CRIME ON THE COSTAS
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BREAKING NEWS

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Juan Antonio Roca walked free on Monday after his family and friends had got together a million euros in bail money.

Posted On 20:31 0 comments

The man accused of being the brains behind years of corruption at Marbella Town Hall walked free on Monday after his family and friends had got together a million euros in bail money. He wanted to clean up his image, he explained, and had obviously started as he meant to go on, leaving the jail looking impeccable in a dark suit, blue shirt, shiny shoes and a proud smile. Behind him he had left two years and 16 days in a prison cell, first in Alhaurín de la Torre and then in Albolote. However he took time to say his goodbyes, embracing prison staff and raising his hands towards corridor 11, his home for the last 18 months. “When you get your freedom back, you’ve got reason to be happy”, he said. Roca, who is also involved in the previous “Saqueo” case, faces charges in ‘Malaya’ of repeated offences of bribery, embezzlement, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering as ringleader of an organisation, forgery, illegal possession of firearms, influence peddling and corruption and planning offences.With all this hanging over him Roca must be well aware of the difficulties ahead if he wants to clean up his image, especially in the eyes of the people of Marbella, who were due to take to the streets yesterday evening (Thursday) in protest against his release and his presence in the town.In fact during the ten minutes in which he spoke to the press on Monday he mentioned the protest organised by residents’ associations and local political parties: “I understand that people have every right to demonstrate, it is their fundamental right. However my freedom is also a fundamental right. When two fundamental rights are in violent conflict we have to abide by what the courts say. In this case the judge has said that I should be released. And here I am”. Nevertheless the judge’s decision to order his release, albeit under supervision, was the only step in the Malaya process he seemed to be in agreement with. The alleged corruption ringleader pointed out that “all the evidence had been systematically denied”. He described the investigation as “totally partial, fraught with irregularities and significant violations of fundamental rights”.

After two years “in silence” he now intends to defend himself. “During this time Marbella Town Hall, the Junta and the Prosecution Department have been giving the idea that I am responsible for 50 per cent of this country’s problems; the other 50 per cent has been put down to Zapatero”.The El Pais newspaper reports that Juan Antonio Roca operated in the town with the support of the Local Police force. It says that local police protected him from the National Police and Civil Guard and that he used a total of nine mobile phones and had special equipment on other lines to avoid thee recording of his conversations. It was regular practice for his bodyguards to ask the local police for details of cars he considered to be suspicious, supplying them with number plate details. He used an estimated 120 companies to control his network and had purchased two valuable small palaces in the centre of Madrid. He is quoted on saying to a businessman on one occasion – ‘I am the town hall’.“The most important thing I have to do now is prove my innocence. I have to defend myself, something I haven’t been able to do in two years”. No sooner had Juan Antonio Roca stepped outside Albolote prison in Granada did he tell the press of his immediate plans in a speech that he may well have been rehearsing for the last two years.


Montserrat Corulla, who is alleged to have acted as a ‘frontman’ for Juan Antonio Roca in the Malaya corruption case

Posted On 20:22 0 comments

Marbella lawyer, Montserrat Corulla, who is alleged to have acted as a ‘frontman’ for Juan Antonio Roca in the Malaya corruption case, told the instruction judge Óscar Pérez on Monday that she had never laundered any money. She claimed that all her companies were totally legal, and while she was the administrator of the Condeor company ‘she never operated with illicit funds or assets’, according to a report from Europa Press. She also denied belonging to any criminal organisation or seeing ‘envelopes full of money’.She faces charges of money laundering of cash from criminal activity. Her case drew more interest when the PSOE Socialist candidate for the Mayor of Madrid, Miguel Sebastián, tried to link the current PP Mayor of the capital, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón with her during the previous election campaign.
During her appearance before the judge, which lasted for just under an hour, she said the accounting for Roca’s companies was always carried out by the offices of Zubizarreta Soriano.


