Liability and walking away

Remember Pedro "works for" MRI - he is one of their "independants" - Has he told you that Caladonia are in breach of contract as there was no start date in the contract and under spanish law that is illegal especially when a reasonable delay has more than passed (even many years!!) the bank guarentee should pay out - but to do this you will need to take the bank to court!!!

Anyone want their money back? Get a good lawyer and you should be ok.....

Hi,
I also have the same lawyer, Pedro Orgaz.

I emailed him on Monday after my return from Corvera. I asked hime to chase the bank guarantees and also what he thought of Corveras decision NOT to build the additional commercial centre/leisure facilities etc until more phases are sold. I also commented that the contract should have included something about the completion of the commercial centre and could/can it have been changed.

Here is his answer:

"Rick ,

 We will chase the Bank Guarantees.

With regards to the contract and the facilities , it was not possible to amend the contract . We will see how things are progressing in the following months.

 Regards,   Pedro Orgaz"


Me again, not a very reasurring response. 

I have emailed him again, telling him for the 2nd time that as Calidona have already told me that they are not going to build anything in the foreseeable future, what does he think will happen, given a few more months. Mybe he has a crystal ball and can see a rosy future.

I got the impression that Corvera are not selling anything at the moment. The sales office is also closed at the weekend too which cannot help.

I don't intend to give Calidona another penny until I get some assurance/guarantee of the work going ahead. 

Rick

Rick
You are right not to pay any more until you/we get some re-assurances on the completion of the development. That is why I look forward to Lisa's feedback on the lawyer's view. I still believe we have significant bargaining power among us because of the cash flow we can provide as our properties come to completion late next year.
If we can get them to a position where they need our millions they have to give us some re-assurances or even legally binding commitments.
Keep in mind even if Calidona do not there are other avenues open to owners if they do not complete the resort as promised. I'd rather not share these in public just yet for obvious reasons but let's remember we do have cards to play
Regards to all
Sean  

Hi,
While we are currently very happy with the service and advice being provided by our own independent lawyer - we are very grateful to Lisa for her offer to have an initial discussion regarding the Corvera with her new lawyer and her suggestion of setting up an independent forum just for Corvera owners that can only be viewed by owners where we can swap contact information and ideas.  We look forward to hearing the outcome of the former and would welcome the opportunity of being part of the latter.
Incidentally our lawyer has received confirmation from the bank in question that they are currently processing our new bank guarantees.

pedro says the contract couldnt be changed- if he is our lawyer representing our interests he would have told us this and said not to sign!!! everything he says now seems to fob you off so that he doesnt commit to fixing the issues yet still gets his fees from mri's referals - he deserves a good ....ing

This is great that we stumbled upon this site, and that we do not have to suffer in silince anymore,
For the record our LEGAL EAGAL was also PEDRO who by the way has stopped anserwing some of our e-mails as well.
We to would like to thank LISA for her efforts and fully behind her proposal of a private fourm for us at CORVERA with hopefully no free loading.

Hi I did put this question to Pedro " would he have signed the contract."

The silence is deafening.

As my lawyer he should be acting in my interest and my interest alone.

Answers on a postcard please

Rick 

Hi

We too have been 'in communication' with Pedro re our Bank Guarantees, which  haven't been renewed yet, but which didn't add up anyway to the amounts we'd paid over. After banging our heads against that particular brick wall, turns out that one of the Guarantee documents has been 'lost', and in fact we go this information from the Developer's rep (Pablo), who interceded on our behalf! There has been no communicaion from the Lawyero n this, no apology, no nothing.

It's actually this lack of proffessionalism, care and attention from this firm of Lawyers that is making us so nervous; if we felt there was someone out there who was looking after our interests, then I don't think I would be adding to a thread entitled 'Liability and walking away', because this isn't actually what we want! 

We are once again seriously considering changing to a proper legal firm, but it sticks in my throat that we've paid for a service that we haven't actually got!

Rant over, we look forward to Lisa's feedback.

M

maybe we should all complain to their equiv of the law society?

