Information about Spain

In South Western Europe in the EU.

Your index relates to asking prices, which I agree is probably the most reliable source of price information. Registries and official indexes, despite no doubt their best efforts, are useless due to black money, fiddling of floor areas, insufficient description, etc.

The floor area most reliable I've found is the Catastral information, but even then it can be substantially out of date. When we carry out a survey we always compare the actual as measured with the Catastral plans and Nota Simple.

You asked for suggestions and why your index might be rising when everybody knows that sale prices are falling. I suggest that one reason could be that sellers now know that they are going to be hit hard by buyers negotiating the price down, and therefore they have raised their asking prices to try and compensate for some of that.

There is plenty of evidence around showing that houses are sometimes selling for as low as half of what they had originally asked. Where UK owners are selling and repatriating the money, they are prepared to take a substantial hit as the value of their house has risen significantly just in sterling exchange terms over the last 6 to 9 months.

Also, when people have held the property for some time, all they are doing is cutting the potential profit they are going to make. They know that they will be able to negotiate hard for the subsequent property which they want to buy, but presumably feel that the need to get out of their existing property is sufficiently strong to take the 'pain'.

I can understand you not wanting to put in the floor area on your property descriptions because of inaccuracies. However, ensuring that the details are from the Nota Simple, and despite what I said above, it probably provides the most accurate help available. Now that we have enforced compliance with article 218 within Andalucia, all agents should have that information when putting forward their properties.

The information should be separated out into enclosed floor area, covered floor area and open terraces, all of which are usually described separately in the Nota Simple. Without floor area information, your website is not very useful for comparison purposes.

Campbell D Ferguson
Survey Spain
Chartered Surveyors
www.surveyspain.com

Spain uses a five digit post code system. The first two digits denote the province and the remaining three denote individual towns or urbanisations within the province.

This system limits the accuracy of the post code system to just 1,000 towns in each province. As such, this system is 500 times less accurate than the one in use in the UK - which can accurately identify a single street within a town.

Additionally, several 'provinces' aren't really provinces at all - yet they share a common post code.

The Balearic islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera are all the same Islas Baleares 'province'. The Canary islands are split into two provinces. Las Palmas 'province' includes the islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.

The 'province' of Santa Cruz de Tenerife includes the islands of Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. Finally, Spain claims two little pieces of North Africa - Ceuta and Melilla are both Spanish provinces, each with their own post code.

To further complicate matters, there are several spoken languages in Spain - Castillian, Catalan, Basque and Gallego. This means that many locations actually have two names in common use - one in the 'local' language and one in Castillian Spanish.

The post office and road sign people just don't keep up with new building and construction in Spain. The result is that the developer will often name the urbanisation - which eventually becomes the name of the 'town'.

As an example, the well-known and established Puerto Banus, near Marbella, doesn't 'officially' exist as far as the post office is concerned. There are almost always colloquial names for towns and urbanisations - sometimes even the 'provisional' name for an urbanisation creeps into the official post office database - we recently spotted three 'towns' simply called 'Golf Course'.

All this means that it's difficult - even for people who live in Spain - to accurately pinpoint an urbanisation or town. That's why every property on Kyero.com is accurately mapped to its nearest town and why we show you the closest airports and schools and coastline and weather patterns.

Spanish Schools have an excellent academic reputation and foreign students are admitted in Spanish Schools without an admission examination and re-located in classes depending on the year of birth.

2-6 years old ESCUELA INFANTIL - Kindergarten
It is not compulsory.
9.00 - 12 hours 15.00 - 17 hours
Food and Supervision during 12.00 - 15.00 hours, if required.

6 -12 years old - COLEGIOS DE EDUCACION PRIMARIA- - Primary Schools
It is compulsory
9.00 - 12.00 hours 15.00 - 17.00 hours
Food and Supervision during 12.00 - 15.00 hours, if required.
Subjects: Knowledge of social cultural and environmental matters, Artistic education,Physical education, - Castellano- (Spanish) and literature, Foreign Language, Mathematics, Catholic Religion,

12 - 16 years old - INSTITUTO DE EDUCACION SECUNDARIA - Secondary Schools
It is compulsory
8.00 - 12.30 hours 2 blocks, of two semesters each.
Subjects: Valenciano: Language and Literature Castellano:Language and Literature, Foreign Language, Mathematics, Social Science, Physical Education, Natural Science, Arts and Crafts, Technological Education, Music, Choice of Second Foreign Language, either modern or classical Religion (optional)

16 - 18 years old -INSTITUTO DE EDUCACION SECUNDARIA- Bacalaureate BUP -
Like O Levels - (Access to University)
Not compulsory.
8.00 - 12.30 hours
Subjects are the same as above.

There is also a major reconstruction in the Spanish School system going on at the moment and changes are expected in the near future.

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