Eva at Ideal Property in Alhaurin el Grande pulled through & we viewed three properties in the same week. The first, although close into Coin, wasn’t fully furnished & didn’t have much outside space. The second, right on top of a hill, had more than enough land & 360 panoramic views, but was so far up an unmade lane, it would take ten minute to reach the main road & likely trash the car. The third house was out of town & rural, but not far off the main road & looked as perfect as we’d find with a wonderful view & friendly landlady who even spoke a little English. So we committed to rent for seven months, as six months from 23rd June would be Christmas!
We had to find a month’s rent as deposit & half a month’s rent in agency fees – all in cash! Eva did agree we could transfer Ideal Property’s fee by BACs, but I had to sit in the office to do the online transfer & prove the money was on it’s way from our UK account before she’d proceed with the paperwork!
Next, I wanted to ensure we’d have an internet connection to our new home as soon as we moved in so I could work. Eva had recommended a couple of companies with English speaking representatives, one who didn’t answer the phone, the other who did, but then wouldn’t proceed because we didn’t have a Spanish bank account.
So off to the bank & after a short wait in Sabedell Solbank, we’d opened a non-resident current account with the lovely Susana. Nice & straight-forward!
Back on to Conred for wifi who said an engineer would be in touch to survey the property. He was, the day after, went straight to the address, to report back with a Whatsapp photo to show that trees blocked the signal from the mast. As the other providers would apparently be receiving their signal from the same direction, I resorted to 4G & we took a trip to the Movistar shop to find out more.
We had to go back the following day to collect our activated phone & data sims, then later on, the Movistar engineer called to install the modem. However, he didn’t speak English & our Spanish is non-existent so we waited until the following day when we were signing the rental contract & asked Eva to assist. We signed the tenancy agreement in person with the landlady the day before our rental was to oficially begin & received the keys with approval to install wifi.
Eva helped us to call the engineer & organise for us to meet him a couple of hours later at the local service station & we led him to the house. Only to find we didn’t have keys to either sets of the new gates across the drives leading to the property…
The Dominion engineer was the first Spanish service provider with an impatient & downright aggressive attitude that we’d encountered. All others throughout Spain had been consistently friendly & accommodating, but this guy, who didn’t speak English, wasn’t at all happy. But it was Friday afternoon & he’d perhaps had a trying week…
Eva to the rescue once again. Firstly to speak to the engineer & explain the situation, that it wasn’t our fault & we weren’t actually as incompetent as appeared, then to direct us down a narrow path between fences & past the water tank to the house with the grumbling engineer in tow.
The 4G modem/router was setup & we unloaded a few of our belongings, but as the trek down the overgrown path was awkward, couldn’t empty the car as planned. However, we’d agreed to return in a couple of hours to meet Belen, our landlady, who promised to bring the correct gate keys 🙂
All good.
She did & we unloaded more belongings & although informed we could stay in the house that night, we’d planned to packup & clean our Air B&B home the following morning & move in on the official rental date.
I was once again impressed with our productivity due to the efficient Spanish telecoms providers:
Monday – call Conred & request installation
Tuesday – engineer site visit to notify us they couldn’t assist
Wednesday– sign-up with Movistar
Thursday – return to Movistar shop for activated mobile & data sims
Friday – engineer visit to install modem.
In the UK, I once signed a lease on a house at the end of July & (apparently due to the London Olympics that summer) Openreach couldn’t connect my phone & internet (a wire from the pole directly opposite the terraced house without a front garden) until the beginning of November…
However, this story isn’t over just yet!