Nine people died, one of them a six year old girl, and 22 more were seriously injured in a coach crash on the A7 Benalmádena bypass on Saturday

Posted On 00:07 0 comments

Nine people died, one of them a six year old girl, and 22 more were seriously injured in a coach crash on the A7 Benalmádena bypass on Saturday evening. It happened at 1950 at the 224 km point above Arroyo de la Miel, when the coach, carrying a group of 47 Finnish tourists, driver and co-driver, came into a side contact with a recently purchased KIA four wheel drive vehicle.It is a very fast downhill stretch of road and it had been raining in the area for most of the day. Eyewitnesses said the four by four tried to overtake the coach on the inside, and hit the side crash barrier when doing so. He rebounded from there to hit the bus side on which led to the bus driver losing control with the bus ending up overturned moving down the central reservation until coming to a standstill. It’s understood that one of the uprights on the central reservation crash barriers sliced right through the overturned coach.The driver of the four wheel drive vehicle tested 0.50 milligrams of alcohol in his breath, double the legal maximum and is being blamed for the accident. This was confirmed by the Government Sub Delegate for the province, Hilario López Luna, who also said the KIA driver has been arrested. He is a 27 year old man from Málaga and is now in the Clínico hospital with slight injuries. His father was with him in the vehicle and he was also only slightly hurt.
The 47 tourists, driver, and two TUI guides, were all then trapped inside the wreckage of the bus, and despite the efforts of other drivers who witnessed the accident, had to wait some two hours before the emergency workers could gain access by cutting a hole in the roof of the vehicle. Later heavy lifting gear was brought in to right the vehicle. The coach driver and the guides are among the injured.
The bus driver has been named as 53 year old José Jiménez. His daughter told the Diario Sur newspaper that only that morning he had been talking to the family about the responsibility of transporting so many people. His wife and children spoke of his ‘professionalism and prudence’ at the wheel.
The Andalucian Health Service set up a mobile hospital at the scene, where a number of the passengers were attended to as soon as possible. The injured were then taken to different hospitals in the province – One youngster is in the Materno Infantil Hosptial where another woman has been admitted to the gynaecological ward, five injured are in the Carlos Haya hospital in Málaga, one of whom is said to be in a critical condition, five more were taken to the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella and the rest, some seven to the Civil Hospital in Málaga. Other people were attended to in health centres in both Benalmádena and Torremolinos.
17 of the victims remain in hospital this morning, and one of them, a woman in her 50’s, is in a coma and on assisted breathing in the Carlos Haya hospital in Málaga. She has lost part of an arm also.
Forensic police have arrived from Finland to help in the investigation and also Finnish psychologists are helping the survivors, the first 14 of whom were finally flown home to Helsinki yesterday afternoon.
The Finnish Government has thanked the Spanish authorities and rescue workers, and noted that Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos had informed the Finnish Government of the accident within an hour of it taking place.
The tourists were on their way back to Málaga airport from Marbella at the end of their holiday on the Costa del Sol. The coach was from the Tui España company, and had left from Marbella, picking up tourists en route in their return to the airport.
The road was closed direction Málaga for a time, leading to considerable delays in both directions on a busy Saturday night.
It is being described as the worst road accident in recent years in the province of Málaga and is the most serious coach crash seen in Spain since November 2001 when 20 pensioners lost their lives in Huelva.


British demand in Spain has slowed dramatically

Posted On 00:04 0 comments

“British demand in Spain has slowed dramatically,” says Mark Stucklin, founder of spanishpropertyinsight.com, an independent online consul-tancy. “The latest nail in the coffin is the exchange rate, and prices have dropped 20% in some parts of the Costas since last summer.” Viva Estates is selling a two-bed flat in Elvira near Malaga for £240,000, although it is possible to pick one up elsewhere on the Costa del Sol for less than £200,000. In higher-end areas such as Mallorca, prices have stagnated, so vendors who need to sell are having to accept offers.
Strategy: If you’re an owner, hang on if you can. “Now is not a good time to sell,” says Stucklin. “There are just no buyers out there.” If you must sell, then be prepared to cut the price sharply. Those bringing the proceeds back to Britain can console themselves with the fact they are getting 10p more for each euro than at the beginning of the year. If you’re a buyer, you have a lot of choice, so shop around and haggle hard.


