We recovered our 30% deposit + Interest + legal fees, this time last year! Our property was not built. It was supposed to be completed in July 2005. In March 2004 we were told by our then (c**p) lawyer that the property was not going to be built. We were told by these Marbella lawyers ( and we have written confirmation from them) that the bank guarantee would be supplied by the developer soon after paying our deposit in October 2003. When we demanded to see a copy of the BG in March 2005, it had a date of the 15th March 2005, two days prior to the date we were told of the no build! It had a surrender date of September 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!
We eventually found a great lawyer, who took on our case. The original lawyer did not help us one jot! We sued the bank, not the developer as our lawyer advised that they were less likely to run out of funds! Even though nothing was built, we still had to go through the stress and upfront expense of a court case. The developer had refused to give us our deposit back, as they had with all the other people in our position.
The bank had 10 days to appeal against this judgement but meanwhile had to pay the money (our 30% deposit) into the court, where it was held until the next hearing. They did appeal , but too late! At the next hearing we were awarded our money. At a further hearing we got 4% interest ( not the 6% our original lawyers quoted us in writing) plus our legal fees paid.
We are now in the process of suing our original lawyer for with-holding the bulk of the 7500+ euros we had to pay them upfront to take us to completion of the property, including utilities connections.
.Our current lawyer is taking this action on our behalf. The original lawyer failed to attend a meeting with the Collegio de Abogados or a conciliatory meeting with a judge in Marbella!! We now have a court case registered.
Good luck with your case Jason. As you say, the Spanish legal system is a Lottery....and the wheels turn V E R Y S L O W L Y !!
This message was last edited by Tish on 8/5/2007.