19 Nov 2009 4:56 PM:

Hello.  Yes, I have received my money just as I was expecting.

As per previous posts I can assure you again that I believe that Lexlands independence as a Law Firm is completely out of the question. They were not the recommended Law Firm by the developers I really can not understand where this has come from they were recomended by the Football Clubs to protect their football fans interest as they know there are lawyers and lawyers.  They are one of the largest Law Firms in Spain and not a small practice round the corner. They have taken every care on negotiating and obtaining the appropriate guarantees to protect and being proactive on advicing how to best protect my interests as a client against the developers and the guarantors which I am incredibly grateful for.

As far as I am aware they are still the only Law Firm offering this option. Other clients that I met a few months ago who had chosen Criado & Kraus as the lawyers recommended by H2O (Estate agent) are still advising clients against executing their insurance policies.  These clients now regret very much their decision and have started to wonder and query if Criado & Kraus have hidden interests as they are advising clients not to take legal actions against the developers or Insurance company or maybe they are just bad conveyancing lawyers with no litigation expertise.  I really feel for these people as like me they  would now have received or would be about to receive their money, rather than now that it has been proven Lexland was right have to change over them in order to start the proceedings six months later. It didn’t take me years to get my money back but only a few months from the moment I decided to engage Lexland to do so exactly as expected.

This will be my last post in this forum as it seems the whole thing is finally over for me. For now I will go and enjoy my refund by finding new ventures!

I hope the rest of you are refunded shortly.

 

 

This message was last edited by mainland08 on 19/11/2009.
Community thread: Anyone considering pulling out?

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24 Nov 2008 10:36 AM:

I am a professional Property Investor familiar to work with different lawyers in different jurisdictions and I use Lexland to cancel the contract and execute the policies at Valle Romano. I am worried about people questioning their independency. Can someone explain to me what indicates they are not independent when as far as I am aware they are actually the only Law Firm taking legal actions against the developers cancelling the contracts and executing the insurance policies before completion?. I just don’t understand it and may be you know something I don’t know.
 
As I was investing a considerable amount of funds and representing a pool of investors before hiring them I made an effort to know about their practice and I was impressed as you don’t normally get such a Firm to do your conveyance for this price. I know they are one of the top ten Firms in Spain in number of lawyers and turnover according to the Legal 500 with more than 100 professionals. This is for me a guarantee of independency. They have a professional indemnity insurance according to the size of their clients. Some of the partners like the Head of the Litigation department were Magistrates of the Appellation Court in Madrid  and Judges in other jurisdictions (you can check in their web). This is for me a guarantee that they know what they are doing. I think that using the local lawyer round the corner that is happy to do the work for free simply because they don’t have clients who are actually willing to pay for their services doesn’t give me more confidence than that.
 
I have been trying to obtain some information of the lawyers you are recommending and there are Firms of two lawyers (father and son) or single lawyers with no structure apart from their own and no expertise in these cases.  The truth is that choosing the right lawyer can change your life and making a recommendation of that caliber should be considered a delicate thing. In case of negligence or personal circumstances like death or disease affecting this lawyer round the corner dealing with claims resulting a few millions, I don’t see  how I could ask for damages or claim against insurance (clearly doesn’t cover). That is one of the reasons why small Firms are never hired for large and important cases by an association of affected people joint claims or companies.
 
Personally I cannot imagine any other reason apart from getting lower fees to get a local lawyer and as other posters mentioned here if  I win the case I will get compensated for this anyway. I have been told by Lexland they are offering their services according to the official schedule of minimum fees of the Bar Association and this guarantees I will get all the fees back from the other party when the claim is successful.  Also because they represent the majority of the investors the application of the schedule results in a considerable reduction of the fees for each individual. I have checked this with some of my legal contact and all of this makes sense.
 
Based on experience I can tell you that choosing one lawyer or another may constitute the difference between losing all your monies or not. Due to my personal circumstances I am not in a position to gamble with that. I already confirmed the instructions and put my mind at ease with Lexland so now I see posts about using other lawyers and I think they are missing the point. We shouldn’t be interested to hire cheaper lawyers but better lawyers than Lexland. If you know any better than Lexland for this case even though they are more expensive or cheaper please let me know. The important thing for me is to make sure I will have the best representation possible and have all my monies back.  I wouldn’t risk losing all my monies or being forced to complete just to avoid having to anticipate some monies with a cheaper lawyer. Especially when I know that having a good lawyer would probably involve winning the case therefore obtaining the reimbursement of all the fees and having a bad lawyer the contrary, that is,  risking to lose all the monies invested plus having to pay for my fees and the other party’s fees afterwards.

Community thread: Cancellation

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