No Golf for Arenal Golf
Anyone who watched Piers Morgan Marbella documentary, shown on ITV, will remember him saying that the city’s Golf Valley has more golf courses per head than anywhere else in the world. Anyone who watched the programme and lives or has an apartment at Arenal Golf, in Benalmadena, will wriggle with anger when reminded that they should have been an element of that statistic if Arenal 2000 had fulfilled the promise of building an 18 hole golf course.
From a legal point of view this is textbook contractual misrepresentation and any eager litigator would enjoy a hearing against Arenal 2000 developer lawyers (now Prienesur, or CajaSur) when comparing the undertakings made in the promotional literature with the photos taken by our surveyor:
“ The privileged owners of an apartment in Arenal Golf will benefit from both adult and children swimming pools, a fully-fitted gymnasium, two paddle/ tennis courts and a golf share in the exclusive ‘Arenal Golf’ 18 hole course that Arenal 2000 is building specially for the promotion”.
Also,
“Within the development there will be extensive landscaped garden areas with palm trees, rockeries and tropical plants.”
This is what the developer promissed purchasers:
Artist's Impression shown on Arenal Golf Promotional Brochures
This is what the ‘golf course’ looks like today:
View of the 'Golf Course' at Arenal Golf on December 2009
It appears that already some action is being taken by local residents, one of which has managed to register the domain name www.arenalgolf.com, and has created an Arenal Golf forum and blog. However, it is not clear if any legal action is being taken against Prienesur/CajaSur and the Spanish Church, the ultimate owners of this mess.
Legally speaking, it may now be somewhat late to cancel the purchase and undo title deeds, etc., but for private purchase contract holders who are being asked to complete by Prienesur they should be able to oppose them quite successfully on the above mentioned grounds, in my opinion. However, I would loath to guarantee that this would be the case with every single judge. And the reason is that Prienesur could argue that this is not a fundamental breach of contract but a breach of an ancillary obligation which in no way impedes the economical objective or legitimate expectations of the buyer, who has received the promised unit (the basis for obtaining a favourable ruling).
What our firm is doing with the clients we represent is asking them to bring as much possible evidence of their craze for the sport, so as to prove that it was this and not the apartment in question that made up their minds to part with the money. This evidence could be in the form of golf membership cards back home, invoices proving they are avid golf equipment and paraphernalia buyers, pictures of them hitting a few balls with Tiger Woods and even divorce legal suits on grounds of desertion or abandonment due to excessive morning golf + evening pub crawling. After all, litigation is about law as much as it is about proving a point!
iagree olfthat the golf course should be finished and we bought at arenel because of the free golf etc
it is good to hear of these comments as we are taking them through court this year for our money back. It has been over 4 years with much “lack of communication” and no rpoject timescales or even emails to say our apartment is going to be late.
i would love to hear from anybody out there who has taken them to court and there outcome and comments are very much appreciated.
thanks Tommy
i may have mis guided people here, we did have timescales of 18 months from building liencese to completeion, we gave them additional 6 months plus at least 3 further months ( without any kind of communciation as our lawyer could not speak with anyone) and our apaprtment was still not complete. The offered discount just befor eprliminary hearing but enough is enough – anybody else gone this far or further with arenal?
Hello Tommy,
We have also been strung along by Arenal/Prienesur for at least 2 years with promises of price reductions for clients who wanted to complete and refunds for those who did not want. None of that happened. I suppose the only good thing is that at least they did not run out of money to finish the building itself. I hope you every success in your Court case.
Interesting news: Surprisingly Arenal/Prienesur has now decided to start refunding deposits (albeit with no interest) on a random basis since we have been confirmed a refund for a client that did not cancel prior to the license of first occupancy and had little options of winning in a Court case. Fortunately Caja Sur is not looking into the small detail (and also not this website thankfully) and wants to clear up the mess before the long promised and/or impending merge with a richer savings bank (Caja Murcia or perhaps Unicaja…)
i have just won a court case against arenal.but they have now appealed against the verdict.the case did not go to full trial as the judge gave his verdict from the evidence from the two sets of lawyers.
@darren jones
Thats good to hear darren, we go to court shortly and confident to win but you never know, was your win settled out of court on the day or did it not go that far? With regards the appeal how long does this process take, as it looks like they are just dragging it out from coughing up your depsoit and assocciated costs?
thanks
tommy