For your information - Some months ago I complained directly to Darragh MacAnthony Chairman of MRI having seen him on a TV programme named - guess what? Ireland's richest men! Nuff said. 
As Im Irish myself I took the opportunity to "slag" him off on his wealth and complain about the service we as his customers were receiving from the MRI recommended solicitors. I have to within days I had calls from MRI and 2 from Martinez Echevarrio. My guarantees are in place and for a while at least the service was excellent. Try it.
 

Hi again PEDRO has just e-mailed us to say there will be a small delay in completion, 

He has informed us that litagation cannot take place until APRIL MAY next year to try and recover our monery 80,000 euros.

Does this mean that we can now WALK AWAY?

Me again!
Apologies work took over and my call to the lawyer is scheduled for tomorrow.
How funny guess who my lawyer  is??? Yeah Pedro.
I will have a long in depth discussion with the English lawyer tomorrow and will come back to everyone asap.I will not be remaining with Pedro's firm... worse decision I have made to date and uncharacteristic of me to work with someone I have never met.
My long standing friend has employed this lawyer for some years, her personal reference is all I need to speak to him and I will fly out to Spain and meet with him before I decide to employ him this time.
I did however read my contract last night.
Has everyone read theirs? Mine says if I fail to complete the developer is allowed to claim costs equal to the costs paid by the purchaser to date. I also read every piece of marketing literature and all the facilities we're worried about are listed there.
I had a reply from Esther to my direct questions.
She answered as follows.
Has the contract for the hotel been signed by De Vere? YES. I will check that with De Vere and will ask for a copy.
Can you provide proof of the financial status of Calidona. YES. I've asked for it.I will also be searching records for that confirmation.
Will Calidona guarantee the facilities described in the literature. YES but they will not all be built in one phase.
Why has the hotel building work not started at Roda. Town Hall delays. I will be checking that directly with the Town Hall.
One of the questions I will be putting to the lawyer is for a quote for drafting up an agreement with Calidona for a schedule of works. We need to know what the overall time frame is.
I have to say I believe Calidona is a reputable firm caught up in the global current climate but I don't think it's considering it's owner's concerns seriously enough.
I think things need to be worked out and fomally agreed for progression now.
I'll report back asap.

Hi Lisa - just a few points / thoughts.

The person that you need to speak to at De Vere is Mike Maloney.

The claiming costs part of your contract will be the same as everyones - however it may be worth asking whether the Spanish version confirms this (as the contract itself states that the Spanish version takes precedent).

Unfortunately the contract concerns your (and everone's) purchase of a residential unit - it mentions nothing about the other facilities - however the vendor is signing on behalf of "Corvera Golf and Country Club" - this may be worth mentioning.

In all honesty I very much doubt that you will be able able to pin the developer down to a completion date for the entire resort - we have all agreed to the contract, it is very one sided and I am personally kicking myself for not being cautious enough years ago.  Whilst it could be considered a breach of human rights in terms of not getting a place to live / rent out that we envisaged, the legal processes involved in this would be very lengthy, costly and subject to the vagaries of the Spanish legal system.

Unfortunately the reason why I started this thread was the fact that the contract is very protective towards the developer.  Whether the contract is "abusive" under Spanish law may be another issue.  Previous contributors have suggested that it does not necessarily fall in line with general Spanish law and that is my feeling - however I am sure that the developer will be bracing themselves for a number of challenges in this area.

Sorry - I've just pressed the wrong button!!

This message was last edited by MrUnhappy on 10/15/2008.

WITHOUT PREJUDICE:

Hello again Lisa and all Corvereans (Corverians?)

Thank you so much for all the work that you are putting in our behalf Lisa, we all really appreciate it.

Seeing that we are nothing to do with the most commonly utilised lawyer on our forum, I thought that I should perhaps let you all a direct transcript of the major part of that letter (as described to you all earlier) from my Solicitor/Abogada: Magdalena Moral Villegas, of Legal Matters, La Manga.

Quote: (As received)

"I have read your fax and I have studied your situation carefully".  Irrelevant text to this topic follows, then, continues:

"However, unfortunately, as a Lawyer, I must inform you about the real possibilities that you have to resolve your purchase contract with Corvera with the minimum financial cost for you and I am afraid that they are very little.