Saturday 19 April 2008

British couple remanded in Benidorm

Posted On 09:55 0 comments

The accident occurred last Friday night on the CV-763 (km 3,4). The couple were driving back to their home on the San Rafael residential estate while the young motorcyclist was heading towards Alfàs del Pi. The victim, who was still alive as he was dragged for 2-3km underneath the British couple's car, died before emergency medics could get him into the ambulance. His family and friends, who say the boy's parents are "totally destroyed and unable to come to terms with what has happened,"


British couple in their fifties were remanded in jail by a judge in Benidorm yesterday charged with imprudent homicide. They were arrested last Monday after being spotted dragging a badly-injured motorcyclist they had knocked down after a previous accident by licence plate recognition cameras on the outskirts of La Nucia (Aliante). During yesterday's hearing, the man, who was driving, broke down and admitted being aware not only that he had hit something or someone and that, following the impact, he was aware that something or someone had got stuck under his vehicle. In his defence, the man claimed that he thought he had hit a stray dog and said that he failed to stop and investigate because he suffered a panic attack.
The degree of responsibility that should be attributed to the man's wife, who also admits being aware of the impact, remains to be determined.


Isabel Pantoja mugshot taken and put on file but who leaked the photos.

Posted On 09:40 0 comments


Isabel Pantoja, the famous singer, accused of tax offences and money laundering. was released on bail of 90,000 euros, but not before her mugshot had been taken and put on file. The photo appeared shortly afterwards in some of the media.
Now, hundreds of civil servants working for the Interior and Justice Ministries are being called on to say exactly why they felt the need to access the Isabel Pantoja file, and while some are able to show that they were working on the case and had good cause, many more are having to admit that it was sheer curiosity that led them to use their computer passwords to take a look at the file.
It will not be easy to sift through those suspected of passing on the photo to the media because of the huge numbers involved. However, passwords can be shared by several members of a team, so some of the people under investigation can show that they were not even in the office on the day in question.


Friday 18 April 2008

A member of the crew of a boat which brought four stowaways to Alicante has been arrested by the police.

Posted On 10:52 0 comments

A member of the crew of a boat which brought four stowaways to Alicante has been arrested by the police. It comes after the Capitan of the Slovak vessel handed over the four Turkish nationals to the National Police in Alicante Port after discovering the immigrants.Reports in Informacion newspaper indicate that the member of the crew who has been arrested charged the stowaways 2,500 € for allowing them on board. Three of the stowaways are reported to have accepted their immediate deportation, while a fourth has asked for political asylum.
Police say the boat initially departed from Istanbul with eight stowaways on board, but four of them got off the vessel at a stop over in Sicily.Three of the four have accepted deportation while the last has applied for political asylum.


Indignant Marbella, Justice Now.

Posted On 10:47 0 comments


One person told 20minutos that part of the town thinks that the judiciary is giving in by letting Roca out of prison on bail.
The slogan for the demonstration was ‘Marbella indignada, justicia ya’ – Indignant Marbella, Justice Now.Some 2,000 local residents of Marbella took to the streets last night in demand that Juan Antonio Roca leave the town and lose his assets here. They are planning to ask the instruction judge in the Malaya case, Óscar Pérez, for a distancing order from the town, considering that ex real estate assessor has ill-treated the municipality.
Placards carried by the demonstrators also mentioned the ex Deputy Mayor of the town Pedro Román, who was also described as a ‘persona non grata’. They also made calls for Roca to be kept in prison until the Malaya case comes to court – it’s expected to get underway at the end of next year in Málaga.


