Antonio Flores’ Blog

I make no disguise that, professionally, I am closely connected to property, therefore this post, to many, will have limited significance due to obvious bias. If I was however to collate my experiences over the years, good and bad, when dealing in real estate in Spain, and I compare them with how transactions are conducted these days, I would necessarily conclude that it is now safer than ever to invest in property in Spain.

The crisis has operated like an unstoppable tsunami that has swept right across the property market, sucking in its wake dodgy agents, opportunistic developers, corrupt town hall officials, crooked mortgage brokers (like the one that conned Banesto out of a few millions) and a handful of funny lawyers. And with them, a myriad of very questionable anti-property purchaser practices that had dangerously became close to standard, in spite of almost everyone living, directly or indirectly, on these bona fide consumers or investors. It may be convenient to enumerate these unethical antics, by trades, to keep things in perspective.

We must remember that:

1. Never again should anyone pay any monies to a developer unless a bank guarantee or an insurance policy is available…, obvious isn’t it? More the point is that, realistically, insurance companies will never touch advance off-plan property payments and banks are likely to request unthinkable amounts of collateral. The immediate consequence of this is that only the very cash-strong will be able to develop and this is just good news.
2. Never again should anyone pay monies to a developer who:
   
   1. Does not own the land (Citrus Europe Ltd.)
   2. Does not have a building license (Aifos)
   3. Cannot give bank guarantees (not enough space in this post to name them),
   4. Uses the deposits for a Murcia development to run a complex in Venezuela (Proyectos Antele S.L.)
   5. Uses a bent-as-hell agent as a deposit-collector who then ends up keeping them (Grupo Mirador and Palmera Properties/Gotardo)
   6. Runs away with the portion of the purchase price, earmarked for cancelling the loan on your property, to Germany (Abacon Delta S.L.)
   7. Sells a half built complex to a third party and does not refund (Citrus Playa Macenas S.L. and Ready2Invest )
   8. Takes 60 deposits for an Almeria development to a UK company and then dissolves it (again, Citrus Europe Ltd.)
   9. Or all of those together plus sets up a Ponzi scheme, is known to have never built one property in his entire life in spite of claiming, at a fastouos ceremony, to have erected no less than 6,000 in the Costal del Sol, even persuading gullible Prince Albert to believe such bullshit!  (Sun Golf Desarrollo Inmobiliario S.A. or Mr. Ricardo Miranda Miret).
3. Never again will developers bully buyers as they were used to doing, as for example La Reserva de Marbella S.A. were experts at. I always wondered why was it that when you bought an apartment for €200,000 you were almost expecting to be treated like s**t, but if you went for a meal you were the king if you tipped handsomely…
4. Never again will developers make you sign a private purchase contract for 70% of its real price, the balance of 30% to be paid to a Switzerland account, in advance, undocumented and, of course, never to be reflected on the private purchase sale deeds…(any ideas?? :))
5. Very unlikely (never say never) will a Socialist/Communist Government, regional or otherwise, allow licenses to be granted on thousands of properties only to later, due to political opportunism and a spate of much publicized corrupt Town Hall officials arrests (which I agree with but without the cameras), instigate the revocation of almost all of these licenses, promote demolitions, warn of impending heavy fines on everyone, including the bona fide owners and, in sum, scare the hell out of thousands of those owners plus an undetermined number of potential investors in Spain.

With all we know now in respect of the degrees of criminality so many property developers ran into, an off-plan property industry that is almost non-existent (good old Taylor-Wimpey seems the only one around) and the property-associated corruption almost disappearing, the very few developers that are still around will no doubt jump through hoops to ensure that only la creme de la creme will be sold, at the right price of course!

