The reports confirm that both companies are in perfect condition from a legal point of view and do not have any type of anomaly, such as petitions or creditor activities etc. Depending on how pessimistic one may be overall, that could be considered good news.
Turning to your other point about recovery of funds, my lawyer has offered the following summary of the position which might correlate with your experience?
The Private Contract establishes that the completion will be in the third quarter of 2008 (that's for our apartment up in Block 6). In other words, according to the contract, the end of September will be the deadline for the completion and after that time it would be possible to request the resolution of the contract.
From a practical point of view, I can offer you the following information:
a) First of all, we would have to request the developers for the resolution of your contract. I can assure you that no developers are responding to the requests made by the buyers. The reason is because despite their financial situation is good they do not want to refund net money to a buyer.
b) Taking into account the situation above mentioned, we would have to take legal actions to resolve the contract. This means that you would have to spend more money in a legal proceeding. This is very expensive based on the fact that this is an uncertain proceeding since the final decision is taken by a judge (sometimes he agrees that we are right and sometimes not). For all the above information and as you have been waiting some time for the completion of this property, my advice is for you to wait until the properties’ handing over since we are closer to the end.
I asked a couple of other questions as I noticed that some posts had mentioned early payment penalties and I was also concerned to get some kind of hold over our ability to get the developer to complete the landscaping (this has been a long running saga at our friend's place in the first phase of the development)
Here's what my lawyer said:
With respect to the possibility of retaining part of the price on completion, this is not possible as the developers would not sign the title deeds. (There goes my cunning landscaping protection plan!)
Regarding the penalty for the delay, the developers never compensate in Spain for this reason as the contracts include a clause stating that in case of force majeure, strikes, delays in licences etc. they will not be responsible. This clause is quite general and allows them to avoid compensations in case of delays. (There wouls appear to also go any prospect of getting a few bob off the price!)
Finally a quick update on the saga at the roundabout!
My lawyer also spoke with the developers yesterday. They have informed her that the external works are being finished and they hope they can apply for the First Inhabitant Licence. Once they have applied for it, it will then depend on the Town Hall when it will be issued. This is a bureaucratic proceeding that must be fulfilled. This it the reason why a completion date can not be established since it does not depend on the developers.
In other words, once the works have been finished, the developers apply for the First Inhabitant Licence; a technician of the town hall goes to the development and checks that everything has been built according to the initial project. If this is the case, the First Inhabitant Licence is issued.
Hope this adds some value to others' deliberations. Happy to communicate more either open or private.
Kind regards
Simon
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