The reality is that our legal system does not consider as a cause for ending the contractual relation, in the case of a purchase, the cause of illness of one of the parts. 

In your case, even if you die (sorry because I know this sounds really strong) your wife would continue to be obliged to fulfil the purchase contract.

In case you do not want to go ahead with this purchase procedure, for health reasons, as the contract established, it would be consider a breach of contract by you and you will lose the amounts that you have paid until this moment to the developer.

I would like to give you a positive response about your queries but I must be objective and tell you the real consequences.  Therefore, if the developer finishes the property you are obliged by a contract to complete, even in the cases of illness".

(Unquote).

There was another one which advised me that the contract only "guaranteed" the matter of building our individual properties and that it does not cover the completion or anything else such as timings. specifications etc in respect of the other facilities.................... (my words) DESPITE the promotional blurb and website ads.

I must admit that I was trying everything in my book to wriggle off the hook but my health concerns ie: diabetes and hypertension, ARE very real and they are greatly affected adversely by all of this ongoing stress.............FACT.

Before we go too far down the road with our future legal options, may I please request that we avoid making it too "MRI or related lawyer specific" ?

This is because we purchased through the offices of a local estate agent whom we had enlisted to try to sell our existing apartment at Mar Menor, the one we just recently sold as outlined and at another loss and after four years of having it standing around empty.

His name is TERRY HURLEY and he is the M.D. of Los Belones Developments at Los Belones.

When we were talking to him about marketing the earlier apartment, he was almost ecstatic about the new Corvera project and to be fair, he also bought about three units there plus some at Roda but for the past year or so, he refuses point blank to respond to any of our letters or e-mails re: Corvera.

It was Terry which put us in touch with Magdalena and La Caixa bank at La Manga where we opened our accounts.

In incidentally, we still have 185,000 Euros sitting in La Caixa for when we have to pay up for Corvera but as outlined earlier, it's money that we thought that we'd have recouped by this time last year, had Corvera followed the original timings etc.   And of course, we are not having to sell our home in Oz as we will not qualify for a mortgage and we couldn't afford it anyway!!

I was thinking about transferring the funds to Banco Santander where it might be safer?  Does anyone have any way of determining the status of La Caixa please?
Banco Santander is the Corvera option for mortgages and is a very large bank......... but so were Lehmann Brothers and all the others!

We have always found Magda very helpful and truthful and reliable BUT, I think that, with ALL due respect, that she is a Conveyancing Lawyer and not a Litigation expert and as such, cannot offer us the necessary aggression needed to fully fight our fight.

So far as we can make out, Magda is married to the manager of La Caixa and they all share a very cosy small town business environment.

As a totally unrelated observation or suggestion, merely a passing random thought as I'm sure that you would agree, in our future legal struggle, can we please avoid getting involved in anything which suggests a cosy, self-vested interest, back scratching arrangement between local businesses.

Of course I am not suggesting for one moment that such a situation exists in our case at Los Belones, far from it but an imagined parallel suggests that such a situation COULD evolve if we do not watch out.

So if we could bear this in mind please Lisa and all, plus the avoidance of MRI Specific concerns, we'd really appreciate it.

Many thanks and kind regards,  Fizzler/John.

Hi everyone
I too would be interested to join any group that is formed.
Just for information, I have contacted the Lawyer, Maria De Castro who posts on this site, about Corvera.
Now, I do not know her from Adam, but some of the threads sound reassuring about her. She seems to write in positive ways.
She is alsso not based in the Murcia area! 
It is clear that non of the Lawyers in the area are going to be that 'independent'?
Who would bite the hand that feeds them?

Perhaps she would be intersted in representing a Corvera group? 
It would be cheaper to approach this as a group than as individuals.

For the record, my wife and I are emigrating to Canada soon and our time is very limited, but we would support any action and pay our way in any such action.
S

Dear Fizzler / John - I am very concerned about you (I'm sure that I am not alone in this). 

