You’ve already appointed a ‘Property Manager’?
Having completed the purchase of your Ibiza property, taken possession of the keys, and finally moved in, it is time to savor and enjoy your new home!
You’ve already appointed a ‘ Property Manager’?
Hopefully, by this point, you’ve already appointed an ‘Ibiza Property Manager’ to liaise with your gestoria and arrange for the transfer of electricity, water, telephone, internet, alarm system, etc. into your name to ensure continuity of service. On an ongoing basis, you might choose to arrange for payment of these and other bills by your Ibiza Property Manager and gestoria – particularly if you’re likely to be away from home for extended periods of time. In this latter case, many owners decide that changing the locks might be prudent too.
In the likely event that you’ve purchased your property unfurnished, you’ll be going shopping for furniture in Ibiza and this is initially where you’ll most appreciate the services of your ‘manager’. Your manager’s local knowledge will prove invaluable in advising you on where to find the best value, showing you the whereabouts of the various outlets/pick-up points, and liaising with the retailers in Spanish on your behalf, if necessary.
Furthermore, they will be able to negotiate the best prices from the best local suppliers for any property improvements, alterations, or extensions that you might desire. Then liaise with your gestoria and architect to deal with these matters on your behalf. Once work commences they will also supervise the various contractors involved in the project. (Letting them into the property and locking up behind them once their work has been approved, and making sure that they all turn up in the right order!)
This is where an Ibiza Property Manager’s experience comes into force. It takes years to establish, through both experience and word of mouth, which contractors are the best for each task and which are going to be consistently reliable. An experienced Ibiza Property Manager will have a good ongoing relationship with the best contractors and will be highly respected as a regular customer by the contractors themselves.
This in itself is a guarantee of priority service for you as a property owner.
The less glamorous, but equally important, part of the Ibiza Property Manager’s service is to ensure that the house functions smoothly on a day-to-day basis. To this end, you’ll need to consider a budget for your manager to work with.
There will be initial capital expenditure, which might include: a vacuum cleaner, brooms, brushes, iron and ironing board, a drying rack for delicate items that can’t be tumble-dried, and an extensive array of cleaning products. Outside you may well require hosepipes for the gardeners and a high-pressure water machine for the terraces e.g. a Karcher.
Cleaning and maintenance
Many Ibiza property owners employ cleaners because they own large properties that require many hours of work to be kept up to scratch, or simply because when they spend precious time at their Ibiza property, they have better things to do with their time…
This poses several problems for your Ibiza Property Manager:
The first is finding a good reliable cleaner who is not already employed by someone else and is available to work full-time, in the first scenario. The second is finding a good reliable cleaner who is available to work simply during the property owner’s often brief visit to the island.
A third scenario can often arise when an owner chooses to rent his property out throughout the summer season – to help to finance the substantial running costs of a holiday home in Ibiza.
This can require putting together a team of cleaners to enter a property as one set of guests leave and leave it spotless later that same day before the new guests arrive!
Your Ibiza Property Manager will need to have good connections to be able to cover all of these eventualities and will ideally need to know when you will be in residence as far in advance as possible
When you aren’t in residence your Ibiza Property Manager would normally check the whole property once or twice a week. This would normally include a complete check of the exterior, gardens, pool, and basements, recording the electric and water meter readings, a complete interior check of every room and light bulb whilst airing the house, removing cobwebs and spiders, checking freezers, flushing toilets, and running taps.
Meanwhile, in the background, your Ibiza Property Manager will be organising the schedules for the following services, some of which will involve regular visits to the property e.g. Ibiza Gardeners and Pool Maintenance.
Others will be as and when required e.g. Handyman, Window Cleaning Service (including removing winter pollen from shutters), or Vehicle-related e.g. annual ITV inspection or servicing.
Click here to jump to our list of service providers for Ibiza Property Maintenance