Costa ski season will be dramatically shorter than at present

Posted On 10:43 0 comments

By the end of this century, the ski season in the Pyrenees will be dramatically shorter than it is at present - if one exists at all - according to scientists who are predicting a sharp increase in temperatures and rapid decline in precipitation in the mountain range due to global warming.The study by Spain's High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) warns that average temperatures will rise by at least 2.8ºC by 2100 in a best case scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions are low, and by around 4ºC in the worst-case, high-emissions scenario. At the same time, the amount of rain and snow fall is expected to plunge by between 10.7 percent and 14.8 percent per year."These models predict [temperature and precipitation changes] of sufficient magnitude to directly affect the availability of water, economic activities and the environment of the region," Juan Ignacio Lopez Moreno, one of the study's authors, said this week.The researchers base their predictions, which cover the period between 2070 and 2100, on six regional climate models that were able to accurately estimate climatic conditions between 1960 and 1990 in the Pyrenees.


Wednesday 16 April 2008

Francisco del Valle, the brother of the man accused of murdering five year old Mari Luz Cortes, has become the target of local anger and frustration

Posted On 23:37 0 comments

Francisco del Valle, the brother of the man accused of murdering five year old Mari Luz Cortes, has become the target of local anger and frustration.On Monday night, a crowd of around 100 to 150 people went to his house in El Torrejon, Huelva, and began hurling stones and other objects. The police intervened before the mob could break down the door.Francisco del Valle is now asking the authorities for assistance in moving to a ’safe’ location, somewhere outside the province of Huelva. He is asking the Junta de Andalucía to provide himself and his three children, aged 3 years, 10 years and 17 years, with temporary accommodation until they can make other arrangements. Francisco says that the recent events are having a traumatic effect on his family.The local authorities have pleaded for calm, emphasing that Francisco del Valle has been fully cooperative with the police during the investigation and does not deserve the treatment he has been receiving.

Del Valle denounced the events of Monday night but no arrests have been made. Police have, however, been maintaining constant surveillance of the house to prevent any further incidents.Juan José Cortes, father of the murdered girl, has stated that he was unaware of the incident until the next day, adding that was obviously borne out of anger and resentment. He said that although he was able to control his own anger, there were those who obviously could not. He expressed a wish for a speedy resolution to the situation.


Tuesday 15 April 2008

Amy Fitzpatrick the hunt continues

Posted On 09:27 0 comments


Detectives are continuing the hunt for Amy Fitzpatrick who vanished from Mijas Costa more than three months ago.
She was last seen at 10pm as she left a friend’s home in the tourist resort of Riviera del Sol, on the Costa del Sol, saying she was going to walk home.
Cops issued an appeal for information about a white Ford Fiesta with a UK number plate owned by a family friend, which went missing at the same time as Amy.
A government spokesman in the region said it was “difficult” to believe the youngster left voluntarily.
Police are now looking for a second car connected to the case, although no description has yet been released.
There has been no sign of Amy despite extensive searches in the region.
She has black hair, is 1.65m tall and was wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a Diesel T-shirt when she was last seen.


Sunday 13 April 2008

British couple in their fifties were remanded in jail

Posted On 01:28 0 comments

British couple in their fifties were remanded in jail by a judge in Benidorm yesterday charged with imprudent homicide. They were arrested last Monday after being spotted dragging a badly-injured motorcyclist they had knocked down after a previous accident by licence plate recognition cameras on the outskirts of La Nucia (Aliante). During yesterday's hearing, the man, who was driving, broke down and admitted being aware not only that he had hit something or someone and that, following the impact, he was aware that something or someone had got stuck under his vehicle. In his defence, the man claimed that he thought he had hit a stray dog and said that he failed to stop and investigate because he suffered a panic attack.
The degree of responsibility that should be attributed to the man's wife, who also admits being aware of the impact, remains to be determined. The accident occurred last Friday night on the CV-763 (km 3,4). The couple were driving back to their home on the San Rafael residential estate while the young motorcyclist was heading towards Alfàs del Pi. The victim, who was still alive as he was dragged for 2-3km underneath the British couple's car, died before emergency medics could get him into the ambulance.


