Legal tip 178. Fifteen years to claim against the developer
10 November 2009 @ 09:03
You finally just decided to walk away from your off plan purchase in Spain due to whatever reason, but no cancellation contract or any sort of other agreement is being signed between you and the developer…..
well, that is an unfinished or stand-by situation ( non closed or definitive) which can be finally concluded in two different ways:
A) The developer asking you to complete: if you cannot get a mortgage you have rights for the full devolution of your money.
B) The developer finding a new buyer and selling the unit to that other one. In that case, a cancellation contract between you and the developer needs to be signed before him being legally allowed to sell again. If this cancellation is not performed, he is comitting a double sale crime.
So....if you are leaving things in stand-by know that you have fifteen years to ask your developer for a refund of 80% of the money you paid as a deposit from the moment the house is sold to someone else if that happened; and, well, I am sure he will be willing to accept on this better than having a criminal punishment for double sale.
For the above reason it would be good for you to have records of the registration number of your unit in the land registry for periodical checks on ownership.
Tools and leafs in Sant Jaume de Frontanyà, Barcelona (Spain) by SantiMB at Flickr.com