Hi, my first post!
I have seen some places that look interesting to me around Arens de Lledó, but several of the Estate Agents haven't replied yet as elsewhere in Spain! I guess many have moved on but still have there sites running and adverts on other servers.
It seems that land around there is less than 1000 euros an acre with olives etc on it and ruins, is this correct? Is it a good/bad area in general and what is it like for planning permission and legality of buildings?

I believe this is Aaragon province just over the border from Catalunya, near Horta De Sant Joan? Maybe you should contact Julie, a regular on this site. She knows this area and may be able to help
What are you looking for? This is fairly 'cut-off', rugged, beautiful and a long way from the Costas, not for the fainthearted!!!

I would strongly recommend coming out in January and February, before committing to anything, If the land is cheap its for a reason. It all depends on what your plans are.
It can be very cut off and cold and wet up there in the winter.

I have sent you a Personal Message

And don,t forget the snow in winter and the mickey mouse roads up there ,but saying that its fantastic scenery,  very close to the Pyrenees " Pic d Estats" highest peak in Catalonia, Andora, French border,  santander is closer for the ferry from UK ,in all I say go for it :)

Unfortunately I can't reply to personal messages until I have ten posts.
Well I am looking for somewhere green and not expensive, and the Costas do not appeal, well not the mish-mash of concrete buildings anyway. And Barcelona is not too far away. Are the roads not ashfelted up there? I read it averages 7 degrees in winter. Also I want to be not too far from a major international airport, not an airport that just serves tourist areas. So any advice would be welcome.

Ask these people - they live there...
http://estrellalayka.webs.com/

Plenty of photos to show you what it is like. It's in Dutch but use google translate. It does a VERY good job for the Dutch language (or use google chrome - turn translate options on) and if you contact them, they speak English.

They also have a caravan to rent so it could be a good base. They do act as unofficial estate agents  ... BE CAREFUL on this one. Read some more of this forum before committing and take legal advice for your own sake. Nevertheless, it's in the area you want.

John.

Anyone thinking about buying "rural"at the moment would have to be a lunatic . Just making an enquiry will have the sharks circling for the kill . I bet you are already being groomed . Be very very very careful .

Please explain, why would rural be worse than urban?
I am certainly not being groomed as yet, too few agents even bother to reply to requests for information on properties.

I think what the last reply was trying to say. If the estate agents don't strip you to the bone then the next parasite the lawyer will try and finish the job but don't worry if they don't the local authority will certainly finish the job. You'll soon find that the robbers/rouges, of which there are many will seem like armatures to you. So do take care.      

So how do you avoid these pitfalls, find a property at a realistic price and avoid being ripped of by all these people?

wrote on Jun 15^th, 2011 at 10:57am:

Please explain, why would rural be worse than urban? I am certainly not being groomed as yet, too few agents even bother to reply to requests for information on properties.

Those agents you talk of probably dont exist anymore.
The only advice worth taking is only go on good solid referals right down the chain,do your home work,do it again,and then watch out.....

Hi. I think the best advice is to hear what the agents say, but check out what they tell you at the local adjuntaments office.
They will tell you exactly what you can and cannot do on any piece of land providing you give them the polygon and parcela number.
They are the only people who will give you the truth.. Also use a solicitor, agents will tell you, you don't need one, but I think most people here would say, you might live to regret it if you don't.
I'm living here and loving it, so good luck with your search [smiley=vrolijk_26.gif]

Thanks, I wouldn,t buy a house in the UK without a solicitor, so it would seem foolishness to go it alone abroad. Do you make a living from cherries?

No. just pin money. When we bought 6 yrs ago, we had 1600 trees, so a very big concern, but had to leave it to British 'friends' having all the fruit to sell,  in return for looking after the trees for a whole year, before we could move out.  They looked after the trees by starving them of water and cutting them down in the autumn to sell the wood, for fuel...  (easier work than picking cherries and more money. After he had cut down and sold 1000 trees, he went back to the uk >:(. So now we just pick what we can, and enjoy the money it brings in. We still look on the bright side, enjoy living here, and have many really really good friends.
Always look on the bright side of life  [smiley=vrolijk_26.gif]

Surely you could have had a grant to replant?
How much on top do you receive from the EU?
We were in Crete a few weeks back, there they were making upto 14000 per 100 olive trees per harvest, plus 16000 from the EU in subsidy, obviously the original 14000 is mostly subsidy too but not direct. However much of the land is derelict orchards because many prefer not to go to the trouble of harvesting and just get the 16000 instead! Go figure, paying people to do the harvesting is still only a fraction of the 14000!

