Looking for a long-term rental in Spain

Ever since we spent two great weeks on the Costa del Sol several years ago, our dream has been to rent a piece of Spanish property for a long term. We now may be able to realize that dream now that we have access to the funds left to my wife from her grandfather's estate.

Since we are both wannabe writers, we see this as an excellent opportunity to work on our dream in an idyllic setting - warm, sunny climate and friendly people. We may even want to invest in buying a small place in Spain, but we'll just have to wait and see how this works out.

We've done a bit of homework on the purchasing in Spain and it does seem a bit complicated with the reservation agreement, paying up-front fees, getting the land registry checks and understanding the intricacies of a contract written in Spanish.

We're both already taking Spanish lessons, not the language spoken in Mexico and most of Central America, but Castilian, the official language of Spain. A much more beautiful version in our opinion.

Health care in Spain is another area we are focusing on. After all, we will be spending nearly a year there and want to make sure all bases are covered.

We're still a ways out from making any firm commitments at this point, but plan to add periodic updates here as we firm things up.

Stay tuned.