Antonio Flores Litigation, Property, Scams Abacon Delta S.L., Aifos, Citrus Europe Ltd, Citrus Playa Macenas S.L., Grupo Mirador, Jesus Gotardo, La Reserva de Marbella S.A., Palmera Properties, Proyectos Antele S.L., Ready2Invest, Ricardo Miranda Miret, Sungolf Desarrollo Inmobiliario S.A, Taylor-Wimpey

The Palmera Properties story has all the ingredients of the ordinary run-of-the-mill property investment bungle:  dishonest real estate agents,  contractual misrepresentation, down payments never paid down (kept by agents), nor refunded (to our clients, that we know), unbuilt properties, invalid contract reselling, sluggish courts, bumbling judges unkeen on seeing instances of criminal misappropriation when even a child would see them, frustrated lawyers and very angry buyers.

The difference perhaps with other similar rip-off stories is that Palmera Properties, after leaving around one hundred or so clients with no money and no property, still operates, under the same trading name, although they will not admit to it unless, that is, you pretend to be a willing buyer from Scotland and awake their greed.

Today’s story is about an undercover operation triggered by a client who, having been awarded an unenforceable favourable ruling by a civil court in Torremolinos (due to clever concealment of assets), discovers that Palmera Properties, a now one-man band led by Jesus Gotardo, is still operating.

From the new Palmera Properties Website, Mr. Gotardo has resumed his activities, the same ones that merited an arrest warrant being issued by a Madrid Court (he is currently on bail).

Such cheek could not go uninvestigated, and so we commissioned a Brighton-born journalist with a very plausible rhotic Scottish inflection, who, purporting to be a property investor, met up with two agents sent by Gotardo, a meeting arranged through the above website by a mysterious “Ruben”. And what we found is that Mr. Gotardo, of all people, is again dealing in real estate, notwithstanding his history of calamity, his huge indebtedness to creditors (five from our practise among them) and his firm intention of not repairing the immense damage caused to his ex-clients other than by offering…another property.

Sharp Gotardo smelt a rat an hour after the meeting finished and was quick to send “Mark Biggs”, “the journalist from Inverness”, a threatening email, which I quote below:

Dear Mr Biggs

I am very surprised of the report we got from your meeting. it seems that you hide the fact that you are an existing client. We are here to help with any issues. Palmera as a company is facing a bankrupcy procedure. We just acted as agents and we dont hold any deposits as these were paid to developers. We can help if you honestly let us know your situation without making our friend to loose time.

Given the circustances and based on previous experiences we have no other option than keep record of your false intentioned emails and testimony of our friend independent company and put these events under the knowledge of spanish authorities to avoid any threat or errors in your behave in this situation ( last people tried these tactics spend 2 weeks in spanish prison i can send you sentence if you want me to)

Should you require our help please be honest an we will help as we can. What is the development you paid for and we will give you full report.

Palmera is not based anymore in malaga  and we are just assisting our people with some relations of friend compamies ready to help. To abuse of these good will factor will only generate problems and lack of help for your situation.

thanks

Ruben

I wonder if that Spanish prison he is talking about is the same that gladly opened the doors to him… But as the meeting is the central theme of this post and a picture is worth a thousand words, we decided that we had to film the meeting, which you can now watch.

Video

Start: Lady says that Gotardo is not her boss, that he´s just someone (contact) who sends the client. When asked if he is an agent, after thinking up a response during 3 seconds, she says that she thinks so…
Verónica is who receives emails from Gotardo (Ruben for us).

0’52”: Lady says that Gotardo and “Ruben” are friends of the owner of her company. She confirms that Palmera Properties makes money out of this and that some commission would go to Palmera Properties. Young Verónica, on the contrary, says that Palmera is just a contact by “friendship”. Lady again confirms that it is a split commission deal because Gotardo is who brings the client. Veronica says Gotardo could not come as he had another meeting. She then adds that he has nothing to do with this.

1’58”: Palmera guys are friends of the President of Mangle. When asked again about the commission, Veronica smiles, doubts for a second, and says that she thinks so, but that she is not sure.

Antonio Flores Litigation, Property, Scams Jesus Gotardo, Palmera Properties