MRI international

Hi Jayuser & all

I am in exactly the same situation as you.MRI are big on promises short on delivery.

MRI sold us a service i.e. rentals and completely failed to deliver. Not only that, in the meantime they lost our keys, don't answer the phone and refuse to refund money for furniture they did'nt deliver.

They are a sales operation and cannot deliver the follow up service they promise with aftersales & rentals. They are now even less able to deliver than before as their reputation speads and the downturn affects buyers. They have let go large amounts of staff and closed many offices.

They seem to be a company with little or no scruples. They have misled and cause massive financial damage to thousands of British and Irish buyers.Despite the founder being Irish, the Irish clients seem to be the worst victims. MRi have been careful to avoid targeting Spanish buyers however as the Spanish government would not tolerate it. This begs the question - why are the Irish and British governments allowing MRi to continue to con people.

I would suggest writing to your local politician, newspaper or anywhere else to get the message out about MRI or DCC and at least prevent other people from falling victim to them. I'm planning to set up an organised group to follow up on this in an organised way in a number of countries. Any participants or ideas to pursue this are welcom just pm me.

I would steer clear if I were you. Lots of their offices are closed now. My daughter worked for them and they do work their staff do death. She was still expected to go into the office in the afternoon if she had flown back very early in the morning from an exhibition. She had no time off I had to help her with dry cleaning/packing etc. Stay away from them. For anyone who wants to complain there is a consumer office. The Contact Details for the one in Estepona is 952 800 530. Your local Foreign Residents Dept. will help you with this.

Hi all,

This just shows that big is not always beautiful. If you look, many of the big boys have now run away or gone belly up. Many of the small Estate Agents have now gone the same way, which will leave the one's who provide a good service and know how to treat customers.

I have said many time before, buying a property overseas is just the same as buying in the UK, but with more pitfalls. We get the sun on our backs and all sence goes out of the window. If you take a few precautions, then all should be fine.

Dont buy on the first visit, do go home and think about what and why you want to buy overseas

Take the documents home with you and have time to read what they are asking you to sign

If they are not in English, ask for a translation

Do plenty of research into the Company

Research the area

Take independant advice from lawyers and financial people, NOT those offered by the Agent, this is a BIG NO NO

Go out more than once

Keep talking to your agent, ask questions

Keep a written record of all things you ask

Think about it again and again,

Dont be greedy 30% resale profit from off plan is nolonger viable and has not been for the past few years

There are lots of properties forsale, and there will still be lots for sale in 6 weeks or 6 months time

We all get into the rush of buying our place in the sunshine, we get carried away with the excitement the wine and the sunshine, then we do things that we would never do when buying a home in the UK, we rush into it, dont seek independant advice and then give money to someone we do not know and sign a document we do not understand.

Then, when it all goes wrong, we look for someone to blame. We never look at what we did wrong or how we could have done it better, it is always someone else's fault. Remember that the person taking you around the properties will earn money from getting you to buy a property for more than you can afford to spend, they dont tell you about the 12% on top of the purchase price for legal costs, this just gets brushed under the carpet and as we dont know, then we dont ask, we assume it will be about £2000 like in UK.

Hopefully, over the next 12 months, the money will become available again to buy our dream home, but in that time, we will have learnt that everything is not sunshine it does actually rain in Spain. At the end of this period, the good guy's will still be around providing a good service and treating the client well and providing what they ask for, not give them what the selling agent thinks they can push them into to make more commission.

Dave

It's been a while since I posted in this thread. We bought with MRI and while I don't agree with the hard sell tactics one bit, i'm glad we have the property. We insisted on a key ready property and the alarm bells should have started ringing when the valuations didn't tally. That said, we completed in December '07 and have been lucky enough to have almost 14 weeks of holidays so far since completing and some rentals. Yes, we were unlucky enough to buy in the peak, but have bought for the long haul, so hopefully in 5 years or so we should be okay, which is when we want to upgrade really.

