Over the last 12 chapters we have had a comprehensive look at everything that is involved in the process of searching for and buying a property in Spain. I hope I have given you some real insights into how the Spanish Market functions, how to navigate it and, most importantly, who you need to have by your side to ensure that your interests are protected and that the advice you are being given is not intended to benefit someone else.
There is however one final piece of advice that I want to leave you with, and that is about who to listen to and when you should take advice with more than a pinch of salt. It all relates to a psychological phenomenon that affects all of us. The Dunning-Kruger Effect
The Dunning-Kruger effect is named after two American social psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger. Together they described a psychological phenomenon where people with limited knowledge or skill in a particular area overestimate their own abilities. In simple terms, it's when someone doesn't know much about something but believes they are very good at it. You need to have a certain amount of knowledge about a subject to understand that there is a huge amount about that subject that you don't know.. One of my comic heroes, John Cleese, described the effect in a slightly less sensitive way: “some people are so stupid they don’t even know they are stupid”.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is something that you should keep in mind throughout your property search. Firstly, be mindful of how it will affect your own perception. As I stated from the beginning the intention of this guide was never to create a do it yourself set of instructions for conveyancing, rather it was to give you the information you need in order to find and deal with the right people and understand what they are doing on your behalf. If you let the Dunning Kruger effect take over you might believe that you know exactly what you are doing and don’t need their help, but you do. To be clear, I’m not saying you are stupid, in fact quite the opposite, having read this guide you are far more equipped to start hunting for property in Spain than the vast majority of people who just set out and rely on an agent to guide them. However I hope you recognize where professionals are needed and why. Never look at money spent on professional services as money wasted, they are vital in ensuring that you don’t waste far more money if something goes wrong.
You also need to be aware of the Dunning Kruger effect when it is in action in other people and this is absolutely prevalent on social media. Every day I see people asking questions in Spanish Property and Expat groups on Facebook that are entirely unsuitable in that context. Questions about tax, property law, immigration, banking; all areas that need expert advice. But what worries me more than seeing the questions being asked is seeing them answered. If you look through all the answers to a specific question you will normally find that there are several contradictions. They can’t all be right and normally most of them are wrong.This is a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. There is nothing sinister about the false information that is put out, people are normally genuinely trying to help (although it is social media so some of them are just trying to sound clever). They genuinely believe that they know what they are talking about but complicated questions don’t have simple answers and what was true for them when they were in the same situation is not necessarily true for you. The massive number of jurisdictions in Spain alone make it unlikely. Some of these people speak with great authority because, thanks to the Dunning-Kruger effect, they really do believe that they know what they are talking about. However, as I discussed when talking about searching for areas, social media groups can be incredibly useful. They are filled with people who have first hand experience of the things that you are going through and loads of insights into local areas and living in Spain in general. So how do you decide what information is useful and what should be ignored?
When every you are dealing with a layperson - someone who is not specifically trained or highly experienced in their field - ask yourself these two questions:
- If I was thinking of buying a house in England, I met a person in a pub and they told me that they know what I need to do because they bought a house several years ago, would I bet my savings that they are right?
- What if they couldn’t speak English?
Sure there are anecdotes and experiences that this hypothetical person could share that would be useful, but I don’t imagine anyone would base their tax planning on their advice, especially when they can’t speak the language that the tax laws are written in. All the same I see so many people seeking advice from non Spanish speakers purely on the basis that they bought a house in Spain several years previously, and then, I see answers that could lead to big mistakes being made. Please don’t fall into that trap yourself.
I hope that this guide has been a help to you and that the advice I have given you will help to clarify your plans and take control of the entire process of searching for and buying a property in Spain.
Right at the beginning of this guide I tried to express just how much I love Spain. I sincerely hope that you get to enjoy this amazing country like I have and that soon it feels like home to you too.