My interpretation of your lawyer's advice (as typed) is that it does agree with the English version of the contract -ie that by not completing you lose the deposit money - something that Lisa pointed out earlier.  The final paragraph does seem to contradict the previous one but my suspicion is that it is an issue of translation ie if you sign the completion documents you are still obliged to pay the mortgage etc.  This is just my interpretation - again all I can say is that everyone so far has said that the advice that they have received is that a failure to complete only means a loss of deposits (if this were incorrect, I think we may have been warned of this by now by one means or another).

I agree with your second solicitors viewpoints.

In terms of your banking options - there are as I am aware 2 views on Santander - it is generally speaking considered to be one of the safer Spanish banks (not subjected to toxic loans) - I read this in one of the broadsheets - a very good article that could be found by googling.  However a more recent article in the FT (I think) mentions that it has been targeted (or part of it) by forward selling (again please check this out and make your own opinion).   However I certainly would not put a lot of money into  one regional bank (again I don't know if La Caixa is an example this) as they seem to be the most likely institutions to  fail.   HBOS has Spanish branches and a pretty secure UK government backing I guess (does Barclays?)- but again I would check this out for yourself.  The Irish government offers 100% security to its banks (again I'm not sure how this applies to foreign deposits).  You may also be able to find a bank in Oz that operates in both countries to make your life easier.  I'm not a financial advisor so my advice may be "duff" - if I were I wouldn't be on this site

Take care.

This message was last edited by MrUnhappy on 10/15/2008.

This message was last edited by MrUnhappy on 10/16/2008.

I am a senior bank manager with HBOS in the Uk and to be honest I would probably not get my mortgage via them. Despite all the current HBOS worries we have always been very strict about our lending processes and are actually a lot safer than most of the banks in the UK but global recession + unscruplous people have caused the demise , not performance.- we are far better at fraud curbing e.g than most banks. however , there is no advantage to me going with HBOS as like others on this site i am unclear about who will lend what so i will have to keep my options open. Might not have a job at the end of it all anyway , so then it's down to the old selling in the UK at a lower cost option. To b honest , as I have indicated on other posts , i try to remain optimistic as what will be will be and in the current market I am unclear of what is going to happen when. This site does help in that I see others have dificulties which we all share on this forum to look for solutions , but equally can be unsettling at times.

Lisa et al,

Many thanks for your efforts which we all appreciate.However, from the threads there appear to be two distinct groups:-

1. Those who want to complete but only when we have confirmation that the "promised" facilities are being built

and
2. Those who want,if legally possible, to walk away with the deposits intact.

At the moment I don't know where I personally fit in due to the unknowns. Would it be possible to get advice for both options or do we need to split into two groups as clearly there are real and potential conflicts between the two apparent groups e.g those who are in it for the long -term want as many people to complete as possible etc.

I know a spanish lawyer with offices in London who I am sure could advise if we decide we need separate opinions in regard to the demands of both groups i.e Lisa's lawyer advises Group ! and another lawyer advises Group 2 ..just a thought??

Hello everyone, especially those of you who have written private messages to me, it's very much appreciated.

A special thanks too, to "Mr. Unhappy" who voices his concerns about me!  How heartwarming but please folks, I would feel awful if my comments sounded as if I was "trying it on" or bleating for special treatment.

If anything, I have only described our own situation, and out there, we probably have the whole range of involvements and frustrations  but the whole point of my outlining the situation as it affects us here, is that we are dealing with a hard-nosed business communtiy.

Individuals such as Esther and the others will be normal, kind and as considerate as they can be but we are all, as a group, up against the ones who would come after my wife for settlement if I died. THIS APPLIES TO YOU AND YOURS, no matter how young you are. Please do not forget that.

Let's press on with our plans and thanks again to Lisa for chasing up the various options. We've already moved quite a bit over the past few days.

Thanks again Mr. Unhappy and let's hope that we can all be there at the party, at Corvera, when you are reborn formally as Mr. Happy! 

I must admit though, from our own viewpoints, that if we managed to achieve a satisfactory resolution which suited our situation, we would be offered the option of withdrawing and being refunds our deposits..... but we'd still come to the party!

With best regards,

John/Fizzler.