Julián Muñoz spending the weekend at his luxurious Marbella mansion.

Posted On 01:25 0 comments

The disgraced former mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz, is enjoying a long weekend break from Alhaurín de la Torre jail where he is serving time for property-development related corruption.
Muñoz left the prison that has been his home for the last twenty-one months at 7.20am this morning in a top-of-the-range 4x4 all-terrain vehicle driven by the chauffeur of his girlfriend, the singer Isabel Pantoja.
According to a source close to the former mayor, Muñoz was informed that his request for leave had been granted last Thursday. It is believed that he will be spending the weekend at his luxurious Marbella mansion.


legal proceedings against staff at the Dr Pascual Clinic in Málaga, who performed liposuction surgery on her

Posted On 01:22 0 comments

The family of 44 year old Encarnación Salazar have started legal proceedings against staff at the Dr Pascual Clinic in Málaga, who performed liposuction surgery on her on November 7th last year that led to an agonising and slow death at Málaga's Carlos Haya Hospital more than four months later, on March 20th. Encarna's brother Manuel explained how she had been admitted to the clinic "on the Wednesday, expecting to be back home again the following Saturday."
However, the operation went badly wrong, and she required a second operation two days later because "they perforated her intestines, but this operation must have also gone wrong because they had to operate again after a sudden decline in her condition, but she suffered all sorts of complications after that and nearly died. They only left her with 60cm of intestines," Manuel went on to explain.
A few days later "she started passing blood, suffered kidney failure, among other things - a complete disaster. And all the while, the staff at Dr Pascual's clinic were telling us that she would get better," continued Manuel.
Encarnación's body arrived back in her home town of Ceuta yesterday for burial


Wednesday 9 April 2008

Antonio Banderas wingless in Marbella

Posted On 19:49 0 comments



Antonio Banderas and his wife Melanie Griffith have had a demolition order served on their luxurious Marbella beach house.But it is only one wing of their home La Gaviota, in Los Monteros, that is in for the chop.Their appeal against an original 2003 ruling to demolish the newer wing, which impinges on public beach land, has been rejected.Now their neighbours are insisting that the sentence of the High Court be carried out. The celebrity pair were accused of encroaching on public land despite having received planning permission for the extension in 1995 from Marbella town hall. At the same time more than 300 residents of Mijas have joined together to fight demolition orders on their homes.The group, who number a few expatriates, has been threatened with fines of up to 180,000 euros.In total some 3000 fines have been issued by Mijas town hall.Some of those affected are old and unaware of the latest demands of urban planning laws in the area. Many have also failed to get their projects signed off by either the Junta or water board.A number, such as one man in the Macorra area, built a small home despite being refused permission by the town hall many times.Juan Antonio Ruiz applied to build a tool shed next to the house his father owned in 1996.But, like many homes, built with this type of licence, it turned into a fully-fledged home.In 2000, he received the first of three official complaint against the home and he has finally been ordered to knock it down, at a cost of 12,000 euros.He is also awaiting confirmation of the fine he will have to pay, but it is likely to be around 65,000 euros.At the same time a large group of illegal houses is to be demolished in the village of La Chorrosquina, near Algeciras.
The 30 houses have been built without proper paperwork on the outskirts of the town.
The moves have come after new rules were agreed at a high level Junta meeting in November.The regional authority is now even beginning to carry out the forced demolition of homes built with permissions from local town halls, which have later been found to be illegally built on protected land. Demolition orders are being served on unwitting home-owners across the region.


