I met them in their favourite local bar, like the set-up for a corny joke: the
Englishman, the Irishman and the Dutchman. However, their story has far more
going for it than a boom-boom punch line. Between them, they reveal that,
with a sense of adventure, an independent spirit and more resourcefulness
than hard cash, it is still possible to follow the dream of making a new
life in Spain.
The bar is in Ager, a lively village in a remote corner of Catalonia, under
the dramatic limestone escarpment of Montsec, with the high Pyrenees about
30 miles beyond. It is a long way from the property crisis on the Costas,
where thousands of buyers from Britain and Ireland, who went in search of
easy profits and a carefree life in the sun, are now faced with
overdevelopment and tumbling prices.
Jim Hay, 69, the Englishman in our story, and his wife, Daphne, 66, came close
to joining their compatriots in one of the countless developments on the
coast when they retired to Spain from the Forest of Dean, where they ran a
water engineering business. “We spent time driving around the Costa Brava
looking at the developments,” says Jim, “but I thought – you’ll never know
who your neighbours are. With holiday lets they’d be changing all the time.
For us, the biggest advantage of living here is Spanish friends.”
So instead, two years ago, the couple paid£109,000 for a comfortable fourbed
stone house on the edge of Ager, with sweeping views across the ruins of the
old town gatehouse down to the Noguera River. They didn’t exactly stumble up
the valley to Ager by chance, though. Jim had been to the village – which is
less than two hours’ drive from Barcelona air-port – before, to pursue the
hobby he took up in his fifties: hang-gliding. The dramatic contours of
Montsec have for many years attracted those whose adventurous spirit gives
them the urge to strap on a pair of oversized wings and take a running jump
into the clear skies, to soar on the thermals with the local buzzards.
This was how Jim met the Irishman, Declan Doyle, a “recovering accountant”
from Wexford who came to Ager 20 years ago to run hang-gliding courses and
competitions. He stayed on, setting up various businesses and increasingly
finding himself in the role of “property gofer” for fellow flyers who didn’t
want to fold up their wings and go home.
Doyle helped the Hays negotiate their way through the tortuous process of
buying a home in an area where nobody seemed particularly interested in the
idea of a property market, let alone a property boom. “The situation here
has been demand-driven, not offer-driven, because so little has been
offered,” he says.
In this respect, the area is typical of much of rural Spain, emptied long ago
as people migrated for work in industrial regions or as far away as South
America. Some of the families still come back for weekends and holidays, but
in many cases, houses and even entire villages have been left to crumble
into seemingly valueless ruins.
When Doyle first arrived, he assumed he would be able to buy cheap ruins,
renovate them and sell them, but it proved difficult to get them. Finding
the owners – possibly several far-flung sibling heirs – was a problem, and
there was usually no proper documentation or planning permission. However,
“in the past couple of years, the local authorities have been compiling an
assessment or cata-logo of the area’s rural ruins”, he says.
The report details each property’s history, condition, size, location and –
crucially – what can be done to it in terms of restoration, extension and
use. It costs the owner about £160, but “these catalogos
make old rural properties into saleable assets and will help the drive to
repopulate the area”. Even so, buyers should always hire their own lawyer to
check all deeds and contracts thoroughly.
Doyle is in the process of checking the report and other essential legal deeds
for the remains of a 300-year-old watermill in an idyllic hollow by a stream
that tumbles under a 600-year-old stone bridge near the village of Sant
Roma. He thinks it should sell for £80,000, and would take another £320,000
to do up – this includes about £40,000 to make it self-sufficient in solar
and water-generated power. “The authorities are strict about what’s allowed
in terms of rebuilding,” he points out. “But at least now, with the catalogo,
you can get projects up and running.”
Which is where the Dutchman comes in. Mark Koops, an oil engineer from Gouda,
paid about £40,000 for a collection of roofless stone houses and farm
buildings. He now owns half the village of Siall (pronounced “see-eye”),
where five people still live without mains power, but with spectacular
360-degree views that include an 11th-century castle on a nearby outcrop and
an abandoned hunting lodge nestling in a heavily forested hillside.
