SPANISH POLICE

Few matters are more confusing initially to someone coming to Spain than the array of police forces encountered around the country. It can be difficult to know who to go to when you are in trouble and why one police force will attend a crime in one place and another elsewhere.

In fact, essentially, Spain has three police forces: the Guardia Civil, the Policia Nacional and the Policia Local - each of which has its own specific area of operation and clearly defined working parameters. However, in reality, only the Guardia Civil and Policia Nacional have the extensive powers and resources that would be recognised of a police force in the UK.

The common misconception amongst many foreigners is that the Guardia Civil is some kind of arbitrary para military force with extraordinary powers - that roams around Spain like some brutal phantom there to terrorise all and sundry. In fact, the truth is far more mundane.

The Policia Nacional and Guardia Civil are both ‘conventional’ police forces and perform almost identical tasks, albeit with remits that are essentially demographic. Crudely, the Guardia Civil is a police force that operates only in the countryside and in towns with a population of under around 20,000 people. By contrast the Policia Nacional is responsible for urban areas over approximately 20,000 people.

So, if you are the victim of a crime and you live in a small town or in the countryside then you will be attended to by the Guardia Civil who will protect you or investigate any crime - just like any professional police force. However, if you live in a town of over some 20,000 people than it will be the Policia Nacional that will perform all these functions. The investigatory functions, powers and resources of both the Policia Nacional and Guardia Civil are, to all intents and purposes, identical.

Under normal circumstances some 40% of the Spanish population live under the protection of the Guardia Civil, although this percentage rises to around 65% during the summer holiday season - when many urbanites leave the towns and cities.

The Policia Local, meanwhile, is a force which is recruited, funded and controlled by local town halls and that is responsible to the elected Mayor (Alcalde). The Policia Local respond to minor crimes and mostly deal with local authority enforcement matters, together with urban traffic control and any associated violations. Crimes are not investigated and any serious matter is immediately handed over to either the Guardia Civil or Policia Nacional as appropriate to the area.

Of course, typically, there are exceptions to the rules above. The Basque country, Catalonia and Navarra all have their own regional police forces in place of the Policia Nacional. Furthermore, Spain has an intelligence service (with whom, hopefully, you are unlikely to come into contact!) called the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia – the CNI - which, unusually, deals with both inland and external intelligence matters.

On a day to day basis, most expatriots tend to find the Guardia Civil and Policia Nacional helpful and efficient if, sometimes, a little remote and macho. Certainly, they have a reputation for dealing with trouble in a no-nonsense fashion and it is unwise to be aggressive towards them. Meanwhile, Policia Local officers are usually charming and often provide considerable assistance to tourists and foreigners.

EMERGENCY TELEPHONE NUMBERS

For all emergencies call: 112
To report a crime: 902 102 112
For the Guardia Civil: 062
For the Policia Nacional: 091
For the Policia Local: 092
Medical Service: 061
Spanish Fire Service: 0801

THE SPANISH PROPERTY MARKET – WHAT NOW?

Recently an influential annual report was published by Acuna & Asociados who are highly regarded Madrid real estate analysts. Their report makes depressive reading given that they do not think the Spanish property market will recover for several years. Indeed, at current rates of demand (around 200,000 properties per year) it may take some six to seven years to clear just the existing housing stock for sale.

Certainly, there is an inordinate amount of property for sale on the Spanish marketplace. According to Acuna & Asociados there are some 1.67 million properties for sale in Spain. These comprise some 500,000 new builds, some 470,000 new builds yet to be completed and around 500,000 re-sales. It is quite likely that the estimated number of resales is very conservative given the amount of properties privately for sale that will not be registered formally anywhere.

Meanwhile the Spanish economy is in meltdown. Unemployment is currently somewhere around 19% with Citibank predicting that it will rise to 22% and Acuna & Asociados to 25%. The collapse of the Spanish construction industry has impacted not just on its associated industries but on the population at large who have been caught in a lethal vortex. As more people lose their jobs so more properties come onto the market - often with distress sale prices.

Unfortunately, there are no apparent ‘quick fixes’ for the Spanish economy which is also being hurt by the world credit crunch. Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero has tried to stimulate the economy with his much publicised Plan E (see my 14th August Blog). However, this is due to cease soon due to lack of further funds and has done little other than reduce the very short term unemployment figures. These will, obviously, rise once Plan E stops and as Spain goes into the winter period when any tourist related employment reduces radically.

So, what does all this mean for Spanish property buyers and sellers?

Well, as a seller of Spanish property, it is obviously bad news – particularly if you bought within two years or so of the boom. In this case, it is unlikely that you will recover your money for some considerable time to come. Worse still, the sheer quantity of other properties for sale (including many genuine distress sales) means that you will be entering a savagely unforgiving market place. Indeed, the only consolation (for British sellers) will be the strength of the Euro over Sterling which may mitigate any drop in their Euro sale price.

As a buyer, of course, matters are very different. Virtually everything is for sale and you can now pick up bargains throughout Spain almost everywhere you look. However, this does not mean that you can be careless. Far from it. Indeed, uppermost in your mind, at all times, should be the adage that ‘not everything that is cheap is a good buy’.

In fact, you should not even think of buying unless you know intimately how to tell whether a property is fully legal or not. Furthermore, you must be able to assess objectively what will make a long term sound investment (see my book How to Move Safely to Spain).

As always, the key to a sound investment is its ease of resaleability. However, establishing resaleability is often less easy than it sounds when you are in a foreign country with a particularly complex marketplace involving not just native buyers but also a very significant proportion of foreigners from an array of different countries.

Without doubt, the Spanish property crash has produced some excellent bargain buys. These exist now and are well worth exploiting. However, the question is whether property prices in Spain have now reached their bottom?

My own feeling is that prices still have around 10% further to drop. This will be an unpopular ‘call’ but the sheer numbers of property currently for sale together with an economy in freefall means that any optimism at the moment is hard to justify objectively. At the end of the day property, like any other commodity, is subject to supply and demand and at the moment, there is far more supply than demand. Until this readjusts, prices will continue to drop and the Spanish property market will remain very weak for the forseeable future.

Of course, if you are thinking of buying a Spanish property then your next question may be ‘when will it be a good time to buy?’

Well, I cannot help feeling that the desire to make untold money on property is somewhat distasteful. Surely, the primary aim of moving (particularly to a foreign country) and buying a property is about obtaining a better quality of life than you have currently - preferably as soon as possible? To place life ‘on hold’ whilst waiting for a market to guarantee a ‘profitable’ investment seems somewhat short sighted given life’s brevity and uncertainty.

This is not say that you should not be very careful. However, now I think the emphasis should be on buying a property that will retain its value long term – as opposed to being purely focussed on the profit that it will, or could, make. Those days, in Spain, are, for the time being, largely over. That does not, in any way, diminish the valid reasons for coming to Spain which should be about delighting in the genuinely superb quality of life still on offer. Little has changed in that regard – it is just that combining this with a guaranteed short term profitable property investment is less valid.

In short, I suspect, that the prices of Spanish property will hit their low point probably in the spring of 2010. However, that is not to say that you cannot now pick up a heavily discounted property - and one that will prove to be a good purchase for the future. If you are planning to move to Spain then, give or take, this is about as good a time as any. However, be prepared to drive a hard bargain - as I believe that the market has some time to go before it stabalises...1