Last week, I mentioned the Spanish law of Vicios Cultos – and got a fair bit of feedback about it.

Embarrassingly, I mangled the real title of the law “Vicios Ocultos” – meaning “hidden vices”, with my “Vicios Cultos” – meaning “cultured vices” – a rather different meaning. Thanks to those who set me straight.

I also heard from a property buyer for whom the law could be extremely useful:

“I have just bought a small Spanish house which could be described as a ruin. I was told by the agent that the cracks in the wall were nothing and could easily be fixed. The day I purchased the property, a renovator caught up with me and said there were urgent repairs needed in the basement and also the roof required propping up and fixing. I paid him €2000 to do so. I then sent a man who took a structural engineer with him and yesterday I was told it is positively dangerous and should be pulled down. The so called work done was just a patchup job.”

Clearly, in this case, the buyer should examine the contract of sale to see if the “sold as seen” clause was included – something for a lawyer to decide. If not, and if the purchase was made less than 6 months ago, they may have a claim under the “Vicios Ocultos” law against the seller for compensation or a full refund.

With the benefit of hindsight, a safer course of action would have been to engage the services of a structural engineer before completing on the purchase. This advice seems so obvious yet most people skip this step when purchasing property in Spain (I did too).

Jeff Greensmith of Fincas Direct emailed me to say that he always advises buyers to have an independent survey done. Every town or village has at least one municipal aparejador/arquitecto tecnico who will do so for a relatively low fee.

Just as it makes sense to use an independent lawyer to represent your interests in a property transaction, it also makes sense to use an independent surveyor. The cost of being diligent in selecting and engaging these professionals before completing the sale will vastly outweigh the time, expense and hassle of attempting to rectify a problem afterwards – even if the law of “Vicios Ocultos” is applicable.

Martin Dell, Kyero.com