best way to choose a villa?

[UKTim]

hi all

Im going with some friends next year and were wondering how to choose a villa? I just wanted to choose one that looks good and book it but the others are saying we should check out the owner and even ask about the maintenance of it, how often its cleaned, is the pool looked after

does everyone really do this or are they worrying too much? if we have to do that kind of research, how do we start

[Tink]

Oh geez. I'm not going to be much help, but yes. Do check out the owner, the maintenance of the place, and the location before you give them a dime.

Word of mouth is a good reference. There are some folks here who do/have rent villas and I'm sure they'll be along shortly to share their expertise with you!

[mumof2]

believe it or not we found ours on a well known auction site - i spoke on the phone with the owners a few times to get a feel for they were like.

i'd spent days, weeks, months trying to find something and had to go with that one as it fitted in with our budget.....

all worked out fine!

[malcolm]

Hi....Humble villa owner here

I do not mind one bit if a potential guest wishes to check my ownership validity out after all they are paying me say £1000 and i am letting them have over £200.000 worth of home on trust....the trust has to work both ways.

There are county apraisers sites that you can check ownership on dependant on the owner informing you of the county they are in ofcourse.

Maybe a good way is to check those villas that are on a forum based site as this gives you the chance to ask the forum members if any have stayed in that particular villa and there opinion of it.

It can be very hard for an owner to get their villa advertised on a forum based site and if they can get on it they can get quite a few bookings and if they were to be dishonest to a guest then word would get round and they would loose potentialy £1000's in bookings, so you will find forum based villa owners do value there advertisments and as i say have a lot to loose.

[Catherine]

Its the location, especially if its south facing and being over looked at the pool, is a big no no for us. I always ring the owners too, to have a chat about the villa and try and suss them out.

Some villa owners are quite crafty and do show older pictures and even pictures of not even their villa, we caught one out a few months back. I have to say though i am sure the vast majority are honest.

[chipndale]

I think it may be helpful to have a special villa forum on here like other places do? We could get to know the owners and I know I would feel better booking their villa if they were around like Malcolm seems to be

[ukwdwnut]

1st 2 times we went we hsd a villa from my uncles ex work mate who was a police officer, so no need to check him out, i just went and met him as he was only a 30mins drive

next time it was an AOA villa, and all three we eventully stayed in we superb, the 1st one bing totally awesome but we only go to stay there foe 3 days i think it was , which was a crying shame

and octobers trip i was offered malcolms villa although i had a cheaper villa offer by £50 and a 3bed i would rather give it to someone who was a forum villa owner than a total stranger from anywhere on the net anditsa 5bed

[Dawn]

I've gone through a forum based villa owner and spoke to them a lot before committing the deposit money.

[Andy _B]

We have always (bar once) booked ours through a specialist travel company, thay have allways been grat plus you have the added protection of their travel company bonding. the last time also they got us upgraded car hire and a cheaper flight that I could boo anywhere else at the time. But ther do not mind if you still book elements separately such as an onsite week or a few days at the beach.