a job, enrolled for refresher language classes and communicated soley in Spanish.

Yes, people do move there in there droves but many come back to British shores with only the shirts on their back due to rushed, hurried decision making and lack of a comprehensive plan.
I almost sold up before my last trip there having had many an enjoyable holiday and I’m so glad that I held on to my investment across here instead. As far as Spain is concerned the days of an easy buck in the sun are well and truly over!!”

2008-01-14T06:21:00.000-08:00

Spain's female Wyatt Earp in the dock: Marbella's anti-corruption

Read it for yourself and see the level of corruption that runs in the core of this country.(Atrticle from the independent)

FOR Blanca Esther Diez, a 31- year-old judge from Marbella, tomorrow's will be her toughest case and the outcome is out of her hands. The judge will be in the dock, challenged by a system she has fought to prove is riddled with corruption.

Formally, she is charged with dereliction of duty and revealing details of a case. If found guilty, she would be the first judge condemned on such charges in Spain's modern history. That could mean two months in jail, suspension for three years and a fine of 100 million pesetas (nearly pounds 500,000 ). Her Marbella home has already been 'embargoed' - held as collateral - to cover the possible costs of the trial.

Effectively, someone one is trying to run her out of town. When Judge Diez, from the northern Asturias region, then only 27, hit Marbella four years ago, it was as though a young female Wyatt Earp had blown in to clean up the town. Thousands of Marbellans have marched in her support and five leading citizens are approaching one month on hunger strike, demanding an end to judicial corruption.

'The Spanish Inquisition continues, quite literally,' said one of the hunger strikers, a retired businessman, Fernando Rosado, 62. 'Justice in Spain is the best money can buy. There must be some honourable judges but they are cowards. By being cowardly, they're protecting the corrupt.'

For once, when the British tabloid press refer to the Costa del Sol with their favoured Costa del Crime headlines, they are not wrong. British, Italian, Arab and other high- flying criminals, live and operate here in style, flaunting their wealth with large yachts at the nearby Puerto Banus marina. Judge Diez believes she has found out some of the reasons why.

She compiled dossiers that she said linked former judicial officials here with the Sicilian Santapaola Mafia clan. Her dossiers suggested illegal laundering of Italian Mafia money through the purchase of art works, antiques and, especially, property.

Based on investigation of past cases and judgements, as well as sworn statements from witnesses who wrote to her supporting her anti- corruption stand, Judge Diez's dossier centred on one of Marbella's most influential figures, a former judicial official called Juan Ramirez. Mr Ramirez's exact profession has never been clear, but he worked in the local courts and often acted as a legal adviser to accused persons.

Mr Ramirez, in his sixties and known to some business associates as 'el flaco' (Skinny), is also the father of one of Ms Diez's fellow Marbella judges, Pilar Ramirez, and of a local lawyer, Juan Carlos Ramirez. Judge Diez's lawyer, Luis Bertelli, contends that, under Spanish law, such family ties are illegal in a town of fewer than 10 judges. Marbella has seven judges, including Ms Diez. Mr Bertelli also says Mr Ramirez has acted as a lawyer illicitly since, according to Mr Bertelli, he has no qualifications.

Mr Ramirez has long been a friend of Carmen Proetta, 50, a resident of San Pedro de Alcantara, near Marbella, and the key witness in the 1988 SAS killing of three IRA terrorists. Ms Proetta has said she acted as an interpreter for Mr Ramirez in cases involving Britons.

Acting on witnesses' allegations, Judge Diez ordered Mr Ramirez's phone legally 'bugged' in January last year. She later ordered him jailed in 'preventive detention' pending trial, on suspicion of involvement in the fraudulent sale of a Marbella casino.

After two months inside, another judge - not his daughter - ordered Mr Ramirez freed without bail. Mr Ramirez made a formal complaint against Judge Diez, a move that automatically led to her suspension and tomorrow's trial. He accused her of dereliction of duty and of revealing details of his case. She denies both accusations, saying Mr Ramirez and corrupt colleagues are trying to get her off their patch.

According to Mr Bertelli, the phone tap revealed a close friendship between Mr Ramirez and Jose-Luis Manzanares, vice- president of Spain's General Council of Judicial Power, the legal watchdog body appointed by parliament.

That relationship has turned the judge's trial into an event of national importance.

