Old houses

As a photographer of architecture, I generally only get to see and photograph the end product, the finished house. But I've seen my share of old ruins over the years and they're usually more interesting before restoration than after.

When an old house comes up for sale in rural Spain, it's probably because the owner has died, not because they moved. It seems that Spanish inheritance law is very complicated, sometimes old houses will be locked up for years after a death while family members negotiate who gets what.

So viewing an old house for sale can be like entering a time capsule. Most of these house have no plumbing or electric and some of the houses you see below haven't been lived in for over 40 years. The houses contain personal possessions, clothes, tools, cooking utensils, newspapers from the time of General Franco, and in one house I visited a table was set for dinner. Very spooky!