Whilst I realise that some agents do give the industry a bad name most of us deserve some recognition for the work we do and the fact that we are only trying to make a living here in Spain.

In a difficult market our problems are compounded by that the fact that some builders now do not want to pay us the commissions they owe us. One builder in particular, Trampolin, have received from us sales in excess of 1.5 million euros. Now they are refusing to pay us the outstanding commissions righfully due to us.

Rumours abound about the financial state of this company and their ability to pay even if they wanted to. What are we to believe?

The most annoying thing is the utter rubbish they give you for reasons not to pay.

Is anybody else out there having the same problems with this bunch of bandits?

It is about time this came to a stop.

We have already taken legal proceedings against one Spanish constructor and embargos are in place.

I would appreciate other views.

Dave 1

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Hi There

I bought a place in Arcos De La Frontera i would like to know does the builder have the right to build where ever he wants.We bought a nice house which we were pleased with,we were suppose to have a park across from us with swings and slides and they even have a scale modle of the site with the park across from us so we purchased the house. About Five mounths later we were walking in Arcos and looked in the window of the estate agents and discovered that they are putting Three story buildings with shops underneath where the park is suppose to be.We feel very annoyed now because part of our privacy is gone and we are over looked by these Buildings. I would just like any feed back from anyone in regarding to my problem.

Thanks

John 

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Hi John & Patricia

I read your other post Novo Arcos Town Houses & really felt for you. It seems to happening all too often.

On our own urb people bought into a very pleasant community (not our community, we are quite a walk away, thankfully) then commercials that hadn't shown on searches () supposedly (were searches ever done, I wonder !!) went up opposite these properties with an Irish bar & other bars/cafes etc & these people now not only have to look at these but suffer the noise & parking problems. There has been so much trouble over it.

Also some of our friends on our urb were meant to have a 2 bed place right in front of them, with a view to the orange groves, but suddenly the builder built 3 bed properties which were so much higher. They lost their view totally & look directly at the rear of the 3 bed too. We almost got caught out too but we felt all wasn't ok & looked into it more ourselves & got out fast.

I wish I knew the answer but seems you're stuck with what Spain has chucked at you. Although we don't know what to do (at the time) when these agents & builders tell us with their hands on their hearts that we're going to have A, B & C we could go to planning at town hall ourselves & check. (Can't we ?)

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Luckily dont deal with off plans or this sort of thing, but owners try to be crafty as well!

I certainly would take further action in this case if it were me, probably with the use of some chemical or other!

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Hello Justin,

Thanks for the acknowledgement and understanding.

As I said agents are always the subject of abuse and insults but it is a fact that we are an integral part of the property industry and most agents do a pretty good job and help people to realise their dreams and that is not meant to sound soppy.

The commission system with new properties is fair across the board and purchasers will always pay the same price no matter what the circumstanses of the purchase. On many occasons builders expect clients to sign contracts which safeguard the builders money and pay little respect to the rights of the clients. This is no longer acceptable. The builders then expect the agents to sign collaboration contracts which, again, safeguard themselves but have no provisions should the builders breach any of the two contracts.

This can directly affect the clients in the following circumstanses:

The clients have made a substantial payment towards the property and the agents have been paid their commission. The builders then seriously breach the contract which usually take the the form of delayed completion. The client has the right in their contract to cancel the contract and have, by law, all money returned ususally with interest. The builders then start the silly games. They either want to give the client their money back less any commission they have paid or they will put in the agent collaboration contract a clause which states that should the client withdraw for any reason the agent is duty bound to return any commission received.  If the client is the sole cause of the cancellation of the contract and the builder is totally blameless then I can see an argument for commissions to be returned. However if the builder is the villain of the peace and let's face it they usually are then the client can be caught in the middle of war.

Spain is a wonderful place to live and hundreds of thousands of ex-pats will readily agree although their voice will never be heard on the Trevor Macdonald show. It is a small minority of unscrupulous agents builders and officials who habe blighted what is a fantastic place to start a new life. Times are changing rapidly in Spain and for the better and when all the dead wood has been eradicated and the television programmes have found new victims then perhaps we can continue to live and work in a country which actually welcomes us.

Dave1

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Thanks Dave for letting us know about this, as they have been trying to get us to work with them, thanks to you this will not be happening. Things are hard enough for us all right now withoug builders trying to do us out of our commission.

Hope everything work out for you

Regards

Sophie

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