JLM Gruop Inmobiliari - probaly the worst estate agent in the world

JLM - The worst estate agent in the world!There is a little known law in Valencia, called zone urbanisation local Valencia, which means that the local council can, if they wish raise a compulsory purchase order on your land and your house, they are the right to take the land away from you to enable them to build roads, railways, bridges, parks, sub-ways or just green space. Under this act the council does not and won't pay the land owner any compensation for the homeowners loss. It's like sitting on a ticking time bomb, the land under your feet, the land that you bought with the house does not belong to you.

How heart breaking is that! JLM didn't want to tell us that the land was classed under the act, as luck would have it, somebody was on the ball and asked the right question at the right time which saved us much heartache. Thanks for that Aran! Now we have an extension to our 30 day contract in order for the agency to recover the deposit that has already been paid to the house owner. The house as perfect, more or less but it could never be our house.

So what now, well the search continues, there are many houses within Valencia that don't fall under this act, some are at the right price. So we have contacted an English agent in Valencia, why English quite simply I have more time to chase these people when they speak the same language. With an English agent both myself and the agent can be frank and Monica can be Monica.

Words

After reading my last couple of posts, Monica commented on how well I write. Write a book she shouted out loud, write a book for me she continued. Write a book about what, writers need to have experienced something in order to write about it, plus I hate people being critical about my work...of course another consideration is that I just don't have the time maybe one day, when I'm done-roaming I will.

But it got me thinking about words, somebody once said, and I don't know who that the pen was mightier then the sword, does that make the written or spoken word more mightier then the bullet. Certainly if you look in the UK law then the charges of Libel (written) and Slander (spoken) are very important, actual laws that can carry a jail term, for just saying something about somebody.

Lying in bed last night, I was thinking about words...you see the thing is, words can build people up, words can reassure, words can bring joy and happiness, words can make your world collapses around you, words can be taken the wrong way, words can be taken seriously or not so seriously, words can hurt, words can't be taken back once side they stay out there. Words in the long run can come back and haunt you either in a good sense or a bad.

I have spent the last two years writing words, words that are useless and mean nothing to nobody. When I look behind me, I see darkness, in front and to either side. There is light at the end but I need to get many more words before I can escape, its an exercises in increasing ones vocab to be able to find the right word at the right time. Discourse is an interesting subject, the type of language one uses in different settings.

That's it.

As promised

I have so many pictures to choose from, so I've just choosen the best...that is the ones I didnt take!! Enjoy Christmas in Spain! Because of the speed of Blogger up-load, I have up-loaded the pictures to flicker. So just follow the link. :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21347949@N08/

New Year old mood

I got back from Spain on the 1st of January. I had a good time, in fact I had a great time. Every time we go its gets harder and harder to come back. I think the highlight of this year are as follows. Seeing all of Monica friends, who over the years have brought me, an out sider into there circle and made me welcome, friends who don't mind if I don't speak any Spanish, people are are just pleased to see me. I can truly say that I have friends like these on both side, but because of the whole Spanish culture it enables people to get closer. We found out that a friend was getting married in 2009, pushing the whole marriage thing on the agenda...getting married...my god do you know how much money I owe right now!!

Going shopping was another highlight, the shops are crazy and it interesting to see how many people buy Heinz baked beans, present buying and putting the tree up, I have some pictures somewhere.

I tried my hand at skiing, and didn't like, yes I managed to stay up-right, most of the time, only fell once and that was when I was going up-hill! I did the splits which Monica found very funny, shortly after that we heard that somebody has broken there back on a black route and at the time I watched an out of control skier clip the wrist of a lady sitting on the ground, the fun went out of it for me. However I did manage to pick up a tan. It rained, but most of the time the sun shone. It was nice to see Valencia again, Spain's third largest city is constantly growing in importance, the science city looked lovely all lit up, the new hospital is coming along nicely, its going to be the biggest hospital in Spain!! The new high speed transport link will make it possible to travel from Valencia to the South in a matter of hours.

When I was out there in summer, the worst peace time accident occurred when a sub-way train came off its rails killing a large number of people from the same suburb. The train came to rest in a station called Jesus, a few days later I stood in that station and joined in the mourning, this winter the accident was far from peoples mind, Valencia is constantly looking forward and buy the increase in road traffic, the average Spaniard has money.

There was a sad moment, as we walked down the street early one morning we passed a down and out sleeping on a park bench, it was early but there was lots of people and traffic about and the man had not woken up, we walked past him three more times that morning and still he had not woken up. How bad would it have been if he had died, a day before the New Year and not one Spaniard had tried to help him. I never did find out if he was alive or dead, but I don't think the average Spaniard cared anyway.

While talking about down-sides, I hate travelling, I hate watching my own kind at air ports, there ability to take over both shocks me and surprises me. It started in the Bristol during boarding when the balding ex-pat announced in a loud voice "Your not getting passed me unless your in boarding group A." A man and his wife with there three children were trying to get passed him after being called forward to board. The same man, upon arrival at Valencia almost knocked Monica over in his rush to leave the bus and get through passport control. Or those people we used to see boarding during the summer months, those that take the opportunity to drink at 6:30am, you know when they get off the plane they will go to there little resort and disappear, returning to the UK with serious sun burn and non the wiser about Spanish culture. Why most the British shit everything up when they go on holiday, the Spanish view us as aggressive lay about, binge drinking, non-t-shirt wearing idiots.

New years eve was interesting, always surprises me how the Spaniard manage to eat 12 grapes in 12 seconds on the final count down. I managed 5, a record for me. Mind you I was still chewing half an hour later! Then at one o'clock we sang old land zine, reading the words from a computer screen and we celebrated New Years in the UK. At 3am everybody went out on the streets, some people went onto another party some people went home. We went to bed counting the hour till it was time to ago once again. I was commenting to a friend about the fact that in the late 80's retired couples used to change there house names to 'done-roaming' I might do the same.

The post has turned into book....so I'll post pictures some other time.