OK... after some months (no years!) of lurking around this board and watching people buy some lovely places, we're about to take the leap (inspired by another wonderful holiday).

But, before I do I want to make sure that I don't bankrupt us in the process

We have a budget of about 100K pounds for an apartment, and would like to know the following, if anyone can help....

- What does it cost to buy a (new) place out there? I am thinking of payments to solicitors, banks, estate/selling agents, utility companies, local taxes, etc. Roughly how much should one budget for this, on top of the sale, and can anyone give me an idea of roughly what each should be?

- Then, once we've moved in, what are the approximate costs of running an apartment? Again, I am thinking of community charges, local taxes/rates, utility bills, etc. I don't plan on renting it out (it's for our family use only), so it should be basic costs only I guess.

Any help on this would be very much appreciated. I am trying to piece together the information from other topics (especially 'buying furniture in Palm Mar'), but it would be great if I could get a number of direct responses too based on your experiences to date.

Thank you very much in advance.