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Welcome to this weeks Biz News, remember if you have any info on business success, openings, closings, or of commercial interest to our readers let me know thebiz@fuertenews.com or if you would like to advertise in Fuertenews, give me a call on 0034 678 736 039. SOLYMAR HOLIDAYS My first move out to Spain was to a farmhouse in the middle of the mountains in the Alpujarras on the mainland. It’s a beautiful area but very remote and also very cold in winter as the house itself is higher than Ben Nevis. When I decided to come over to the warmth of the Canaries, I rented the house out. There was only one property management company in the village so I placed it with them. I suppose I should have spotted the warning signals when I had to write the rental contract for them. To give them credit, they were good at
finding me tenants and collecting the money but useless at maintaining the
property, even though they were taking 20% of the income. I ended up
paying a friend to check on the property regularly, but her mother became
ill so she had to go back to the UK. Three years later I took the property
off their books, as it was now completely uninhabitable. I am now spending
a fortune getting it in a decent enough state to sell and will have to
replace many of the contents that the tenants broke – and yet they still
got their security deposit back! One of the key points about the
company is that they offer flexible packages which they can cater exactly
to your needs. For long term lets, they can operate solely on a finders
fee basis or deliver a full property and tenant management package, and
just about everything in between, such as key holding, property watch and
changeover cleaning. Their services are similarly flexible for holiday
lets where they can provide additional services such as welcome packs and
airport transfers. In both cases they offer all their clients a free web
advert to promote your property. |
Here at least you have a choice of agents to go to, but some have proved
less than reputable in the past. Now there’s a new company setting up
which is run by an English lady, Jane Ball and her business partner who is
actually a practising lawyer out here, so you can trust them not to do
anything to destroy her business reputation. She
specialises in property law so can advise you on all the possible pitfalls
of renting your property, especially in the case of long term rentals as
tenants are well protected by the law out here, She can also provide
advice on the tax implications of the income you receive and what your
insurance policy needs to cover in case one of your tenants has an
accident. 
Jane Ball spent her holidays here for 7 years before she decided to move
out to live. She has therefore had experience of a variety of holiday
accommodations here on the island and knows what can make or break a
holiday. She felt that there was a gap in the property management and
rentals business here for a company with a secure reputation. Also there
has been a large increase in the number of second homes here so the market
for people to look after these is growing. 
Another thing that impressed me with this company is that they are
determined to do this properly. They have invested money into developing the rental
contracts and building up alliances with local service providers. They are
also advertising the site widely, both on the Internet and through
relationships with large organisations in the UK such as the Police
Force’s leisure and travel services which reaches over a million potential
clients. |
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