This is a copy of an email being sent out by Gaspar Lino today to purchasers of Medina Elvira 23 who have not yet completed. Anybody who is purchasing in a Peninsula development should be fully aware of the level Peninsula are willing to take this in what could well be a desperate attempt to remain in business:
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Peninsula informs you that we have completed our development Medina Elvira 23 and have obtained the first occupation licence in August 2008.
We have contacted our clients on several occasions and have asked that these clients contact us regarding their mortgage application and completion date. The majority of our clients are now either in possession of their properties or in the process of completing. However, there are a small minority of clients who have remained naively silent. It is to this minority who wrongly believe they have no obligation to complete that we direct this correspondence.
Both yourself and your legal representative will receive (if you have not done so already) a letter informing you that interest charges are being applied to your existing debt and that community charges will be initiated on your accounts.
We have delayed the issuing of a final completion date in order for some buyers to get their finances in place, as this can take some time and as mentioned previously most of you are doing so by liaising with us. Once this date is officially announced to you, it CANNOT be changed, unless exceptional circumstances prevail (not answering any emails and total silence will rule out exceptional circumstances and indicate clear intention to default).
We are here and have been here to help people through the completion process. We have sent emails to clients made numerous phone calls, visits to the UK and Ireland to meet with clients and still have not received any news. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away!
The process from now on is as follows: You will receive a maximum date for the completion of your contractual obligations. If by that date you are not in a position to go to notary public you will be legally sued to complete. This will make the process cost you around €35.000 - €40.000 extra in court costs. Your lawyer will be charging you around €3.000 just to represent you (that is on top of the court costs). Spanish courts are favouring developers, especially ones with a clean history and who have fulfilled their obligations. They do not regard very highly investors, who were mere speculators and do not want to fulfil their contractual obligations. You will be legally forced to complete the purchase of your property.
We are willing to initiate this process and as Spain is an EU member, we will be able to seize your UK assets to receive our rightful amount.
We will delay the above to those who contact us via email before midday on Friday 10th April, 2009. The email must contain the stage of the completing process and expected completion date. If you have not been in contact with us already, do so with a contact telephone number and a brief, honest account of your situation. We can distinguish between CANNOT and WILL NOT very quickly and are willing, even at this stage to be helpful to EVERYBODY.
Thank you for your attention. We will be passing on the names of those who have replied to this letter to our legal department in order to delay the legal proceedings. Just to make the situation very clear, we need to hear from ALL of you, including the ones who have maintained telephone conversations exchanged emails or even visited us on site before.
For those clients whose mortgage application is being processed or those that have already completed, we thank you for your co-operation and ask you to ignore the above communication as it does not apply.
Yours Sincerely,
J. Gaspar Lino
Managing Director
Telephone: +34 952 90 20 20
Fax: +34 952 90 17 80
Mobile:+34 696 94 94 40
Email:gaspar@peninsulapm.com