We get nothing in grants, never applied. We came here for a happy retirement so just happy to live and let live, and enjoy the sun.

Going back to the original thread what I meant was that a good proportion of the rural properties sold over the last decade or two have had problems getting the correct paperwork etc for resale. The owners in a lot of cases did thier homework and paid for legal advise and double checked with the relevant local councils. A combination of dodgy "estate agents " crooked officials at the local councils, lawyers who have mis-led buyers and retrospect government laws have left a lot of people in deep s---t.
As far as I am aware those homeowners who bought on " urbinisations " have had no problems gaining the relevant paperwork for resale when needed. ( unless somebody knows different )
Of course it is your money and your dream and you are free to do as you please but there are many on this forum and the rest of Spain who would say proceed with caution. I repeat be very very careful .

I take your point, but how can you have a property that is on an urbanisation and still live in the middle of your land? Are there better parts of Spain or is this now the case all over?

wrote on Jun 15^th, 2011 at 5:25pm:

We were in Crete a few weeks back, there they were making upto 14000 per 100 olive trees per harvest, plus 16000 from the EU in subsidy, obviously the original 14000 is mostly subsidy too but not direct. However much of the land is derelict orchards because many prefer not to go to the trouble of harvesting and just get the 16000 instead! Go figure, paying people to do the harvesting is still only a fraction of the 14000!

Either the folks in Crete were pulling your leg, or Crete must be the place to move to.
Any money from crops here is for pin money, that is why the land is so cheap. I have 106 olive trees which are worth more as firewood than as olive oil. Fortunately I dont need the trees to provide me with an income  :)
Whatever you are told you will not be able to support yourself from a plot of land here through olives grapes cherries carobs or even cucumbers.
I would strongly recommend coming over at different times of the year and seeing what its really like. Holidays are one thing and living day to day is another.
You mentioned 7c average temp in winter...does that mean 14c in the day and -7 at night.
It all depends on if you want a back to nature type holiday or if you want to live here.
And rural is best anytime :) :) :)

Have sent you another PM.  No need to worry about the 10 posts.

Well they do produce virgin olive oil and the land is very expensive especially if it has productive olives or other crops. As I understand it Spain is better known for eating olives rather than quality oil.
Are you registered with the EU? Your olive orchard most certainly will be and I would be very surprised if someone is not claiming a subsidy for your land (does any local farmer do you a favour such as cutting weeds or do you pay someone?). Checking it out should be easy as it should be available on the internet for all to see also you can see what your neighbours are receiving in subsidies, that might come as a shock. By law all farmland has to be registered with the EU and all businesses working the land such as yourself, otherwise you would probably be liable for fines for collecting things from the wild and selling them which is a relatively recent law going through or passed, I only heard about that one a year ago!

I think you have to come here first.
Laws here are only relevant sometimes, if it suits the locals.
EU stuff...well....who knows.
I heard that this year is last of the olive producers EU grants. What will happen next year.
Olives were 0.96€ kilo 6 years ago they were 0.33€ if you could get it this year... Dont rely on making a living from the finca. In live on an organic farm producing my own needs apart from petrol and gas and the odd bottle of beer and wine, and straw for my donkeys.
What do I know?
Go for it and enjoy :)

That seems to be the case everywhere, local councils do what they want regardless of the law for example.
The subsidies are up for review in 2013, if they are stopped 96% of British farmers will go bust (farmers weekly figures not mine). Two thirds of the current EU budget goes on farming, many farmers have been making a fortune, smaller farmers have still been making good money particularly in the med region. It is possible they will cut the subsidies, they are also in talks to bring about free trade with South America, how many farmers, beef or otherwise could compete with them? The agricultural subsidies are to be replaced by subsidies for rural businesses that create employment, if an area will not even allow people to build houses how much money will it receive from the EU, zilch I expect. By the way Organic farms and farms that produce local specialities, rare breads etc receive very much higher funding, as do those that have rare plants growing.

wrote on Jun 15^th, 2011 at 2:20pm:

So how do you avoid these pitfalls, find a property at a realistic price and avoid being ripped of by all these people?

Do you think that 1,000/acre is a realistic price ?

I would say 1000 euro an acre is very realistic. Four years ago I had figured out the same price and could have bought many finca's in that pricerange. Prices haven't really going up since ;-) Of course there is no 'house' included in this price, just a ruin.

The main problems you will encounter will be with building something on such land. It is not impossible but you will have to consider if you have the time, money and spirit to go this way. The easy road is to pay some more for a finca with a legal building already on it.

