In early July 2017, I traveled from my home in Georgia, USA to Sagunto, Valencia, Spain to buy an…read moreapartment as an investment and perhaps as a second home for our family in a few years. I'd followed prices in Valencia province for about five years and this seemed the best time to buy. While an experienced real estate investor in the US, this was my first purchase in Spain, and I decided to find an attorney to advise me. I speak enough Spanish to get by, but the local real estate policies, procedures and terminology were new to me. I read all I could find online about foreigners buying property in Spain, but the reality on the ground is a little different.
I selected Mariló Martínez Michavila on the strength of her website,and was fortunate to find an excellent attorney. She is very knowledgeable, conscientious and hard-working, and has great connections.
My original plan was to spend my 10 days in Sagunto looking for an apartment and applying for a non-resident mortgage offered by Banco Santander, figuring that I might have an attorney close the transaction after I left. I had the cash available to buy an apartment up to around 100,000 euros, but wanted to pursue the mortgage to reduce the amount invested. However, the local branch of Banco Santander refused to accept the mortgage application, even though my credit and financial statement are strong, and I had already obtain the NIE number needed for a foreigner to transact business in Spain. They said it was impossible without an address in Spain, and even then it would be difficult.
After meeting with the bank I arranged a consultation with Mariló and asked her a ton of questions about commissions, taxes, the role of the notario, recordation, procedures and time frames for closing, etc. She was knowledgeable and patient. She told me that if I had the cash available, it might be possible to close the purchase within my ten-day visit. I thought that was unlikely, but I set out on my search. I had studied the online listings in the Sagunto area thoroughly, and had already identified about 20 apartments that met our needs.
Within three days, I identified the apartment I wanted to buy, a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 129 m2 apartment two blocks from the main beach in Puerto Sagunto, listed originally at 94,000 euros. I bought it for 91,000 euros, and Mariló negotiated the contract terms and saved me an amount in excess of her fee in commissions alone. She also recommended a bank that would help expedite the wire transfer from the United States, and the bank staff was simply wonderful.
There were a number of obstacles along the way. For example, the sellers had not disclosed a mortgage that had to be paid off so that the property could sell free and clear. She set up the contract and made an arrangement to cover this, and also found a way so that my wife and I could buy the property in both our names, even though my wife stayed home and didn't have a NIE number. If Mariló hadn't been able to make that happen, my original plan of adding my wife's name later would have cost about 2500 euros.
She executed a number of agreed tasks with great intensity, pulling together everything needed to get the sale closed on time. She was a bulldog in negotiations and got things arranged to our advantage. She made everything happen so that on the last full day of my visit, we met with the notario and closed the sale. She even took care of several things after I left, like opening accounts for electricity, water, property taxes and homeowners' association fees.
The property was leased on August 3, so everything has turned out very well, with all the elements executed far faster than I thought possible.
I can highly recommend Mariló to anyone seeking to purchase property in Sagunto and the surrounding area, and especially to foreign investors. She does not speak much English, and we conducted our business in Spanish, but I asked her if I could recommend her to English speakers, and she said yes. She has associates who speak English, and she will oversee the process to make sure things turn out right.