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2008-01-14T01:48:00.000-08:00

Corruption: Spain's battle against the bad eggs

This is the kind of judicial system i was referring to but they insist that its only a few bad apples.in my opinion the whole judicial system is full of them but they are not caught yet because they are paying their dues regularly.

As former judge is jailed for bribery and extortion in the country's worst judicial scandal, Graham Keeley reports on what Spain is doing to prevent high-level political corruption.

Former judge Luis Pascual Estevill was jailed for nine years and fined EUR 1.8 million after being convicted of leading the largest corruption racket discovered in the Spanish judicial system in 25 years.

Estevill, a former judge in Barcelona and one-time member of the General Council of the Judiciary, was found to have accepted bribes and helped run an extortion racket between 1990 and 1994.

A former high-profile Catalan lawyer, Joan Piqué Vidal, was also sentenced to seven years imprisonment and fined EUR 900,000 in relation to the case.

According to the court ruling, Estevill and Piqué Vidal abused their positions to demand backhanders from businesses involved in lawsuits.

The extortion allowed them to accumulate hundreds of thousands of euros in bribes over the four-year period.

As part of the sentence, they have been ordered to compensate victims with amounts ranging between EUR 3,000 and EUR 90,000.

Several other people found guilty of participating in the scam, including Estevill's son, were fined and sentenced to up to one year in prison.

This is just the lastest in a long line of high-profile scandals in Spain.

Determined to put a stop to the rot, the Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has announced plans to introduce code of conduct in public life.

It will mean the crusty titles to which Spanish officialdom has been attached since the time of Don Quijote are to disappear under the rules of 'good governance'.

No longer will ministers and senior officials be addressed as 'exelencia', but as plain senor and senora.

The ethics code, which could be in place by the middle of next year, will aim at 'transparency and austerity' in public life.

Politicians and officials will be expected to hold only one job, rather than accumulating many positions, as some do at present.

And they will not be supposed to hold any outside position that limits their availability or dedication to their political work.

Politicians and senior officials will be expected to reveal their wealth and place their investments in a blind trust. They should accept only nominal gifts where courtesy demands it, and refrain from ostentatious or inappropriate behaviour.

The new code of conduct comes after Spaniards told an international poll on corruption that they believed their politicians were the most corrupt section in society.

To many an outsider, this might seem a predictable reaction; politicians are never the most popular characters in any society.

But a look at recent form would explain much - Spain has been dogged by scandals. Indeed, a series of high-level political scandals were what did for the last Socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez, who lost power in 1996.

Here we detail the major scandals of recent years.

The ex-secretary of state for security

The crime:

Rafael Vera was finally jailed in October for seven years for paying out bonuses to personal contacts and stealing up to EUR 5 million in one of the biggest scandals of the Nineties. He still has the support of Gonzalez, who asked for him to be pardoned. It was originally claimed Vera was involved in the 'dirty war' against ETA in which a number of leading politicians became embroiled.

The punishment:

Ordered to pay back EUR 3,876,525, he has had had three houses and property seized but these do not cover this sum.

The banker

The crime:

The Gescartera brokerage house collapsed and its main shareholder Antonio Camacho was jailed in 2001 after EUR 108 million of clients' money went missing. He used the money to pay for gifts and 'bought' jobs for staff at the Spanish stock market regulator and pocketed the rest. One junior minister was forced to resign.

2008-01-14T00:33:00.000-08:00

Is Spain really a civilized country?