Good luck, Mark

wrote on Jun 15^th, 2011 at 9:52pm:

Checking it out should be easy as it should be available on the internet for all to see also you can see what your neighbours are receiving in subsidies, that might come as a shock.

Any idea where? Is there a website? Anyone know?

Nigel wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 8:06am:

wrote on Jun 15th, 2011 at 9:52pm: Checking it out should be easy as it should be available on the internet for all to see also you can see what your neighbours are receiving in subsidies, that might come as a shock. Any idea where? Is there a website? Anyone know?

I'd like to see this too.

It simply is not possible to make a living from small fincas here. Look around and you will see a lot of scrubland. If you could make a good living from the land this scrubland would all be planted with crops of various types. The fact it isn't should tell you something!


I was also under the impression that EU grants were only available if you had more than a certain amount of land. Many fincas here are only small plots of land way under the amount required to get grants. I will look into this when I get a chance.

John, there are also payments not to farm, there are payments to build things and also payments to knock them down! Crazy it seems but that is the way it is.
Tracking down the relevant Spanish site is proving difficult but I'll see what I can do.

OK this is not the official site and it took me a few tries to even open the page ; http://farmsubsidy.org/ES/location/0/aragon/

This shows an average. Plus whatever they receive for the crop.
From what I read Spain is one of the worst offenders for hiding the data, so maybe someone with very good spanish could locate their agricultural department website and the relevant area?
However looking into these figures if they are true I must apologies as these figures are incredibly low by what I have seen in other countries on the official sites!
Looks like the cooperatives and some companies are taking the lions share, but they should then be sharing it out to their members, shouldn't they?

wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 10:37am:

OK this is not the official site and it took me a few tries to even open the page ; http://farmsubsidy.org/ES/location/0/aragon/ This shows an average. Plus whatever they receive for the crop. From what I read Spain is one of the worst offenders for hiding the data, so maybe someone with very good spanish could locate their agricultural department website and the relevant area? However looking into these figures if they are true I must apologies as these figures are incredibly low by what I have seen in other countries on the official sites! Looks like the cooperatives and some companies are taking the lions share, but they should then be sharing it out to their members, shouldn't they?

Here's a couple of useful links. One to the   European Commission > Agriculture and Rural Development > Funding opportunities page
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/grants/index_en.htm

And one to The Spanish Ministry of Agrigulture (English page)
http://www.marm.es/en/

I haven't had time to look deeply or see how to apply but I'm sure that together we can work it out.

Maybe we should open a new thread just for grants?

I'm at work and have to get back to it now. so Maybe do it later?

Bigyin wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 12:01am:

wrote on Jun 15th, 2011 at 2:20pm: So how do you avoid these pitfalls, find a property at a realistic price and avoid being ripped of by all these people? Do you think that 1,000/acre is a realistic price ?

If as John has pointed out money can not be made then the land has no value other than as hunting ground, probably about 100 euros a hectare in that case! Land is a commodity of sorts, if you can't build on it or make money from it, it ceases to have any quantifiable value.   
So I want a piece of land to build-renovate a house on and have a smallholding and make a partial income from it, if I can't do that then the land has no value to me and I wont buy it.
What would you pay for land that you can do nothing with, why would you hand over money with no possibility of it making a return on your investment?                           

wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 3:14pm:

Bigyin wrote on Jun 16th, 2011 at 12:01am: wrote on Jun 15th, 2011 at 2:20pm: So how do you avoid these pitfalls, find a property at a realistic price and avoid being ripped of by all these people? Do you think that 1,000/acre is a realistic price ? If as John has pointed out money can not be made then the land has no value other than as hunting ground, probably about 100 euros a hectare in that case! Land is a commodity of sorts, if you can't build on it or make money from it, it ceases to have any quantifiable value.    So I want a piece of land to build-renovate a house on and have a smallholding and make a partial income from it, if I can't do that then the land has no value to me and I wont buy it. What would you pay for land that you can do nothing with, why would you hand over money with no possibility of it making a return on your investment?

hi if you are looking to make money (a return on your investment )then i wouldn't bother to buy lots of us have spent 100s of euros here in spain and are now loosing out (haveing to sell less than the price we payed and after spending lots of euros doing the places up too thats what happened when we sold one house in feb) we invested over 450,000 e here and we wont break even when we have sold the last house  :o we will end up with less than we came with and thats not good is it ?but i wish you well and buy carefully dont jump into buying untill you are shaw its what you wont

Nen is right.

