It certainly looked to me from the press reports that she has taken up a bit of DIY in the form of papering over the cracks.  I only hope she is using a strong adhesive as these cracks are going to take some covering up!

Attending the Property Investor and OPP Live show held earlier this month in London Ms Corredor spoke during her keynote speech of the measures Spain is putting in place to give overseas buyers added confidence in the flagging Spanish property market.  She mentioned the falling prices, Land Registry in English and the reduction in IVA.

We should of course also remember the new cross border conveying scheme brought in to help give reassurance to prospective buyers but are these measures really enough to kick start the flagging Spanish market?

Well, the Land Registry in English is a great idea but only if you already understand something about the Spanish system.  I doubt many people would understand the difference between rustica, urbana, segregada and division horizontal even if they were written in English.  I am not sure I do and I have worked in the industry for some years.  The property size may be stated in the documentation  but are most people aware that under declaration of property sizes is common in Spain so it is unlikely what you are buying matches what is on shown on the paperwork?  Does your average buyer know what should be shown on the documents and therefore be able be to spot  anything which is missing?   The land registry documents fail to point out any issues regarding land grab and proposed new road networks etc so DIY due dilligence in this instance could leave you in a right old mess.

The reduction in IVA is welcome but sadly way under powered to get the large number of unsold properties built near the Spanish coast off the shelves and the Cross Border Conveyancing Scheme while again an excellent idea is in its infancy and we have not actually seen how it will work when – god forbid – a problem arises and the purchaser tries to take action.

Seems I am not the only sceptic about Spain´s new property face.  I read in the press that the MEP Marta Andreasen took exception to the Secretary´s over confident approach to the market in her keynote speech and alleged that she was “living on another planet and refusing to acknowledge the problems that there had been….”.

It is fair to say that the crux of the matter is not what Spain is now doing to help overseas buyers and encourage some confidence in the market, but more what it has failed to do in the past.  We have some 300,000  illegal properties in the Andalucia area alone still unresolved and this is causing a low in the overseas buying market.  I think some of the effort put in to re-branding and re-launching the Spanish property market would have been better used to show at least a willingness to address these problems and a change for the better.

To my mind a bit of paper and some paste is not going to be enough to cover the mess which has been created by what I see as poor policing of our industry.  We have a wonderful country and some excellent property offers but what we need is a bit of honesty and an acknowledgement of where we went wrong.

Still I suppose if there is a change of government come the November elections the Minister´s career options are open.  It pays to have skills in our ever changing world but I am not sure painter and decorator was what she had in mind.