Just in case anyone doubts the hassle we had, it is listed in the thread here.

Mark

MRI are rogues. I wish I had never heard of them. I foolishly bought with them with the promise of a 3 year guaranteed rental.Our legal business was dealt with Echavarria Martinez who are linked to MRI and our mortgage was arranged By MRI 's finance company - big mistake.  My instinct told me to pull out at this point  but we didn't.as a hefty deposit had been paid.The promoters disappeared along with our rental guarantee but MRI did not tell us. We went ahead with the purchase  rather than lose all the money paid only to have the headache of  MRI misinformation and an MRI furniture package ( not what we ordered, no colour scheme or coordination,mismatched twin beds etc etc)  We had our rentals totallly mishandled by their rental agentAdrian Flores. A cupboard containing all our brand new bed linen and towels 'disappeared' between visits and the cleaningl eft a lot to be desired.  Trying to get MRI to deal with snagging was painful. MRI have since left Calpe so we have no point of contact. I now have sleepless nights worrying about how to pay the ridiculous mortgage ,it has doubled in 2 years and the change in the Euro rate  has added to our woes. The finance company are of no help and so far neither are the bank. We suspect we were given an over inflated property valuation by the bank . I wouldn't be surprised if they were in cahoots with MRI too.On top of this our development has serious damp problems and the builder is nowhere to be seen.Faced with negative equity and a property with a huge mortage I rue the day we were introduced to Macanthony. If I could turn back the clock 4 years I would !

AVOID MACANTHONY AT ALL COSTS !

Dear All

I wish I had seen some of these posts before I purchased through this sohwer of con men. Like a lot of people on this forum I have had problems with MRI and have lost my deposit on an apartment in Costa Del Sol. Althogh a relatively small amount complared to some, it still sticks in the throat that nobody in authority seems to be able to do anything about this outragious situation.

I have been dealing with a UK based solicitor and his details are below if anyone want to have a chat with him I am sure he can tell you if there is a chance of getting your money back/justice:

Richard Hayes
The Terrace
Grantham Street
Lincoln
LN2 1BD
08453082351
07854130310

I noticed a posting by YMS on another thread titled "What does our Prime Minister Do?" that read thus, and thought it worth repeating here:

Thanks ADS, it sounds like there is at least one MP that has got off his bum and taken positive action. i spoke to my local MP in 2008 about my problem and he made lots of sympathetic noises but did not actually do anything else about it.

In the interest of balance my experience of overseas agents has not been all bad. We also purchased a property in Cyprus through Buyabroad and although we had some snagging issues, we have been really pleased with it and when we have had problems they have been happy to get involved and help. When we brought we almost went through MRI again (at that stage we did not know what a nightmare our Spain property was going to be), luckily we didnt, as we now know they are complete sharks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/apr/09/darragh-macanthony-peterborough

Anyone purchased through MRI and a posh fan?

Yes, and have had no problem  with MRI.

Anyone who has purchased through MRI without problems has been very lucky indeed. I regret ever having dealings with them. The purchase of the property has had a huge impact on my life and continues to cause us endless worry. I wonder how Macanthony and his salesman sleep at night, I doubt their consciences bother them !

I agree with Manorpark, having had such a bed experience with these jokers and having read so many posts on forums about their sharp practices, it is difficult to believe they have happy customers.

You only have to see the TV programme they did on them, that exposed the lies and pressure selling to see exactly how they operate.

I have a UK based solicitor dealing with my case, if anyone wants details of the firm then let me know, I will pass on the contact details. Obviosuly it is diffuclt to get justice, but worth exploring if there is a chance.

We went with MRI and have been very lucky as we sailed throu it with no problems and love our place.

 Hi, am new here and ive had a problem with mri and medsea and i struggled for years to get my money back but i found a company based in the north east of england that did actually manage to get my money back for me, it was hard but they got there in the end. please let me know if you want to know they're details as im sure they could help.