Tuesday 8 April 2008

Canary Islands and Majorca :U.K.Police are still trying to trace Allan James Foster.£70,440 confiscated

Posted On 15:45 0 comments

Allan Foster a prime suspect for the murder of David 'Noddy' Rice
Mr Rice, 42, died when he was blasted up to nine times with a semi-automatic handgun as he sat in a car park at Marsden, South Tyneside, in May 2006.Foster, 31, has been named as the gunman and is still being hunted by murder detectives.
It is believed he fled abroad after the killing.McAuley, who lived with Foster, admitted conspiring with him and others to conceal the proceeds of criminal property between June 1 2006 and September 30 2006.mother Marilyn McCauley, 56, admitted possessing criminal property in that she knew or suspected £65,815 in cash found at her home two days after Mr Rice's murder was from the proceeds of crime.
The charges relate to a total of £70,440 found during two separate raids at Mozart Street, South Shields, where McAuley snr lived.The court heard a total of 1,275 euros together with other property was recovered from a separate address McAuley jnr shared with Foster.Prosecutor Caroline Goodwin told Newcastle Crown Court: "This arises out of a disturbing incident on May 24 2006 when David Rice was murdered.
"This led to an investigation into Allan Foster, who is directly linked to that particular offence, and police were able to recover from a number of properties during the course of the investigation a deal of cash.
"The crown's case is this is said to be the proceeds of crime, directly from the drug dealing of Allan Foster."On two separate occasions during the course of the wider investigation into the shooting of Mr Rice there were searches carried out at Mozart Street, the home of Marilyn McAuley."Substantial amounts of money were recovered there on 26 May, two days after the shooting, and in September.
"The Crown say these are part of the proceeds of the criminal activities of Allan Foster."Judge Esmond Faulks ordered the £70,440 be confiscated.The judge adjourned the case until May 2 and ordered pre-sentence reports.
Both women were granted bail in the meantime.But the judge warned; "This does not mean to say I am giving you any promises about sentence, I am not, all options are open and the maximum sentence, as you probably know, for concealing the proceeds of criminal property is many years in prison."Foster sometimes goes under the name Sean Wilkinson and is known to have associates in the Kent area and links to the Canary Islands and Majorca.A Police spokesman said: "We are still trying to trace Allan James Foster.


Sunday 6 April 2008

Polaris World linked in new corruption allegations

Posted On 17:57 0 comments

The Mayor faces charges of perversion of the course of justice and the mis-use of public funds.
Daniel García Madrid from the Partido Popular is reported to have exchanged building land with worthless plots in a deal with the Polaris World company
More details on the latest corruption allegations in Torre Pacheco, where the PP Mayor, Daniel Garcia Madrid, has been ordered to prison without bail by instruction judge in San Javier, Salvador Calero. He has replaced the earlier judge in the case, Aránzazu Moreno, who is on maternity leave.El País reports that the mayor made a plot of land for building available to the Mar Menor Golf Resort, from the Polaris World company, in exchange for other plots of land described as ‘useless’. The difference in worth of the two plots is estimated by the prosecutor to be as much as five or six million €, but Polaris World was only called on to reimburse the public coffers by 455,331 €.


Thursday 3 April 2008

Drove from Alicante to Benidorm on the wrong side of the A-70

Posted On 07:44 0 comments

43 year-old man, who drove from Alicante to Benidorm on the wrong side of the A-70, killing two and seriously injuring two more, has undergone a psychiatric assessment. Dubbed the ‘Kamikaze’ driver in the Spanish press, Pedro DA has been in custody since the collision. The psychiatric report reveals that he suffers schizophrenic-type episodes that can cause hallucinations and delirium. When initially stopped by police, he claimed to have become confused when he joined the motorway and later told a judge he had no idea of what was going through his mind at the time


Two men dressed as beggars managed to slip through the door

Posted On 07:34 0 comments

As the first clients of the day were ushered out of the locked door of a jeweller’s shop in the Madrid suburb of Alcobendas on March 17, two men dressed as beggars managed to slip through the door. Once inside they threatened the owner at gunpoint and gagged him before rifling through the showcases and running off with valuable items. The owner immediately summoned the police but although two patrol cars combed the area, they failed to locate the raiders, confirming suspicions that the men were dressed normally under shabby clothing, which they discarded before mingling with shoppers. This was the twentieth jewel robbery since the beginning of January and latest in a wave of raids in the Madrid area that began at the end of 2007.


