I am then NOT HUMAN. When I decided to live outside the UK (Germany) I went already near fluent. Spain was a bit different but I did by then have Spanish family (the missus). Take it not personal - but not doing so is simply arrogance. It's something the English speaking peoples (in general) are not good about. Look at French/Romainians/Italians etc - Most arrive speaking more than just a smattering. Maybe not fluent - but enough to get out and find work. Most Germans I know are trilingual. Many speak 4 languages - most I know are doctors (or their families) though.

I'm left a bit cold (sorry) by folk who simply expect the locals to speak their tongue. In the UK you'd get little sympathy if you simply started off in <insert language>. You'd get a "Bloody foreigner - comes here and cant even speak English" look.

And no - I would not consider myself a gifted linguist.

Hasta not Asta btw ;-) - Its a silent AICH.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - NOTARIOS are a must. They'll point out stuff they feel is out of context - they did when we bought our house as the mortgage terms were EXCEPTIONALLY good and he thought the bank had made an error.

One point - there is an partial issue here with it being a GERMAN. When I first went out to Germany I was rather shocked to find it is normal for sellers to pay a huge part of what in the UK would be considered a sellers responsibility (I never got to CGTax). Nobody batted an eyelid when I left and applied the same rules. Given that the seller and seems to be the agent are German - maybe (to soem extent) they were playing by German rules.

But the fact the NOTARIO picked up on it suggests they were trying it on - btw WHO HIRED THE TRANSLATOR?