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It's a pity Spain country side is becoming a vacuum.
by MordodeMaru 8y ago
It's a pity Spain country side is becoming a vacuum.
- y4mi 8y agoIt's not unique to Spain though... And neither surprising, tbh. Who in their right mind would even want to live without stable electricity, good waste management and all the other things you take for granted in even small villages (<1k)? There is literally nothing there besides some houses. That's enough to take a break on some holiday... But very few people would be willing to suffer through that long term
- mc32 8y agoYep. Most places with advanced economies went through this phase decades ago. It’s actually surprising that some of these settlements held on for so long, even in parts of interior France (though that was completed by the 70s-80s.) It’s kind of romantic and idyll a sort of throwback to what Van Gogh at al might have seen in Avignon or the Comargue way back when.
- Scoundreller 8y agoAnd if you’re driving through France, just turn on “no-tolls” and you can drive through them. And save a fortune in tolls and cheaper gas.
- ben_w 8y agoMy siblings were interested in buying an old place in the Spanish countryside as a BTL holiday home, but heard some worrying things about the Spanish legal attitude to inheritance that put them off second hand places. (I won’t repeat what they said; they are neither lawyers nor speakers of Spanish so I give their fears no more than 50% credence).
- jxub 8y agoAn "interesting" fact of Spain is that all unwritten inheritance goes to the state, and this includes foreigners. Therefore, makes sense to lay down 200 bucks or so in lawyer fee and write the inheritance asap.
- kgwgk 8y agoInteresting, but untrue.
- squeezingswirls 8y agoExactly
- squeezingswirls 8y agoNo, that's not true at all. Please read the Spanish Civil Code, starting at Chapter 3 ("De la sucesión intestada") to see what's the order of heir prevalence in case of "unwritten inheritance". Only in the case that there isn't any relative, or widow, or widower, the State will get a 'abintestato' inheritance.
- jxub 8y agoThanks for correcting me and sorry!
- ez7r6i 8y agoIn some areas of Spain, the state gets to keep a high percent of the inheritance, they go up to 50% or maybe more in some places.
- AdrianB1 8y agoThis can be a problem for some people, but based on the comments I've read in the years I've been reading this site most people are in favor of paying huge taxes. Let's say you pay 75% taxes, what is the problem? When you die, the state will get the place and sell it someone else that wants to pay for it; again, and again, and again. You kids will have to work and pay to get it, for the state is just $$$ profitssss. Good business.
- ben_w 8y agoIt’s not the state which is the problem, according to my siblings. It’s related to the family of who they might have bought from. Again, I don’t want to give specifics. I don’t want to spread false certainty about how a legal system I literally cannot read does or doesn’t work.
- rdl 8y agoTechnology has advanced. You can do reasonable off-grid utilities (solar/battery/water/waste/internet) for 25-100 people at grid-level prices.
- dalbasal 8y agoNo access to grid power is a pretty rare circumstance in most of the west, but even so, "off grid" (as long as you're not also "off road") is not so difficult or expensive to solve these days, on the scale of construction/real-estate costs. "Mod cons" aren't generally the problem. What's missing is people who want to be there.
- ez7r6i 8y agoNo healthcare, no chemists, no good Internet access, have to literally travel to buy clothes or go to the supermarket, and especially no jobs. Even in big towns jobs are scarce. Hence the asphyxiating housing bubble in big cities. It just makes no sense to live in any of those ghost villages. Unless you're some wealthy screwhead who can't stand the smallest amount of street noise.
- iagovar 8y agoWell, it's inconvenient but in many regions you can call for a doctor visit, for example. The Castilla y León healthcare system has rural doctors that visit this places periodically.
- Scoundreller 8y agoA mostly abandoned village in Croatia that I was in still had a food truck come by 3x/week in a Sprinter. A meat truck once a week and some other food truck. Pricing was somewhere around what the city grocery stores charged. You could phone in orders. In business for decades. Meanwhile in the “modern” world, I have to go to the store for my food... One local said he only went into town once a month.
- iagovar 8y agoThere are plenty of small villages like that. You can even expect DSL from 1 to 6mbps, and 3G depending on the size of the place. Some of them even more. The vacuum is mostly in Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha. As some of you may know regions in Spain have state-ish status, and Castilla y León actually does a surprisingly good job on education, healthcare and pretty much every social service. I'm sayin this because they have been ruled by the good old corrupt party since I have memory, have tight budget and is sparsely populated.