Lack of Bank Guarantees. Bank´s responsability. Case Law

Does this article imply that the Bank of Spain would ultimately become liable for Spanish Banks' debts?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL367565020081103

Perhaps someone with greater financial knowledge can explain, or perhaps Maria or Keith can advise what would happen in the event that the Bank against whom we make a claim gets into financial difficulty?

Maria,

I'm sure you are very busy but I wondered if you could respond to the question below. It's an insecurity that many will be concerned about given the present economic climate.

 All debts will be assumed by whoever takes charge of the financial entity.

maria

so are we saying that if we submit a claim against a bank that can't pay back the debt they owe us, that the debt is then transfered to the bank of Spain?, or would the bank that can't pay it's debt to us simply be bought out by one the bigger banks, and our debt with it?. If that's the case, could we be confident of getting our money back from the bigger bank without years more litigation? 

I'm still not clear about who will be ultimately responsible for people who were never provided a BG, and what the chance is of getting our money back in a reasonable time frame?.  Will there be a body in place who can say '' Yes, you should have been provided a BG, and as you clearly were not, then we will deal with your case with fairness and common sense, without you having to take this to court''........or will it be the same old scam of having to pay lawyers to spend months or years proving what is already known by the lawyers, banks, courts etc etc.?

Goodstich:

Unfortnately, Bank of Spain is not at the moment making any decission on those cases where Bank Guarantee was not provided and just sending people to Courts.

I wish it would be as you say... it will be much healthier for Spain and the trust that we need to re-create and promote

So Maria/Goodstich, if the individual or group claim won their first instance judgement against the Bank they would no doubt be back once again awaiting an appeal resolution, which would be as present, an indefinite period of time?

This is a shambles.

maria

thank you for confirming my worst fears. It's what we have come to expect of the Spanish system sadly. There seems no place for 'real' justice for many of us?.

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 I think a 'shambles' is being very polite!   Once again it looks like a pretty hopeless outlook for those cheated, without change that seems less and less likely today? (Priors update) 

 Will anbody in authority in Spain ever take responsability for failing so many, or will the curruption and lies continue unchallenged?

Dear All,

it rather looks like hopes for change are diminishing fast.

I've got a legal house but I've decided to sell up and get out now before the situation gets worse and prices drop further.
If these short-sighted politicians can't see the damage they are doing, I will put my money into a country that welcomes foreign investment.
A third world country with first world aspirations run by second class crooks is how Spain has been described and a lot of my friends feel its also time for them to move on.
Will the last one left please turn the light out.

and this from those who live there.

This is not just Bank Guarantee route that is dying but all legal routes, if  this is not swiftly addressed.

normansands - that comment is the best desription of Spain I have heard.

A third world country with first world aspirations run by second class crooks

One query I have is that we have just been led to believe that the Bank account where monies were to be deposited should by law have been stated in the contract (is this correct?), so if they did not adhere to this requirement then does this imply that the law firm were negligent in this regard? Also if a preliminary enforcement order does not include the correct Bank as per the deposited monies, then can this too be classed as negligence on the law firm's part, or can they plead ignorance? Would a claim against the lawyers legal indemnity  be possible under these circumstances? Or is this another no-hoper?

I had heard that deposits should have been 'ring fenced' in the first instance.  So, who and where are all of our deposits?

What is the use of having a Law such as 57/68? Grrrr

Regards Chrissie1

The ring fencing responsibility presumably lies with the Banks, but the contract detail lies with the lawyer, doesn't it?

The difficulty appears to be in establishing which Bank took the deposited monies and also if you look at previous case wins there appears to be an established link,  proving that the Bank had knowledge that this was associated with an off plan development. Surely therefore the contract detail is vital and if this has been ommitted it is an illegal contract. Is this correct Maria?

BUT WHO IS RESPONSIBLE THEREAFTER FOR THAT ILLEGAL CONTRACT?

Anne,

Yes, if you hired a lawyer to represent you for conveyancing, your representation had to be covered by  Contract Law principles, Law 57/68, Consumers regulations, advised text for off plan purchases of the Consumers National Institute... That is why you hired your legal representative.

According to provision 2 of Law 57/68 ( you can see full text in English by clicking on here )     both name of Bank or saving Bank receiving the advanced amounts by buyers in off plan purchases and account number need to be contained in the contract. 

The expression of these data on the sales contract is actually part of the guarantees that Law 57/68 brings. Is is part of the tuition that the necessary existence of a Bank/Saving Bank among the operators of these business was supposed to bring to this market.

In my opinion the full meaning of the presence of Banks here has been very poorly undertood, or better said, well understood by just few. It maybe is because it is not comfortable to the market or because what the social rol of a  Bank was in 1968 is very different  to it ended up being in the late 90`s and the 00´s

Nothing extraordinary: just the role of money, financial institutions and persons within the understanding of economy and society. Again: personalist philosophers come!

maria

I will check my contract, but I don't remember seeing those bank details?. The company who we used in the UK for conveyancing (UK Conveyancing) have long since gone bust, and Spanish lawyers they put us in touch with were in cahhots with the UK agent OVP (also long gone bust), so we changed lawyer again and they are our current lawyer.  If the bank details on the contract are not correct, who do you think is now responsable as the original detail was written by a company that no longer exists?