You won't make a living from your crops, you probably won't be allowed to put new dwellings up if it's the same as in Catalonia, and you probably will pay more for your land than it is really worth!

Having said that, many people buy land here for the lifestyle they can have, for the sunny climate, the laid back way of life etc.

It's not all about making money. I know that if I sold my land now, I would get less than half of what I paid for it 7 years ago when land prices werre much higher and crops were worth more.

I sometimes burn my crops in the log burner! Why you ask? Simple.. logs cost much more to buy than I can get for my almonds.  If I sell my almonds and spend all the money on logs I will be out of pocket. The almonds burn like wood, and cost far less!

Most of the time though, I just let them fall to the floor and let them rot. It really isn't worth investing the time or money to harvest them. Harvesting by hand is a back breaker and investing in the equipment to do it mechanically will cost more than you will likely  recover in your  lifetime!

Hi Nen, well property prices in the UK are dropping by upto 25% a year, I have sold 2 and it is a cash only market in many places although I do know of someone who got a mortgage after '8 months' having put down a 60% deposit and security of another property. There is no reason yet to believe that this will not continue for a few years yet.
Yes it is lifestyle I am after but I have a young family and need to make money too to pay the bills and so on.

There's no way you will make enough money off the land to keep a family.

You might be able to supplement your income by growing some of your vegetables
(presuming you have a water supply nearby - not everyone does), keeping chickens for eggs/meat etc. but you will simply not earn enough money from your crops to live. You will need a proper sustainable  income from elsewhere.

You could always re-invent yourself as a builder, estate agent or fishing guide as many others have done before you  ;D

If you don't speak Spanish (and/or Catalan if you are in Catalunya) you will almost certainly fail to find work working for any Spanish company. I don't know what your skills are, but you will almost certainly need to be self employed doing whatever you do.  An income from agriculture is really a non starter.

Nigel wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 10:10pm:

You could always re-invent yourself as a builder, estate agent or fishing guide as many others have done before you  ;D

Or a donkey breeder/ dealer. I know a guy wants 2 of em ;D

Bigyin wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 7:35pm:

There's no way you will make enough money off the land to keep a family.

Not if you do what everybody here does (produce low quality products for the coperativa) But making money is possible if you do something different. In Pinell de brai for instance there is an English couple that do things different. They make high quality products and export these directly themselves. Seems they are doing quite well:

http://www.donferrantiwine.com/where_we_are.php
http://www.ferrantioliveoil.com/index.php

Welsh actually. Gwyn Jones, one of my customers.  He has his own hotel (St Marys Hotel) and ships the wine back to sell there. He has invested a huge amount of money into producing wine in Pinnel de Brai, it's well woth a visit (they do guided tours of the 'Wine Cathedral'.

Thank you El Alto, people obviously do make money out of agriculture or they wouldn't be doing it. I recently heard of a British farmer who has moved from Greece to Spain because he could buy a larger farm, he was on one of the islands and couldn't expand anymore where he was. He also pointed out that the locals had not moved with the times and wouldn't even invest in labour saving methods.

My word they do have a good profit margin, can't say I am not envious, good luck to them!

I know of a two bedroom legal house with a 150 olive trees and a large stocked pond being sold off with a fishing boat,website and customer base. Cat fishing business. They have kept the finca beautifully. Makes my place look a bit shabby.
Bruixot

Nigel wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 11:35pm:

Welsh actually.

Welsh? That is something like British Catalunya isn't it? For a Dutchie it's just the same island  ;D ;D ;D

If properties are already registered on the deeds as ancient country houses does this mean they will get planing permission for reform or are they still useless with this new law?

After much reading and research I have to agree that anybody would have to be a lunatic to buy any property at the moment, anywhere! I am finding that properties in the UK are becoming a great deal cheaper and are going to go off the edge of a cliff in the next couple of years, some areas are getting realistic and some are still in the clouds.
Here is a heads up of what the future prices may be like around europe, an auction in Germany for you; http://www.dga-ag.de/katalog/29/
if you like castles and big houses look at lots 148, 149, 150 and elsewhere, the start price is usually what they sell for in these German auctions, if they sell at all!
So thank you all for your advice and best of luck.

The only way to live off the land is to forget agriculture and think outside the box,so to speak.I'm thinking of a opening up a women only,naturist trampoline school.(it was somebody elses idea but I stole it)

Will it be undercover?

Yes and heated in the winter.
Strictly members only though.

I could sort out a pay per view website for this should you wish.
My interest is purely financial tho

Might need to protect those olives though...

http://files.dsng.net/uploaded_images/trampoline-738407.jpg

;D