We came to rent a villa in spain whilst we had a look around to see what areas we preferred before settling down.
To cover us we agreed to only rent for 4 months in this particular area so if we did not like it we could move on.
We were sent pictures of the property over the internet but were told the outside neaded tidying up and the pool was not yet ready.
We travelled for 3 days to get here to arrive late at night where we were going to stay in a hotel and go onto meet the estate agent the next day.
We rang the agent and said we were due to arrive in the area and the agent suggested we thought rather kindly that she would meet us even though it was out of hours and we could go to the villa straight the way and save ourselves money on the hotel.
Feeling very tired we agreed to meet her at her office where she produced a tenancy agreement with the agreed 4 months on it, we expressed our concern to her that what if we did not like the property and she said oh you will dont worry if you dont we will find something else for you.
With that we handed over our months rent and deposit (also a months rent) and 300 euros agent fee. We signed a tenancy but was not given a copy although we were handed a reciept attached to afew papers which we thought were copies of the tenancy.
Anyway to cut a long story short, we arrived and the villa was indeed finished inside although no hot water.
The pool was not ready, apparently it was left with no maintenance and had to be cleaned and re-filled which happened the day before we arrived.
The outside well…...Is not finished , it is not a garden it is an area of rubble/hardcore with weeds everywhere. The paddock that was described to us as being suitable for a horse or to house our dog in the day if we went out was quite frankly dangerous.
Off to bed we went with assurances the agent would sort things out.
Over the next few days a girl came to do the ‘garden’ she removed lots of weeds which were about 2 feet high and added it to the mountain of weeds in the paddock, both my son and myself were bitten to death when we went into the paddock so that is out of bounds and the agent says she cannot remove the 5 foot high by 10 foot wide mountain of weeds.
The gas cylinder was replaced and still no hot water the boiler man came removed birds nests from it and hooray hot water, 4 days later no hot water again and still no hot water since.
We have 2 villas that surround us that are ‘finished’ and 2 that are empty shells of bricks and mortar and look depressing and erie, apparently building has stopped as builders fell out with eachother,they have been stood there for over 6 months! (motre or less in our back garden)
Our neighbours, lovely english people but have 2 very large guard dogs, i accepted there maybe some snarling at my own dog but when the dogs went to jump the 3ft (yes 3 ft ) wall to attack my little boy that was the last straw.
I cant have my dog out there or my boy when the neighbours dogs are out, infact we have to take it in turns.
Last but not least the house is illegal, we pay no bills apparently the owners owe the builders but there is also some argument with that one too, no wonder we do not have an ‘address’ for our rented house, i would have thought if we wanted nie numbers or residency we couldnt have it anyway. Doesnt that mean we cant go on the padron to enrole our son at school even if we did want to stay in this house because it is illegal???
So i had it out with the landlord and asked him to either find us something else or i would find us somewhere else.
No response since, no call no nothing. I wanted to ask your opinions before i went steaming to their office tomorrow on what i can do to get out this house based on what i have told you. The landlords will not spend any money and the agents have their fee and my deposit. We have found somewhere else and our 2nd months rent is due 23rd july, what do we do? we want out and we want our deposit.
Yes we were stupid enough to sign a tenancy without viewing first but coming from abroad im sure many do , but the house is not what it was made out to be clever agent taking pictures with her camera avoiding the bad areas that were sent to us over the net! and it is dam right dangerous concerning my son and the dogs, everything has just gone so wrong. :(