Labour's Michael Cashman, who has been battling Spain's so-called "landgrab" rules for years,

Posted On 07:25 0 comments

Spanish laws which have shattered the holiday and retirement home dreams of thousands of Britons must be suspended pending a full EU investigation, a Euro-MP claims.Labour's Michael Cashman, who has been battling Spain's so-called "landgrab" rules for years, said he would pursue the issue to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.He was speaking as expatriates whose Spanish homes have been demolished and land seized without compensation told their tales to a committee of MEPs in Brussels.The problems began in 1994 when Valencia's regional government introduced rules to boost low-cost housing for locals.
But unscrupulous developers have exploited a loophole which allows them to target property and land owned by foreigners to make way for urban housing schemes - with the expatriates forced to pay their share of installing roads, electricity and other services.Thousands of British, German and Dutch citizens have been browbeaten into ceding part of their gardens - or in extreme cases their entire property - and are now fighting for compensation.Mr Cashman said: "People were assured that deeds to their property were legal as advised by local lawyers, developers and officials. Now because of a combination of corruption and interpretation of new property laws, these people are facing ruin."Homes will either be demolished or people are now being asked to pay even more money for water and electricity supplies, which they were assured their property, would receive."
Now MEPs say the European Commission must step in and uphold the rights of citizens.
Mr Cashman said: "We want a moratorium on any more landgrab decisions and a moratorium on any further demolitions of people's houses. The alternative is to go to the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights."


Wednesday 2 April 2008

Costa del Sol property crash bites hard mass repossessions in Spain

Posted On 12:22 0 comments

"Many people realise they aren't going to sell their homes in a month of Sundays and are just walking away," .Banks have been incredibly slow to alter their valuation criteria and take account of the crash, but nonetheless, their figures show the kinds of reductions that are now available. A one two-bedroom apartment near Fuengirola, for example, was recently valued at £148,000 and has dropped to £84,000 – that's £64,000 less. Another two-bed property in the same location is listed at £44,000 less than its valuation. One lovely villa in Marbella valued on paper at £570,000 is now on the market at £492,000, a drop of nearly £80,000.

villas and quality apartments in good locations that have dropped by as much as £20,000 to £80,000. Some high-end properties costing over £1m have lost £200,000 off their initial valuations in the past few months. Sellers are also gravitating towards auction houses, where properties can achieve a fast sale at knock-down prices. Inez Rix of Direct Auctions says she has seen a huge increase in business from owners desperately trying to offload property. "Things are getting worse and people are dropping prices drastically where they can."
On Direct Auction's website, properties are being listed as much as 60 per cent below their original valuations.
As property prices dip, Rix has seen an increase in the number of owners falling into negative equity, and the banks are sitting on a growing cache of repossessions. One would expect the institutions to sell them off at rock-bottom prices but this is not happening, because there is no precedent of mass repossessions in Spain.
"The banks are being slow to sell properties to cover their costs but we expect more properties to come on to the market over the next two years." Which means anyone prepared to play a waiting game could bag a real bargain.
Most properties showing big reductions are new-builds, bought by investors hoping to sell before completion and in advance of the mortgage kicking in, a practice known as flipping. However, there are also rural properties and exclusive estates being sold at rock-bottom prices by owners who have simply been caught out by the upheaval.
Derek Blaney stopped selling off-plan several years ago when he saw the market becoming overheated and says more responsible agents are glad that the recent scandals and market forces have made the industry more transparent. "Things had to be cleaned up," he says. "Property was being seen as a sheer commodity, people were buying through greed and with no emotional attachment."
Who can blame buyers when they were being wooed with promises of huge returns that now seem impossible? With the credit crisis biting deep, there may be further room for prices in Spain to fall. For those who bought in Spain a year or two ago, none of this will come as any consolation. But for those looking to buy a place in the sun, it's worth following the selling prices of the nicer properties, and steering well clear of vast developments. At some stage, the outlook will change. It may not boom, but it must at some stage level off. And buyers who get the timing right could be on to a good deal indeed.


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