Property
Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it a church? And how does this crazy new building link with a Playmobil hotel, a flying yellow submarine and the lost city of Atlantis? Find out in our Property Supplement inside
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A CASH payment for the Prime Minister’s suits, a €300,000 bung to a former treasurer and a backhander to pay for an elite wedding. These are just three of the illegal ‘caja B’ cash payments made by the former PP party during Mariano Rajoy’s tenure. Revealed in a series of sensational hand-written notes and documents, kept by disgraced former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas, they clearly demonstrate how the party was illegally funded on a national scale. Dubbed the ‘Operacion Kitchen’ papers, they have only now been made public, after being published in national newspaper El Mundo. What is even more shocking however is the way the dossier was allegedly stolen from Barcenas by police and not handed over to the courts in the recent Gurtel investigation into corruption. A Madrid judge has now opened an ‘urgent enquiry’ to look into why these documents have only now been made public. Judge Jose de la Mata has demanded the Home Office explain how police and the PP party allegedly conspired to keep the papers hidden. The documents were appar-
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November 21st - December 4th 2018
leading the way despite Brexit fears
FOREIGN FIREBALL
AN avalanche of foreign buyers is setting Spain’s property market on fire! A total of 53,359 homes were acquired by foreigners in the first half of 2018. The massive figure dwarfs the 33,000 sales recorded in the same period of 2007, when Spain’s property market was at its peak.
And, no surprise, the British continue ting for a record 7,613 purchases, up to lead the way, accounThat’s according to the latest official 8.8% on 2017. ries showing that 14% of all foreign figures from Spain’s notabuyers were British.
Second up come the French, who bought drop of 5% on last year) and the Germans,4,211 properties (a Destination-wise, Valencia was the favourite province for inwho bought 4,138 vestors, accounting homes, some 2% less than last year. for a third of all foreign sales, with 15,613 sales. When it comes to buying trends it turns out that the Irish, Da- It was the nish - and most interestingly, the Moroccans region with the highest year-on-year growth at - are the fastest 16.7%. growing nationalities. Andalucia came in second with 8.2% Spicing up the market, Moroccans bought of the foreign market 3,662 properties, a (9,737 sales), growth of 29% on last year, while the Danes were up by 18% singly a 5.3%followed by Catalunya with 7,570 sales, unsurpriand the Irish 25%. decline from the same period last year, much to do with current political tension. Romanians meanwhile continue to be a strong market having The fifth bought 3,872 homes. highest destination was Madrid, where foreign market sales increased by 5.4% (4,911 purchases).
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brace yourself Mallorca will be among worst affected by extreme weather as climate change takes hold SEVERE: Flooding in Mallorca while (top right inset) huge 40ft wave in Tenerife and tornado in Italy to become the norm in the future MALLORCA will be hammered by fiercer and more frequent storms as climate change ‘fuels the fire’ of extreme weather, scientists have warned. The warning comes after dev-
astating floods claimed 13 lives last month, including a British boy, two British tourists and a Dutchman. This week, monster 40ft waves demolished balconies in Tenerife, while the Costa del Sol
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and Costa Blanca were also hit with flash flooding terrifying bouts of lightning. The Balearics were also put on red alert again for further flooding. But these incidents are just a snapshot of what is to come as temperatures rise, say scientists. Professor Peter Stott, at the UK’s Met Office, insisted: "People imagine going to places like Tenerife or Mallorca the weather will be nice. "Instead we see these images of massive waves and flooding. Tenerife is vulnerable to storms of course, but these are things people aren't expecting. Climate scientists
have been saying for a long time we do expect a rapid increase in the frequency of extreme weather." He added that violent Atlantic storms are becoming more common in Spain and when they hit they are going to become more dangerous. While experts say it is not possible to blame individual storms on global warming, research is already pointing to much higher levels of rain that lead to killer floods. Professor Stott said one study on Hurricane Florence in Florida - which was described as a ‘thousand-year rain event’ - suggested climate
change had increased rainfall by 50%.He said: "That's just one example of how climate change is making these storms more powerful and more intense when they hit land. "We have sea surface temperatures one degree higher than in pre-industrial times. "That brings 6 to 7% higher moisture in the atmosphere as more water evaporates off the surface. “All that is fuel to the fire — there's more energy fuelling extreme weather events." Meanwhile, sea levels are rising by 3mm every year, undermining coastal defences. IN
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THE PERFECT FRAME: An indoor cubed garden leads on to a view new home in Sotogrande, see page of Gibraltar at XXVIII
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Massive growth in buyers from abroad, with the British
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Cooking the books
Issue 25 November 2018
Divine inspiration
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