txt Sunshine, Sangria & Solicitors

Thinking of buying your own little slice of Spain? Read this before you sign anything.

Buying a holiday home in Spain can be one of the best decisions you ever make. Sunshine, warm evenings, cheap flights and your own front door waiting for you whenever you arrive.

It can also involve lawyers, taxes, NIE numbers, notaries, community fees, bank accounts, insurance, exchange rates and considerably more paperwork than appeared in the dream.

SUNSHINE, SANGRIA & SOLICITORS is a warm, practical and occasionally cheeky guide to buying, owning and enjoying a holiday home in Spain — without getting burnt.

Written by K Rickard, a British owner of a second home in Torrevieja, it combines first-hand experience with straightforward advice to help you understand the process, ask the right questions and avoid some potentially expensive mistakes.

Inside you’ll discover how to:

• Decide whether Spanish property ownership is really right for you
• Choose the right area and type of property
• Work out what you can genuinely afford — including the costs people forget
• Deal with estate agents, lawyers, gestores and notaries
• Understand NIE numbers, Spanish banking and money transfers
• Approach new-build, resale and off-plan properties
• Know what to look for when viewing
• Understand deposits, contracts, taxes and completion
• Deal with community fees, utilities, insurance and annual running costs
• Manage renovation, maintenance, security and Spanish weather
• Understand the practical implications of the 90/180-day rule
• Think about healthcare, cars, renting, wills, inheritance and eventually selling

And because buying a home shouldn’t just be something you read about, the book includes a practical My Place in Spain Toolkit with checklists, viewing notes, budgets, useful contacts and plenty of space to record the information that matters to you.

Throughout the book you’ll also find DON’T GET BURNT warnings, WISH I’D KNOWN THAT advice and the occasional SANGRIA MOMENT.

This isn’t a legal textbook, an estate-agent brochure or a promise that buying in Spain will always be simple.

It’s the book I’d want beside me if I were doing it all again.

Buy the dream. Skip the nightmares. Keep the sangria.