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Unregistered
05-03-2009, 04:58 PM
We bought a 1 bed villa going via a Uk estate agent thinking that all would be ok in 2005. We bought on a resort that was once a timeshare resort. The villas were sold with 8% guaranteed purchase price rental for 2 years. At point of sale we also asked for projected rental revenue for 3rd year onwards. We were given costs on 75, 85 and 95% occupancy. We also were never advised of any By Laws at point of sale. Many spanish people have also fell victim to this problem.

18 months into our property purchase we were sent letters saying our rental was being halved and this was also before tax, nothing anywhere near what we were advised of in the initial sales patter. We also were then quoted very heavily loaded By Laws which are not in our favour but the favour of the resort owners. These loaded By Laws were never produced at point of sale or no one would have bought.

I have asked the banks why they failed in their duty of care to their customers and approved mortgages on these villas in some cases approving more than 100% loans and if they saw these By Laws. The banks are distancing themselves from the problem.

We pay the highest communal fees outside of Madrid and are also being hit with additional levies on top with no explanation as to why. They use voting rights to continually out vote us, and many owners are facing bankrupcy. The accounts have far too many anomolies in them and the resort alos misplaced our communal payments although we have proved beyond doubt we paid. They want to write off the money they cannot reconcile as a good will gesture.

We need some urgent help to resole this matter and need advice on where we stand legally. The Timeshare people were also victims of this regime and are taking legal action, although its taken 7 years already, the court case is pending.

Lawbird Lawyer
05-04-2009, 04:41 PM
Dear Sir/Madam,

It is not the job of banks or its employees to carry out due diligences on property conveyance. They only study & finance transactions. The approval of 100% mortgages was common place. In fact even nowadays post credit crunch there's a huge Spanish bank offering 20% discounts on its own portfolio of repo property financing 80%; this is really financing 100% of the property.

That's the job of your lawyer. Your appointed lawyers should have pointed out the pitfalls of the Communities By Laws prior to you signing.

"Guaranteed rentals" normally come out of your own pocket when you over pay on buying a property. The percentages you mention of occupancy are seasonal I supppose, as its not serious to expect 75-95% occupation on property all-year-round unless its prime located property (i.e. beachfront or similar).

From what you are describing you may do well retaining a law firm and challenging these issues.

confused
05-05-2009, 10:02 AM
Thank you for the information. There are around 70 Spanish owners that have also been misled at point of sale with this resort so the regime running the resort were not selective in who they targeted. The Spanish would have been well informed regarding By laws etc so we are all in the same situation. No one saw any By Laws before the sale as if any of us had we would not have purchased and the regime knew this. The timeshare people that previously had claims on the resort are in fact taking legal action and they have been waiting to get into court for 7 years, however their case is being heard in Lanzarote and will be the biggest court case in the canarias Islands history. There are more than 400 people involved in this court case. We have had some advice from this group which has been helpful and we have been advised that our situation is a carbon copy of what they went through although we own the villas.

We do need the names of a good lawyer and if you could advise it would be appreciated. We have had one lawyer on board for over 2 years and has really achieved nothing positive for us. They took legal action against the President of the community of owners, lost the case and now the regime have put 15k Euros on our communal charges for the costs and so we not only sued ourselves we also paid the costs as well. Thousands of pounds has already been wasted we have limited funding and are keen not to waste any more money.