26 May 2016 1:21 PM:

Be very careful chosing a Lawyer in Spain as and in my experience, most of them talk a good story but end up letting you down and charging you excesive amounts of money for doing very little.  

Get everything down in writing as to what they are going to provide for you, and try to pay them at the end of the process when you are satisfied that they have done a good job.  Don't be afraid to haggle on this.  

If you are buying off plan/property not complete yet, make sure the Lawyer collects the required Bank Guarantees for all stage payments, and request a copy of them after you have sent the payment as proof that they have got them.   If they cannot provide/dont't collect the Bank Guarantees then do not pay any more stage payments until the property is complete and you are happy with it.  

Unfortunately, we trusted a long established firm of Lawyers who are members of the Bar to collect our Bank Guarantees as they stated they would do this in our Contract, only to find out that they had not collected any guarantees and just let us continue to pay the stage payments when all was not right.   Yes we should have checked this along the way, but we are British and tend to trust Lawyers in our country when the contracts clearly state what they will provide.  

My view is that a lot of the Lawyers in Spain are massivley at fault for the huge number of innocent buyers who have lost life savings buying off plan, but trying to get Lawyers to take Lawyers to court is not going to happen, especially in Spain.  

There is a very "Bad" Lawyer in Los Alcázares so stay well away from them.   

Good Luck.  

  

Thread: Lawyer required

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24 May 2016 6:07 PM:

Hi Maria

This is all great news and on the back of a lot of hard work by you and your team and the massive efforts of Keith.  

Does this ruling help Buyers where properties were eventually built and granted a habitation certificate, but where buyers did not got any bank guarantees for the stage payments, and the properties were built longer than what it stated in the contracts and where many of the facilties were not built/provided as per the original sales and site plans.  

Polaris World properties would be a good example of this and where they simply kept the deposits of many innocent buyers.   

Thread: IT ALL STARTED AT EYEONSPAIN! CostaLuz-Decastro VICTORY AT THE SUPREME COURT FOR OFF PLAN BUYERS

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17 Mar 2015 2:16 PM:

I have an appointment with my local MP to discuss the Bank Guarantees Abuse that many of us have suffered. 

Does anyone have any name of other MP's, MEPS, European Ministers etc... that might be worth mentioning to my local MP who may have already been targeted on this issue???

Thread: Bank Guarantees Abuse

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27 Feb 2015 3:32 PM:

Hi Maria

So even if the devlopers take years to comlete properties and without many of the advertised facilities, the fact that the properties were eventually built and granted FOL, totally takes away any claim we may have had against the lawyers who continued to let us pay 2nd and 3rd deposits, knowing that our money was never protected and that the Developers/Banks broke nearly every part of these purchase contracts.   

With regards to LEY 57/68 and in my opinion, the law in Spain does very liitle to protect innocent buyers who have simply been conned out of huge amounts of money, or seen properties knocked down and land reclaimed.  I would also understand things a lot more if the Banks/Devlopers actually contacted many of these innocent buyers, and at least offered them discounted properties from the huge amount of real estate sat empty, and which continues to be a huge hole in the Banks balance sheets.  Surely this would help Spain recover or am I just a very simple, optimistic and honest person unlike when I stepped off the plane in Spain and trusted others!!!

Not until the Spanish Authorties and hopefully the European Union take full responsibility and action against the Developers, Banks and Corrupt Lawyers, will Spain ever recover from the state it is currently in, and seen as a great place to be/invest money in again.  

 

 

 

Thread: Banks Liability Under LEY 57/68

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27 Feb 2015 10:13 AM:

Hi Maria

So, just to be clear on this, if as a purchaser of an Off Plan Property in Spain and even if the property was eventually built and FOL granted but you never completed the purchase, you could still make a claim against the original Lawyer if they failed to collect any bank guarantees for your deposits??? and especially when you have written copy from the original lawyer at the start of the buying process, clearly stating that they would collect all bank guarantees realting to the purchase. 

If this is the case, surely there would be a flood of good lawyers in Spain advertsing a no win no fees policy, to claim against the bad lawyers who misrepresented thousands of buyers over so many years if there is in fact case law realting to this abuse???  or is it like most other things in the Spanish legal system where there is no 100% guarantee of ever getting your money back even when case law exists???

 

 

 

Thread: Banks Liability Under LEY 57/68

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