Buying and renovating a ruin in Spain

Cortijos in el campo

Whenever we venture out, we see old farm houses that are not lived in and are just standing empty.  Walls are cracking, windows are broken, but often the doors are still locked with a big padlock.  We always wonder why there are so many of these here in el campo.  One of the explanations is that this is related to Spanish inheritance laws.  It is sometimes impossible to find the owner, or there are too many owners who can’t agree on what to do with the house, or how to divide it. 

• A typical for sale sign

It’s a real shame, as most of the cortijos have enormous potential, but need investment of time and money.  It’s likely that many of these houses aren’t officially up for sale, and unlike in the UK and the Netherlands, there are no official ‘for sale’ signs, except occasionally when there’s a home-made board with simply the phone number of the owner.    So far, we’ve managed to resist temptation …

An expensive wreck

When five years ago we first visited our house in Fuente del Conde, our estate agent took us on a little drive to show us around the area.  At some point, we stopped at a big house, overlooking Iznajar lake.  The location was stunning, but the house had been abandoned for a very long time.  The story goes that it was up for sale for many years for an eye-watering €600,000.  There’s clearly some history behind this, and five years on it’s still here, still up for sale and worth less as every day goes by.  Even if it had been in a perfect state of repair and fully modernised, a price tag of €600,000 would be rather far-fetched! 

• An expensive wreck
• with an amazing view

And then there’s the story of some tourists who’d been on holiday around here, and seen a wreck from the road and decided that was the place for them.  Its position was great, on top of a hill and overlooking the Subetica mountains.  They found the estate agent, visited, bought it, and were never seen again.  An interesting impulse buy …

• Impulse buy – view from the road …
• … and close up

Ghost estates

At the turn of the 21st century, Spain decided to invest in new housing developments.  Apparently, in a ten-year period, Spain built more new houses than the UK, Germany and France combined. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the builders stopped working, and developers defaulted on their loans.  The number of empty houses in Spain is estimated at more than 3 million, and they are too unprofitable to sell and too expensive to demolish. 

Abandoned motel by the side of the road

We’ve seen it for ourselves, in a small development on the main road near Tapia that had never been finished, and so we decided to have a look around.  The buildings were a shell of a motel with a number of small apartments around it.  We decided to come back one day to have a further explore, but before we could do so, the site has been redeveloped.  And instead of a ghost estate, the Spanish authorities have knocked down the building structures and built a much needed water culvet that will protect the nearby village from flooding.  A very good use of this plot of land, and it creates a much more positive feeling than seeing this abandoned group of dwellings by the side of the road.

In the old days

A few weeks ago, I walked around our neighbourhood with a local friend.  She is learning English and I am learning Spanish, so we always end up with an interesting mix of the two languages!  She has lived in the area for a long time, and explained that near to where we live, there used to be a number of houses with dozens more families living in the area.  This was confirmed by a retired postman, who used to deliver mail in this area on horseback. 

Place for washing clothes

There’s nothing left of these houses now, but we did find an abandoned well where they used to wash their clothes.  I guess there’s a lot of history around here that we still need to uncover.

Restoration projects

For anyone who wants to buy and renovate a ruin, there’s lots of advice on the web. In our Podcast 54, Carrie, spoke about their impulse buy in Galicia and how they’re loving the renovation process for their old farmhouse. Good renovation tips include: meet your local builders face to face, get a number of quotes, speak some Spanish, have an understanding of what building materials are available locally (the Spanish yeso is very different from English wall plaster, and we haven’t been able to find stabilising solution anywhere near us) and ensure you have the right licence to build.  

Sometimes it’s not clear if a house is abandoned or not …

The most valuable lesson for me: be around for decisions.  When we had work done on our Spanish house prior to moving here, the builder sent us pictures of marble floor tiles to blend in with our sitting room floor, and they looked really great – on the phone.  In reality, they looked terrible and we had to get the work re-done.  We waited until our next visit, when we could talk with the builder face to face, and visit a few tile shops to get the tiles right. A good lesson to learn, and the floor tiles now look great.

Great floor tiles (with some great cats for decoration!)

I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas, and so this is my last blog for the year.  Here’s hoping for a 2021 with much less Covid and more freedom of movement, though even with strict lockdowns, the decision to live in Spain has been a good one!