Don't think so and this is not only me saying it there are many Spanish people who admit to this fact..at least the have this much honesty and dignity.you only have to look at the judiciary system and the police. As a matter of fact right up to this point that i am writing i do not know who the councilors or members of the parliament or European members of the parliaments are and where do they operate from.Back in the UK normally they have a surgery so you make an appointment to go and discuss your problems .but here its a mystery.I have tried time after time with no success.apparently these guys just disappear in the darkness moment s after the elections,they've done the big job(elected)now is the time to have fun.the people or the their constituency well fuck them.I tried to contact a councilor in the town hall to discuss the noise pollution created by dogs.to this date(after 3 years) I still don't know the person is or what he looks like.this is the version of democracy in sprain.
The police are fantastic.there is a roundabout near our house that on the roundabout there is a school.every day around 5o'clock in the afternoon people stop basically everywhere and anywhere to pick up their children which is dangerous but who cares its only a few lives.but then police arrives and orders the drivers to move on only to park exactly on the same spot.I have seen hundreds of times that police cars are parked in the round about where i was given a ticket for doing the same thing.are they above the law? you bet.you ask a police officer about a point of law and i promise you that you'll be given ten different answers and this clearly is the level of their knowledge and training.
well what can i say about the judicial system here in Spain.the previous article says it all.but I'll add a few things.once inside the court my lawyer made it clear that my wife and i did not speak Spanish very well so its necessary to have a n interpreter but the judge flatly refused and the two most important witness's testimony were totally ignored and the judge very conveniently used this disadvantage against us and we lost the case.
in the hearing the police lied ,the expert lied the doctor lied and the stupid judge knowingly and willingly accepted their version where there was no our version.
you have to be extremely careful.

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2008-01-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

The Spanish Legal System

The legal system in Spain has considerable differences from the British system, it is therefore imperative that independent legal advice is sought.

It is fair to say that the system is slow and inefficient and frequently in the headlines with stories of abuse and scandal. Judges and lawyers are often accused of taking advantage of their positions and using the system to suit there own personal desires. It is also fair to say that litigation in Spain can be expensive, frustrating and therefore if possible best avoided. Its been reported that as many as 160 legal actions are brought each week to the Spanish Courts that specifically involve property purchase issues, most of which it has to be said will take years to resolve. Throughout Spain the courts have backlogs of many thousands of pending cases many of which will take several years before they are heard. The system is literally jammed to capacity.
A couple of years ago in an attempt to reduce the massive backlog Spain introduced a new system which involved appointing judges from within their own profession. Junior lawyers we invited to become judges but the mediocre salaries which went with the job inevitably meant that those lawyers with successful practices continued in their law firms whilst the less successful, and arguably less competent became judges.

Finding a good lawyer is not easy and needless to say it’s better to find one who speaks reasonable English otherwise you will also need to employ a translator, which is not a very satisfactory arrangement.

It is basically a joke but becuase our politicians conveniently call a just system then it is!!!Is it?My foot.

You want to open a bank account?

2008-01-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

You need a bank account to pay your bills but watch out

You most likely will need an account but before you open it make sure you read the fine prints as usual and pay special attention to commissions.The banks here rip you off and to get your money back is virtually impossible.Basically because the judicial system here stinks of corruption.Don't forget corruption and deceit is a way of life here .It takes ages to get anything done and that is if you get it done after months or even years .Do not listen or believe what you hear from lawyers or police officers,they are full of bullshit and will tell you anything to get your money.they'll abuse your lack of knowledge of Spanish.Spain is one of few countries in europe that recruits from criminal.I am not suggesting that they actively search for them and employ them but since there is no background check on them ,they can be the most wanted criminal in the country two years ago but now he passes the exams and becomes a full time police officer.When it comes to court hearings they can play a big role as witnesses.Imagine you have a police officer with criminal record testifying in court against you and the judge will accept it outright.It is an absolute stupidity but hey you're in Spain enjoy the sunshine!!!!
Three years ago I initiated a court hearing in a litigation case against my landlord in Spain and for this I had to have a lawyer but it had to be one who spoke English so after ours of calling lawyers found in yellow pages i found one.He was a low life miserable bastard who only saw me as dollar sign or maybe i should say Euro sign.when he told me that i had to give him power of attorney in order to take up the case i had no choice but to agree with him so we both went to the notary office to do this .The guy there arranged for the papers and I signed them ,when it was all finished I asked my lawyer about the fee for the service,he told me fifty euros which at the time it was too much for just an A4 piece of paper.I paid the bastard and we left but two months later when I was told by him to do the same thing for my wife the guy at the notary charged me 28 euros.Imagine if a well off lawyer is such a low life what the rest are like!!!
Watch out for anyone offering you any service make sure you have the final price and the list of service all written up.If you don't you'll be at a severe disadvantage if you need to go to court.The judges will do anything to please their compatriots.
They will use any excuse to disallow your evidence,remember you are dealing with crooks,don't think well because the guy is a judge so he must be decent and dignified.These words do not exist here.what sells here is bullshit bullshit and bullshit.You ask anyone about anything they would never say I don't know they'll always give you an answer no matter how stupid it may sound.Estate agents are different story be extra careful with them,I have come to this decision that almost all estate agents in spain must have been criminals just out of jail having no job and very slim chances of anybody offering them a job they open an Estate agent.One of them took my deposit and ran together with twenty five others.Where is my money? god knows.I will tell you about my first encounter with the police who was under influence of alcohol and had illegal tyres.
This country is geographically in Europe but believe me truly belongs to a totally different point on earth ,maybe .......

