ANDERSONS CLIENTS - COURT PROGRESS

I have received the following reply from Miguel today - which appears to say at last the court is beginning pursuing the legal process.


Dear Mr. Fozard,

John

Out of intrest when did you serve papers to the court?

ours went in 08 Jan 2008 and still have not heard anything.

I am not exactly sure - but I believe some time in June.

Ours were served in Murcia - where delays are less than Almeria - so it might depend on which court used. I would suggest insist on an answer from your solicitor.

I can tell you some other people have managed to get to this stage too  with other solicitors - so we are slowly edging towards the first major court battles or settlement offers out of court prior to trial dates.

I think there is a chink of light opening - let's all keep our fingers crossed - we are getting closer Mr Subiela !!!!!

John

 

Dear John ,

We reached this point in the proceedings last October when our lawyer served notice of our intentions to take huma to court they were given one month to reply before 
going to court.  They got in touch with our solicitor to settle out of court, without interest or compensation.  We foolishly agreed thinking that any money was better then no money as we havent got any bank guarantees. But once we had cancelled the court date we never heard from them again.  SO BE  WARNED dont cancel your court date until you have got your money in your hand.  We are still waiting for another court date from November 07.

Alfie.

Thanks for that Alfie - good advice to everyone. Just for the record - which court are you dealing with?

I think all solicitors must insist on a BACS or electronic transfer of payment to them direct and not a cheque to you personally  - since Huma cheques have rubbery features!

I paid my installment back in October 2005.

For me I have worked out that if we settle out of court, without deposit, interest or compensation - with the improvement in exchange rates - after all costs including legal costs - we would break even in the sums paid to date.

It would be nice to get the deposit, interest & compensation - that could be 21k+ Euros for us - but is this risky and how long would it take? At some point Huma has to run into going broke - if this downturn lasts for a substantial time.

I still think Huma will do all to delay and be unethical - my personal feeling is OTCC is a tactic to try and delay further legal action in the short term for a few hundred people (though I am not sure actaully how mnay have actually signed their contracts for OTCC yet) . I hope I am wrong, but I feel OTCC will just drag out and out and meanwhile there will many cases coming to court for Huma to settle over ACC.

One thing OTCC buyers must ask themselves are how secure is the Insurance company backing the BG's in this climate. These BG's could end up worthless if the Insurance company cannot honour them or it goes bust or Huma might just ignore them again due to the costs of underwriting them. If banks have problems paying out BG's - I would hate to think that an Insurance company could survive swamped with claims - as Insurance depends on investments and risk to manage their funds and investments are a major problem now and the risks with Huma must be high with court action pending for so many clients.

I would not like to write this warning on the OTCC site to frighten people - but here there still maybe people who are considering OTCC transfer and I think at this time - your better bet (and it is a gamble!) is with court action.

However maybe we will know more about OTCC at Xmas - they should be well advanced with building and the purchasers should have their BG's.  We will see.

I still think if Huma wanted to avoid refunds - there only option would be to let Huma Med.. go bust - they seem reluctant to do that - so we are still in with a good chance of refunds of some sort for those that have started legal action.

All the best everyone!

John

 

 

ues

Wise words on notes below:
There does seem to be one theme evolving about this delveoper ACROSS THE WWW.

and that is - if they owe you any money, do nothing, make no changes, until it's in your account. Maintain all momemtum with the courts and solicitor until IT IS IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT..........

Very sad to see this sort of thing going on by this developer who once had a very commendable and recommended family business............or is it a case of pure survival tactics ?
Money  - the route of all evil I think the saying goes ........

Well put John

Maybe the problems effecting insurance companies at present is the reason no one has received a guarantee.People who purchased on OTCC as early as April  were promised the guarantee within 90 days.They have yet to receive one. Lets hope that they aren't stringing people along.

There is not much excitement coming from purchasers on OTCC like there was originaly with ACC.

Hi John 
We are with Andersons and our papers went to court end August,we were told it could take up to 2 months or more because Huma have to respond to the courts.We havent heard anything from Miquel ,but this is good news, hopefuly it will come to something.
If we hear anything i will let you no thanks for letting us no.

Hi,

Please don't rely on what you have been told.  Our case went to court in March and 7 months on we still haven't heard anything!!!

Sorry to have to disappoint everyone, but our case went to court in February and April this year and we were awarded our money back plus costs, however the time limit for Huma to pay us back has long passed and we still haven't had anything back. The next step could again take months, so in total it has now been a year since we first instructed our solicitor to go ahead with the legal process. We are totally sick of it all and are banking now on the hope that the BBC will take up the case for us all and expose Huma and stop anyone else being taken in by them. If any one has not been in touch with Julia Berg and would like to do so, they can find her e mail address on the thread "update on TV coverage"

Thanks for posting - it must break your heart to write it!

This is really worrying for all of us!!!  

If anyone else has had the same court experience please post on the site - we need to know.

