New Land update

You may have been wondering whats going on with the new land? Waiting for an update after our appeal. Anyone who has tried to get anything legal done here would appreciate how complicated it is and how long it is taking. Here is why..

The neighboring land in which we are trying to buy is actually already in a pre-contract to someone else. A developer for a windmill farm has already agreed to buy all of the land. The plot in which we are talking about is 42,000 square meters. 

We have been trying for a year to get in contact with land around ours, to find owners and see if there would be potential to expand in the future. With no luck, due to not selling or complicated family issues it was always a no. We knew that the land directly touching ours was going to be a windmill farm, We knew this when we bought ours. ( this is how long it all takes here, he is still waiting to get started with plans and permissions)

Around 4 months ago we had the great idea to approach the "buyer" to see if he needed all of the land. Turns out he did not. He only wanted half but the owner wanted to sell it all so he agreed to buy the entire plot. With the buyer on our side who was very happy to have to pay 1/2 the price for what he needed he managed to convince the owners that it was a good deal. Meanwhile they still were waiting in pre-contract to get the permissions to build the windmills and if the permissions didn't go through neither did the sales. So if he sold 20000 square meters to us he was guaranteed at least a 1/2 sale, and quicker. ( in theory) So he agreed, but unfortunately for us, but understandably we had to reach the same price. It is a little harder for a small charity to reach the same price as a multi dollar huge windmill company. This is where the emergency appeal came from.

Here you will see all of the empty land which we are trying to buy. The top right corner belongs to another company. The small area in the top/middle is our current finca. The remainder "L" shape of the picture is what we are planning to buy. Its nearly 4 times the size of our current land.

We had to jump at this opportunity to get land touching ours, if we didn't take it now we would not have this option again.

So we had to see if it was possible to find 120,000 euros to make rescuing more horses possible. As we are totally full without it and have to turn down starving and abused horses which breaks our hearts. We contacted every possible place to borrow as much money as possible in order to fund-raise the rest. Thanks to a few different unofficial places we can borrow the majority of the money but we needed to raise 20,000 to feel comfortable enough to agree to it. We didn't quite reach this with the apeal, we raised 15,000 which was amazing. But since we had to spend a few thousand on other problems that have arisen with broken cars, theft and broken tools. 

We won't let this stop us. 

We are still buying the land, we are going to gamble everything we have and deal with the problems after. If we don't try we will regret it forever whilst watching the windmills and not our paradise paddock/ track system. In reality once we have the land we won't be able to build on it for some time due to paying of borrowed money. But at least we will have it and hopefully one day an investor will find us and want to sponsor a paradise paddock to rescue all of the horses on the island who need our help.

Whats taking so long? 

Paperwork is the simple answer. We need them to make another "pre contract" that says we are allowed to use the land before we complete the sale. The reason why is because it could take years to separate the land officially. We had this problem with our first plot, this also took nearly 1 1/2 years to complete the sale. Our lawyer and their lawyer are working on this currently. Every step forward we then have a step back as they ask for another piece of paper that usually doesn't exist. So we have to create it and start the process again. We are still waiting for our sign-off for our "official" stable block on our first piece of land. This has been over a year since we completed it and we are still waiting. Now our lawyer has found out the architect did something wrong. (we payed extra to have to local one because it pays to have the correct person) So they are now re doing the papers and we will pay yet more money and do yet more waiting.

It must be so hard looking after all of those animals....

A quote people say to me very regularly. But it couldn't be any further from the truth. The animals are the easy bit! The paperwork, the financial cost, the "red tape", politics, language barrier and the waiting are the real difficulties.

But we are doing everything we can, we are paying the right people. We are fighting and we will not give up. Tenerife Horse Rescue are here to stay and we are determined to not have to turn horses away who desperately need our help solely because we don't have the space. We really hope soon to have some good news about the contract and the land. 

Any other complications?

Well yes of course there are! We rely solely on donations to keep this place going at the moment. ( and big loans) as we can not rent our accommodations to fund the sanctuary like we plan to. We are not legal to rent these out until our stable block is signed off. More paperwork problems which effect every aspect of running this place. It is a constant worry, battle and head ache. Before starting this project I didn't have wrinkles and grey hair. I certainly do now!

Can you help?

In many ways, even if you can not help financially. We understand everyone is having a hard time. Please comment, like and share our posts. It may seem like a pointless action. But this is what we rely on. Growth of the online presence. This is our only form of income and every single like, comment, follow and share helps us in the right direction.  Every share introduces us to new people who just might have a little cash to donate. If not every like helps the algorithms  and gets us shown to a wider audience. 

Find us on facebook, youtube, instagram, and twitter. Or if you are feeling really generous maybe you would follow us on patreon. For the price of the coffee a month you can be in with insiders and play a huge part on the growth of this finca.

Other ways you can help financially are here on the how to help page

Thank you so  much for following, supporting and making this all possible. We really hope soon to show you the exciting moment in which we sign the contract and make the new step to Tenerife Horse Rescue.