Hi Maria

Just another quick question regarding the monies deposited in the banks please? If the agent who was used for the purchase did all the initial work and a solicitor was not involved, who is responsible?

Thanks Lin

But if you used the "independent" lawyer that sat in the estate agents office or was the recommended lawyer of the developer than I think you will find they did not rock the boat so to speak!

Goodstitch - you know well OVP collected a lot of their money in the UK and it was never even deposited in Spanish banks and developers say they did not receive everything and OVP collected ALL IVA/VAT up front and as for Lesley Alberici & UK Conveyancing that is a complete can of worms and they wove a very thick web of deceit with Ocean View Properties.

and to rub salt in the wound Lesley Alberici still remains on the UK role of solicitors because not many complaints were actually filed against her - no point complaining here!

Forums like this can be fun but you'll not do too much damage here becuase you are preaching to the converted or knocking on an open door. Goodstitch - I saw recently you said you had only been battling 9 years! I always wish you luck and hope you keep going .........

Solicitor: Lesley Marianna Alberici

Firm: Conveyancing UK Solicitors
Partners: Lesley Alberici, Robert Allan Plane & Colin Denis Ian Samuel Barr
Address:
21-25 Coleshill Street, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B72 1SD
38-38a High St., Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B72 1UP

All contact details are out of date - sorry!

Faro

thanks for the info'. Our deposit did reach the developer  Aifos in our case which is how we won our case against them for having the majority of our money and we won our case against OVP for withholding $6,000 of it.    I need to check my records, but I think our deposit was held in a UK bank before it was handed over to Aifos.  That was despite the fact that no building license was ever  granted on our original  Aifos site (balcones de riviera).

 We queried the BG on several occasions, but was sold some story by OVP that it was all in hand, which was confirmed by UK Conveyancing and then their Spanish lawyers. Just a bunch of lies and liars.

The whole BG fiasco seems very uncertain at the moment?. As is so often the case with Spanish justice, the only thing you can be sure of is that the victims are not getting justice, just lies, deception and delay tactics.

goodstich - I kind of half know your story - who doesn't?

But did you ever pursue in the UK under Lesley's professional indemnity insurance. I'm guessing when you started your claim Lesley must still have had a UK practising certificate and also have been carrying PII?

Also did you ever complain to UK law Society?

Lesley also employed a half-brained Spanish lawyer Amparo Persiva Ripolles - anyone know where she ended up?

Lesley Alberici, Santiago Gómez Pérez-Muñoz and Amparo Persiva Ripolles should all be struck off from whatever law society they claim to be a member.

Below is an extract from their marketing materials.

buying new build Spanish property in conjunction with Ocean View

Our specialist new build department was the basis for the development of our Spanish new build department. Buying a Spanish property off-plan does have some similarities to buying off-plan in the UK, with developer’s deadlines having to be met in signing the contract from reserving a property.

Conveyancing Spain has become the recommended solicitor to purchasers with selling AgentsOcean View Properties, an English company, based in the Costa del Sol. Due to the number of developments marketed by them, with a large demand for our services, we solely act for the purchasers from Ocean View Properties. Find out more about us here.

Due to our familiarity with the developments marketed by Ocean View Properties, we endeavour to ensure the purchaser is in a position to sign their contract and meet the developer’s dead-line, without losing their property or reservation.

We work in association with a reputable firm of Spanish Lawyers, GV&A Abogados, based in Marbella, who assist us with the initial title and search examination of the land, and finally with the legalities of completion of the purchase. The client effectively will have two solicitors dealing with their matter; one being English and regulated by the Law Society of England & Wales, whilst the other based in Spain.

This message was last edited by Faro on 12/01/2011.

Faro

to cut a long story short, (well shorter) there are time constraints on being able to claim, and we were told by the Legal complaints service that we had left it to late to bring a case against Lesley Alberici. We then appealed to the legal services ombudsman who upheld the decision sadly.  They said they thought we should have complained years earlier. 

After being swindled by OVP, UK Conveyancing, Aifos, and GV&A, we ended up with Lawbird who maintained our best course of action was to sue Aifos and OVP as we had proof our money had reached them. Both were also in business at that time. Perhaps in hindsite we should have gone after UK conveyancing much earlier, but at the time it took ages before it was clear just who had stitched  us up. We couldn't believe for along time that it  was all four parties!  We had limited funds and Lesley had wound up UK conveyancing so we didn't want another expensive  wild goose chase?  We had such a strong case against Aifos as well as a court embargo granted in our favour against one of their properties. We really thought our win with Lawbird against Aifos and OVP in court would see justice for us, which of course it should have, had the court delay not been so long that it allowed OVP and Aifos to go bust.

The court delay for what ever reason (another form of corruption in my view) ultimately cost our chance of 'real' justice, but of course nobody is willing to take responsability for that any more than any other of the stitch up's that we were exposed too. The crooks at all levels!!

Sorry to ramble on again.