“How a visit to the NEC was a one-stop shop to buying our home in Spain”
Somewhere to escape the Scottish winters during retirement persuaded Joy Anderson and her husband Neil to buy a home overseas. The couple from Monifieth near Dundee are in the process of buying a two-bedroom apartment in the Costa Blanca. Their property-buying journey got properly started at A Place in the Sun Live at the NEC a year ago when they visited the show, although they’d been thinking about the move for a few years.
“We listened to seminars on buying in Spain where we got lots of useful pointers, we set up a viewing trip with the agent MASA International, found a solicitor – My Lawyer in Spain – and also we met A Place in the Sun Currency to discuss options for transferring money to Spain for our purchase,” says Joy, 51, who works as the chief financial officer for a charity.
Using a foreign currency broker was especially important as they are purchasing a property off-plan – and paying in stage payments throughout the build – so they really need to know how much to budget for. “We knew we would save money using a FX broker, not a bank, and had already talked to another company. But when we met with A Place in the Sun Currency we felt so comfortable and well-informed by talking to the team we chose to go with them".
“They explained how forward contracts work and we set our target rate – 1.15 – and it was reassuring that we didn’t have to deal with fluctuating rates altering how much we might be paying between signing the property contract and completion.”
So the couple were all ready to go with their finances when they went out for their viewing trip in November and found their perfect home at Vistabella Golf in Alicante.
“Going to the show was incredibly useful – in fact a one-stop shop to buying our Spanish home,” she adds.
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