What is the next step for your solicitors?

John

We are following all of your posts with interest. Have to say though that this is all very disheartening and absolutely nothing surprises us anymore. 

We were hoping for a glimmer of good news, after months and months of no progress. All I can say is for gods sake don't give up !! Just imagine that Huma got away with keeping all of our money !!  Is there no-one who can make them pay up ?

Thanks for your reply and I am sorry I was unable to give some good news but I will never give up, I fight to the end, so whatever it takes I will do it. I am still banking on the BBC getting involved and not only exposing Huma but also trying to get the agents we all bought through to do more as well. I have e mailed Julia again today to see if she has progressed at all with it and what responses she has had from EOS members. If it is any consolation, our solicitor still thinks we have a good chance of getting the money back, so I hope she is right. Good luck and I will keep the thread updated with any progress we make.

 Well well well  -  what a very very sad state of affairs when a company can just ignore the fair ruling of a court of law and get away with doing as they please. No justice anymore, well not in Spain it seems.

There is much more to this than WE all know about I'm sure ...... I think, and really hate to say this, but bankruptcy springs to mind. Huma would just go into liquidation....................it's the final playing card up their sleeve - believe it.....

I'm as concerned as everyone, I also have money owing / not refunded and awaiting a court date..........

My thoughts are Huma will eventually go bust (probably) - but I feel Huma have money hidden away somewhere - the figures of money received so far are just too big.

However I feel eventually in this market place and anti Huma feeling will rebound on them! They will run out of money eventually (who is going to buy on OTCC other than ex ACC people!)  and so get your solicitor moving - it could be first come first served!

I still believe that since Huma Med.. SL own MCC as well as ACC - if they put this company into liquidation - they lose MCC and their HQ.  I am led to believe that MCC is very valuable to them and has options to expand in the future. That might be the carrot for them!

If Huma Med goes then we can go after Huma Indalo putting OTCC at risk and their payments.

On a good note I did get a private email from someone that got their money back in June without using a solicitor/court action. They did it by storming the Huma office in early 2008/late 2007.

The trouble is we do not always hear via the forum of good news as people just dissappear after getting a refund.

I cannot believe an Insurance company would offer BG's in this financial environment for OTCC if they did not have some confidence in Huma - especially based on their history of previous bank backers getting their fingers burnt with BG refunds. So based on that - I believe Huma could be more financially viable than they like to portray.

Huma just want to delay & delay (with help of the bent solicitors/judges/courts) for as long as poss - as I believe a number of people have just given up of money owing (some cannot afford the extra legal costs) & Huma hope more will give up over time and the OTCC  people have written their chances off of court action for non delivery for another 18 months - so that is a problem they can sort out later when it arises.

Of course I maybe wrong - but I agree we all must try and keep trying to get our money back (with interest & compensation - if poss).

I truly hope OTCC will work out - but I fear it will not. I think OTCC was a tactic to move all ACC people to OTCC and it has only worked for a small percentage - because most of us hate and mistrust Spain as well as Huma.

Just keep nagging your solicitors to perform. When more cases go to court - we will get an idea of what we are actually up against!

John

When I changed solicitors to Andersons a few months ago I asked Miguel if there was any chance of Huma going into voluntary receivership.
He stated that would not happen because they had substantial assets at MCC which they would not be prepared to lose and we could claim against these assets for refunds. I hope he is right with his advice...........

I have had a response from Julia, the producer of the film team, who is looking into the BBC covering an investigation on our behalf and she has had e mails from three people via EOS. Many thanks to the three who contacted her, lets hope that it will lead to an investigation. I am surprised there were not more people contact her though! However, including my husband and myself, there should be enough cases to persuade the BBC to get involved. I accept that some people, for various reasons, would not want to appear on TV, but I have come to the conclusion that if that is what it takes, so be it.

I agree with Gordy though that Huma have got too much invested in MCC to risk having their assets seized, as that is exactly what our solicitor believes. I expect them to hang on till the very last second before they refund any money to us or anyone who has won in court. Let's all hope that is the case and we will all win in the end. Surely the courts must be getting sick of the number of cases heading their way?!!!

I would like to thank you for doing all you can to bring this to the media's notice.  I, too, am very surprised that only 3 people responded.  I sent an email to her immediately and  I definitely don't want to appear on t.v., but we can't keep burying our heads in the sand.  I hope the people who don't want to embarrass themselves remember that pride comes before a fall!!! 

Hi 
I did give some one my details for Julia I thought they were going to pass them on ,shall i email her myself .II will do anything thats going to help us. Has anyone got her email address please.
Thanks

Gordy

I do hope that Miguel is right when he says that he doesn't think Huma will go bust. It is a glimmer of hope for us.

We haven't heard anything for months now.
I still believe that other parties should take some responsibility, the agents who have walked off with their commission, and the government who have accepted the IVA payments  on our properties, now they don't want to hear about us !!