Koops bought before plans were announced to bring mains electricity to Siall,
but he still plans to continue the village tradition of self-sufficiency,
having already installed a gravity pump (about £450 for the pump, £320 for
the pipe and “one day of sweat”) to ensure enough water for the houses and
at least one swimming pool. He also aims to use the latest in solar-power
technology.
Apart from creating a large house for himself, Koops’s ideas for Siall are
fluid – maybe a boutique hotel or holiday homes. Doyle is proceeding with
the painstaking business of securing the other village properties, which he
thinks will be available for £40,000 each. Koops would welcome the idea of
other people buying into the project to share economies of scale with a
single architect and building team, but it won’t be cheap. “You have to
invest for the ultimate in clean, green efficiency,” he says, estimating it
could cost about £240,000 to convert one house.
While the prospect of turning an abandoned roofless wreck into a des res might
be enough to send the fainthearted running for the nearest golf development,
Anne Agnew from Wick-low – did I mention there was an Irish woman in the
tale, too? – has proof of what can be done. Originally intending to find
herself a place in France, she drove through the countryside for two weeks
and came to the conclusion that “Everybody has gone to bed at 10 o’clock.”
So she carried on into Catalonia, and found a wreck on a couple of acres
near the village of Les Avellanes.
Agnew, 56, bought it last year (Doyle, inevitably, was the wind beneath her
wings when it came to negotiating the deal), and it took just seven months
to turn it into a stylish five-bed, two-bath house. “The whole house was
falling to bits,” she says. “They had to strengthen the walls with steel
bands. And it cost £22,000 to put on a new roof.” Now, the property has
clean, uncluttered interior spaces that can be divided into two separate
apartments, each with its own patio. For the £54,000 purchase price and
renovation costs of £167,000, she has a house she planned to use for
holidays, but now wants to live in full time.
Rita Fryer, who runs the Catalonia branch of The Property Finders, thinks some
of her house-hunting clients would love the opportunity to follow Agnew’s
trail, their interest sharpened by the development of a new international
air-port at Alguaire, near Lleida, though they won’t find their way through
the usual channels. Estate agents have yet to start actively promoting the
area – a large, well-restored Ager house with Roman temple remains in the
basement has been on the market with a Barcelona firm for more than a year
at £195,000, and has had just one viewing.
Fryer is now working with Doyle to provide a service for people who want an
authentic Catalan lifestyle in spectacular scenery. The history of the area
– from the Romans to battles between the Moors and a local hero called
Wilfred the Hairy, and the Spanish civil war – still lives in the river
gorges, mountain castles and secret tunnels in ancient houses built on and
of solid limestone.
If you don’t fancy hang-gliding, there are endless opportunities for walking,
climbing, caving and mountain-biking – but you will have to do without the
white-knuckle adrenaline of the boom-and-bust scenario in developers’ Spain.
“Prices are steady – it’s a quiet market,” an estate agent in Lleida, the
area’s big town, says, before regretfully informing me he has nothing on his
books anywhere near Ager. Nevertheless, it is worth looking. Fryer says you
would have to pay five times more for a comparable rural property in the
wealthier Catalan province of Girona, and although prices are more
comparable in Tarragona and the Ebro valley, there is not the same
selection, especially of larger houses.
Cheap though it is, this place is about more than money. Back in that same
cosy bar, Doyle sums it up: “You don’t come just to live here, you come to
have a life here.”
Catalan character
This stone house in central Ager has 300 square metres of interior space
including cellars, garage, two workshops and two terraces.
For sale for £195,000, through The Property Finders; 0870 800 4455, www.thepropertyfinders.com
In Montargull, near Artesa de Segre, this furnished stone village house has
250 square metres of living space, a large terrace and gardens.
For sale for £180,000: for information contact Keven Johnson; 00 34 973
402395
This one-bedroom attic flat with wooden beams is in a newly restored old stone
building in the heart of the town of Tremp.
For sale for £95,500, through The Property Finders; 0870 800 4455, www.thepropertyfinders.com
These derelict houses in the village of Siall are to be part of a development
project.
Available from £40,000: contact Declan Doyle; 00 34 6262 70484, declandoyle54@gmail.com
