The Shark Tank; A Sigh of Relief
I’ve been reading the Spanish newspapers during the past days and feeling an enormous amount of relief- in regards to being where I am now. I feel safe in a way I really didn’t feel before.
I’m in no way implying corruption and dodgy dealings don’t go on in France, they obviously do. It’s simply that the likelihood that one will cross paths with people involved in such things seems to drop dramatically once one leaves Sotogrande. It’s not the place’s fault, evidently- just that in a country with such a young democracy and politics rooted in a patriarchal dictatorship, and money heavily concentrated at one end of society… you can connect the dots.
The latest Spanish corruption scandal involves Rodrigo Rato, former minister, former IMF managing director and also known as the man who tanked Bankia. One of the people allegedly involved in the scandal is no other than recently indicted Sotogrande lawyer Domingo Plazas. The man who represented the buyers in the sale of all our Spanish assets last December.
Before that we’d sat across the table from the Marrache’s who were representing people who bought another of our properties. They’re the mini-Madoffs who pocketed £34 million.
Not to mention our encounter with Anthony Gould, who tried to buy one of our properties but on our lawyer’s advice we backed out just in time.
How we survived the shark tank, I do not know. What I do know is I’m happy to be in the middle of nowhere, a place where ‘corruption’ is when one of your six eggs from the market turns out to be broken.
My Mazamet 
I grew up in “normal,” now live in the “not-normal,” but know the “normal” does exist and all is not lost in our accident-prone species. We can do it, and we have… albeit in pockets. I’m glad you have found your “normal,” too. Love it like a good cheesecake. It deserves no less.
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I’m glad things are finally settling down for you. I can sense from your writings that you seem way more relaxed these days. 🙂
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I would love to live in a place with so little corruption. here it is a cancer that has metastasized and the only way out is to kill the patient
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Ugh. That’s a side to Spain, and Sotogrande, you’ve never mentioned before. Or I missed it. Either way, I’d go for the eggs as well. Life is too short to live on the knife’s edge all the time. 😦
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And frightening. I lived permanently on guard; never knowing if I was about to be the target of a shady mover and shaker.
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Forgive me but…did you ever fear being targeted just for being gay? Or was anyone fair game?
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Anyone was fair game. That coast has a very unusual mix of people, from old school aristocrats to modern day mobsters. Because of the amount of wealthy people living there it became attractive to criminals from all over Europe. And on top of that there’s a layer of ‘official’ corruption. You’d have a hard time finding a town hall on the coast where there hasn’t been some variety of corruption scandal in the past 20 years. Illegal building permits, construction on protected park-land etc. And a justice system that’s highly political which is an incredibly dangerous thing.
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How on earth do you navigate a system like that? I’m amazed you haven’t gone grey.
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I HAVE gone grey + my hair is falling out. I’m on my way to looking like St Francis of Assisi!!!
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lmao – oh Pinky…. A tonsure is so not your style. 😀
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A Dutch friend – decidedly rich – thought of buying in Sotogrande. One week decided him that the agents, lawyers and the majority of owners were dubious.He bought in Catalonia instead.
And as for corruption in France…you have money, you’re spending it in the commune…you won’t be troubled.
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Sotogrande has changed in a most appalling way; I suppose that’s true for much of that coast.
It used to be a tiny community. The closest thing to a supermarket was a tiny food-shop in the marina. There were only two to three hundred residents… and then it suddenly grew, and grew, and grew. Hypermarket, supermarket, a tsunami of new homes including in vertical buildings. Suddenly instead of little fish restaurants owned by the locals we had big groups opening restaurants with red carpets and photographers outside. The exact opposite of what attracted the original residents.
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On the upside, when you want to cash out and sell, it is preferable to be in a booming area.
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