until later

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The rented house

2008-01-10T01:43:00.000-08:00

What you read here on this weblog is the absolute truth and nothing else.

on 11th of October 2000 we arrived in Valencia and went straight to the estate agents to sign the contract for the house and pick up the keys.It took something like 2 hours to do a simple signing up of the contract.Everything takes time here in Spain.People are exceptionally slow in their work,they use any excuse to stop and if you happen to be in a hurry that can be very frustrating.Got the keys and drove to the house,the weather was still nice and warm.In the evening went for a meal in a local, apparently good restaurant but the food was appalling. The worst Italian food we had ever had.The next day our sons started their school.It was a private English school called Cambridge House run by an alcoholic and a total idiot . Her name was Tracey who promised us to teach the children Spanish in special classes that never materialized. We found out that this person had severe psychological problems and had been admitted to hospital on several occasions yet managed to be in charge of a school.Our sons did not last there long and We decided it was best if they attended a Spanish school . When it comes to public schools in Spain you don't really have a choice and you must pre-register your children in advance to make sure they'll be offered a place at the school but if you decide to send to a private school make sure you visit the school and have a chat with the head master.Make sure he is of sound mind,you'll be surprised at the number of private schools run by people who have serious personality and ego problems.Welcome to Spain.You'll meet many of them almost everywhere. The next job was to open a bank account.This was a big hurdle with our level of Spanish.In Valencia region English (as I am writing this I had to stop and open the window and shout at the next door neighbour's dog to shot up.it has been constantly barking for the past three days and nights which is another story here in Spain and i'll come to that later)is non existent .People here do not speak English and you may find one or two who do but their level is very bad. Come prepared and learn the lingo before you arrive or you'll have an extra hard time.My wife studied Spanish at college back in the UK but even that wasn't enough to get by.Also don't forget that they Speak valenciano which they claim it is a totally different language to castellano.

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Our big move to Spain the biggest mistake

2008-01-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

This blog is for all of you guys who are contemplating to migrate to Spain.I hope that this blog will be the meeting place to share your views and experiences.

We had been thinking of moving to another country for many reasons and one of them was weather,so we decided to put the house up forsale and eventually chose Sapain.Why Spain you may ask,well simply because we had travelled to Spain many times for holidays summer or spring time but I think we fell with loved the culture more than the weather !!Anyway it was too late and maybe too embarrassing to change the long awaited decision.On theday we were packing to move my ten yr old son asked my wife if we were taking everything.I thought maybe he was concerned with his playstation and games and the answer was yes but then to my surprise he repeated his question again and we said of course yes we are taking everything,then after a little pause he repeated the same question followed by the "even the kitchen sink"?I don't think he was being clever but he just saw the sink and thought to himself if the answer was yes and we're taking everything then it would be interesting how and where it would go.
We moved to spain in October 2000.We were all delighted and looked forward to start a new life in sunny Spain.
This was just a little over seven years . I bought a car from Germany,drove it back to UK and then with my family drove all the way to Spain,the "glorius city of Valencia".
The drive was an experience of a life time.We all enjoyed the long drive from UK to spain.A journy of around 2200 km.It took us three days to get here although we decided to stay over night in Paris to go to EuroDisney.
The kids had a wonderful time and all the time I was thinking if this was the right decision and the uncertainty of our future in a country that we had only visited for holidays on numerous occasions.
Driving through France was excellent and the scenary was breathtaking.I personally loved every km of that drive.As we approached the spanish border the weather was a little bit cloudy and as soon as we crossed the border my son mumbld in a very quiet tone "I thought you said that Spain is always sonny".
Yes this was more than seven years ago and to me as I'm writing this seems only like a few days ago.Amazing,isn't it.time flies when you're having a wonderful time!!!!!!!

Read the next posting

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http://www.best-personal-injury.com

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