El blog de Maria

Anne said:
Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 8:26 AM

Maria you speak of "your determination and desire to change things will be contagious to nationals who will join your camapigns for a better future. "

Where are they Maria?.........we are almost deafened by their silence.

Why should that be do you think? Perhaps the fact that misinformation and denials are all too prevelant.

Maria said:
Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 12:06 PM

Keith is preparing the translation of the petition into Spanish, I am sure many people will follow

Rambi said:
Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 1:46 PM

Hi Maria,
I agree with you about Keith Rule. As far as I am concerned he is our champion and his tenacity for seeking justice for all of us is commendable.
As you know I am also one of the victims of the Spanish bank guarantee 'scam' and am disgusted by the Spanish Property Road show in the UK at present.
However it appears that the authorities, who are aware of our problems, use as their defence the fact that there are millions of foreign buyers who have successfully bought property in Spain without any problems. They will admit to the knowledge of a tiny minority of 'protesters' but compared to the overall picture the numbers are insignificant. There's a saying in the UK everyone understands it is, ' You can't please all of the people all of the time'
To the authorities we are a tiny minority because in spit of Keith's excellent efforts his petition is still in the hundreds and not in the thousands to make any impact. Also we have formed many small groups and even if we were able to join forces it would almost certainly be just the Brits. Not a true sample of the variety of nationalities and their total numbers involved.
My development problem is with Trampolin Hills and I am told that 2,000 of the 3,000 properties on offer were sold off plan. Each property had a minimum deposit of around 30,000€ making a figure of 60,000,000€ which they bank has received and kept. I don't know the size of Keith's development at Finca Parcs but if it were similar in size and numbers to Trampolin Hills, are we looking at 120,000,000€? This is just two developments, if we started to add these figures right across Spain it would strengthen our cause, invoke more publicity, generate a lot more interest, be a vote winner for some astute politician and seriously undermine the present claim that this is just a few 'unhappy protesters'. Talk of a bank fraud amounting to hundreds or possibly thousands of millions of Euro's would probably grab, not just national, but international headlines. The result would shame Spain into getting it's property, banking and judiciary houses in order.

So Maria, is there a way we can find out how many off plan properties have been sold? Are there any national or even regional figures anywhere? Failing that is there a statistician who can make an educated guess? Could we employ a National Investigative body, or a University to conduct a study? These ideas may seem fanciful but we have got to start 'thinking outside the box', and any suggestions are worth considering. Or is the whole messy system shrouded in secrecy, created by those who seek to keep the truth hidden.
I have written to Keith with this suggestion and am waiting for a reply. I'm not asking to abandon our efforts so far but just to try and counter the smug tiny minority label.
Let them try to dismiss figures of thousands of millions of Euro's as a tiny insignificant minority.
As I see it we should play to our strength's and throw in a few firecrackers.
Rambi.

Rambi said:
Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 1:50 PM

Hi Maria,
I agree with you about Keith Rule. As far as I am concerned he is our champion and his tenacity for seeking justice for all of us is commendable.
As you know I am also one of the victims of the Spanish bank guarantee 'scam' and am disgusted by the Spanish Property Road show in the UK at present.
However it appears that the authorities, who are aware of our problems, use as their defence the fact that there are millions of foreign buyers who have successfully bought property in Spain without any problems. They will admit to the knowledge of a tiny minority of 'protesters' but compared to the overall picture the numbers are insignificant. There's a saying in the UK everyone understands it is, ' You can't please all of the people all of the time'
To the authorities we are a tiny minority because in spit of Keith's excellent efforts his petition is still in the hundreds and not in the thousands to make any impact. Also we have formed many small groups and even if we were able to join forces it would almost certainly be just the Brits. Not a true sample of the variety of nationalities and their total numbers involved.
My development problem is with Trampolin Hills and I am told that 2,000 of the 3,000 properties on offer were sold off plan. Each property had a minimum deposit of around 30,000€ making a figure of 60,000,000€ which they bank has received and kept. I don't know the size of Keith's development at Finca Parcs but if it were similar in size and numbers to Trampolin Hills, are we looking at 120,000,000€? This is just two developments, if we started to add these figures right across Spain it would strengthen our cause, invoke more publicity, generate a lot more interest, be a vote winner for some astute politician and seriously undermine the present claim that this is just a few 'unhappy protesters'. Talk of a bank fraud amounting to hundreds or possibly thousands of millions of Euro's would probably grab, not just national, but international headlines. The result would shame Spain into getting it's property, banking and judiciary houses in order.

So Maria, is there a way we can find out how many off plan properties have been sold? Are there any national or even regional figures anywhere? Failing that is there a statistician who can make an educated guess? Could we employ a National Investigative body, or a University to conduct a study? These ideas may seem fanciful but we have got to start 'thinking outside the box', and any suggestions are worth considering. Or is the whole messy system shrouded in secrecy, created by those who seek to keep the truth hidden.
I have written to Keith with this suggestion and am waiting for a reply. I'm not asking to abandon our efforts so far but just to try and counter the smug tiny minority label.
Let them try to dismiss figures of thousands of millions of Euro's as a tiny insignificant minority.
As I see it we should play to our strength's and throw in a few firecrackers.
Rambi.

Rambi said:
Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 2:05 PM

Sorry,
It appears twice because I tried to edit the spelling mistake and it seems there is no edit facility.

Anne said:
Friday, May 6, 2011 @ 4:00 PM

Interesting point Rambi.
All I know is that there are currently 4500 community threads listed on EOS's database apparently!

Rambi said:
Sunday, May 8, 2011 @ 3:07 PM

Thanks Anne,
Does that mean 4,500 developments, or 4,500 homes? If it is the latter then at an average of 30,000€ deposit that brings us to a figure of 135,000,000€. If it's just threads or comments then obviously this figure is of little use.
Do you, or anyone else, know of any way we can find either the true figures or get a respected intelligently structured guess from somewhere?
Our cause will be more effective if we can legitimately quote a figure. If there is say, 100,000 properties at about the same deposits a figure of three billion euro's is going to be hard to dismiss.
I'm sure that with figures of this size the worlds financial press will run the story.

Anne said:
Monday, May 16, 2011 @ 9:48 AM

Rambi, Justin shows the following within "find your community":
There are currently over 4,500 communities listed in our database, so presumably this implies developments as opposed to homes.

Might it be worth setting up a new thread titled "how many off plan properties have been sold", or something similar, to try and establish the information you require?

Rambi said:
Monday, June 6, 2011 @ 12:12 AM

Thanks Anne,
Sorry for the delay but I've been away for a month and am only now getting back into the fray. I like your idea and I think I'll give it a try. I wrote to the Spanish office of statistics and asked for any figures regarding numbers of developments not completed. Strangely I never got a reply. However I will investigate your excellent suggestion. Watch this space.
Rambi.

willem bol said:
Friday, July 1, 2011 @ 2:02 PM

Why thinks Keith that only Brits were duped?
There a lot of north europeans outside england involved as well as spanish citizens.
Let him translate in german dutch frenck and seek free publicity.
(not everbody speaks english!!)

Willem said:
Friday, July 1, 2011 @ 3:06 PM

Why do not you contact Keith to this respect? I am sure he will be interested on doing this extensive to other Northern european people.

Pat Roberts said:
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 @ 12:42 AM

I think the Spanish have 'shot themselves in the foot ' by organising a series of property road shows in other countries and the UK as they have presented us all with ideal launch pads to picket and publicise our complaints.
What we need is a list with of times and dates of all the road shows planned by the Spanish in each country so that all those effected can turn up in force and show the Spanish that we are a force to be reckoned with.