I recently bought a property in Lanzarote which i did by forming a Spanish company. I did this after seeing adverts from an expat company who promised that by using their unique system i would avoid having to pay any sales tax. I foolishly parted with 10000 euros to set this up, with 3000 euros being for the capital of the company which would be returned to me as soon as my company was all set up. The sale should have completed whilst i was over for a week in January 2007, but the lawyer, who was unfortunately recommended by this company said it would be another week and asked me to sign a power of attorney to the person in charge of this company in Lanzarote. The lawyer new that i was under the impression i would not have to pay the sales tax. 3 months later i came to stay in my new purchase expecting to find plenty of money in my bank account to tidy it up. To my horror i found out from the bank that i had indeed paid the sales tax and that the lawyer had asked for this using my power of attorney. The lawyer never told me of this in the three months after the sale, he just told me that all went well. When i tried to contact him about it he never once responded to my phone calls or emails. When i tried to contact the owner of the company who advised me and set all of this up for me i get the same. Now, over a year later, i still have not received back my 3000 euros capital.
I have a lawyer working on this but they are not getting any response either. I know from forums in Lanzarote that this company has upset a lot of people though, despite now being banned from advertising in one English magazine, they are still advertising in another one and carrying on in business totally unchecked by the local authorities.
How can this happen and how can they be allowed to get away with it so easily. This company also specialise in the writing of wills which, if you again read the local English forums, has also left a lot of people very unhappy.