El blog de Maria

 Grapes splashing in water by AHMED at Flickr.com

Size is the most important legal requirement to take into consideration if you are thinking of applying for your  Spanish house to have the character of  "protected".

As mentioned in previous, related posts, the Government is determined on trying to mobilize the market by classifiation of free houses into protected, so buyer can be more easily found - among lists of applicants of regional and local governemnts- and financiation is assisted and controlled by the administration: 

The maximum usable area is defined by each region ( Comunidades Autónomas) in Spain. 

The government will control financial institutions in lending for  social houses purchases through the Financial Monitoring Committee, which was formed on the 21st in December.

 
This is the first time this type of control exists in the history of state housing plans whose objective is to analyze the evolution of the financing of those actions protected by the Housing Plan.

The minister says that its goal is that the credit crunch, especially severe in the property sector, is not a barrier for solvent families to obtain their mortgage to access protected housing.

 
Two important measures are:

1. - Up to 48,900 yearly revenue families will receive a direct aid to pay the entry in subsidized housing.

 
2. - Individuals and financial institutions may also qualify to have their houses classified as “protected”.

The Financial Monitoring Committee will meet every six months, chaired by Minister of Housing.  The formation of the Committee was attended by representatives of the following financial institutions: BBVA, La Caixa, Caja Madrid, IberCaja and CAM.

See part I of this article serie here

Christmas lights by Alotor at Flickr.com

  If you have been trying to sale your house without success during the last couple of years, this may be of your interest: throughout 2010,  individual owners can request conversion of  their units from free to protected housing (VPO). The Minister of Housing, Beatriz Corredor, believes this will facilitates the sale of houses in a  100% rate, since there is a register of applicants for VPO and more guarantees in obtaining financing.

Those old times are over....

New ones are coming, they are almost here, we just need to be wise and brave enough to fully inmerse us and our projects in this refreshing pool: cooperation, common good.. social character of every institution, of each one of our proffessional projects. Real interest about the human dignity of every one around: that is future, and not just because today is Christmas day.

Healthy, growing, balanced benefits will come out of this: no doubt. Just look to those which were the deeper aspirations of your good grandma heart... those genuily human: the only ulitimate force: how warm, happy and strong we were close to her!

Economy is to serve humans and not the contrary:  what we have been doing for years and are still doing: human serving a wrongly understood economy, which has been sustained by a very purposedly loose leading of the finantial forces.

Yes, let´s celebrate it is time to party, time to new dances, time to look to the future above and beyond the narrow horizons that the old-fashioned finantial system has been keeping for years...

A merry Christmas to you all!

Please, with all my respect towards non believers, non Christian readers, please allow me to post two gifts to you: an article and a Christmas Carol I am enyoying as I write this post.

Let me give also give to you a  warm hug and wish you deep best for the 2010 year:

The Carol here 

The article here

Felices días de Navidad!

Stars by Gertrud K at Flickr.com

 The end of the proccedings can have different causes:

 

We are having today our Christmas luncheon and "amigo invisible"  ( Secret Santa) party... I  promise some pics tomorrow.

Maria

Christmas pom pom in Duduá by Alicia at Flickr.com

 The new housing plan will allow individuals, public companies and financial institutions  to request the conversion of freehouses to protected houses (VPO) provided that the work visa is prior to 1 September 2009.

   As it is Christmas time... I want to imagine Banks and Finantial Institutions as the Charles Dickens´ Mr. Scrooge paying back off plan purchasers to whom they did not  secure to protect with Guarantees according to provision 1.2 of Law 57/68. I also enjoy seeing much of their stock being put as protected housing.....Again... virtue by force, equilibrium out of excess. Banks fulfilling the social mission they need to develop: a new era. The Spanish Legal order is ready to admitt these solutions. Let´s play them. It is not just a Christmas Carol.

   Applicants for this type of houses are registered by Regional Governments and Local Councils and they have got also an easier access to  finantiation  through the line of guarantees prepared by the Housing Department to guarantee loans for the purchase of protected houses.

 Companies  and financial institutions will be able to take over  loans agreed by the promoters and these houses, initially intended for seling, will be available for renting too.

 The  Secretary of Housing wants to reach an "equilbrium" (much needed! ) between free and protected housing, purchase and rental,  new construction and rehabilitation.

   The Minister said this will but Spain in the real estate vanguard: good to hear as we are now the real estate shame and.... we do have lots of material to perform the revolution, we do!

   Maria

  www.costaluzlawyers.es

 Christmas lights in Diagonal Avenue Barcelonaby Dasoaz at Flickr.com

The classification as guilty is reserved for those cases when the generation or aggravation of the insolvency status has been due to the tortious intent or gross negligence of the debtor, or their legal representatives, administrators or liquidators.

Christmas in Madrid by Alotor at Flickr.com

The Minister for Justice, Francisco Caamaño, recognized the purpose of Justice to effectively link the records of the Land Registries with the Cadastre, during the presentation, held yesterday, of the new headquarters of the Land Registry in Madrid.

Francisco Caamaño, Minister for Justice,  asked for a  greater use of new technologies and a most effective tying between the Cadastre and the Land Registry. He also added that  "Spain needs modernization and future challenges to exit the situation we live in and for this we must overcome concerns about the use of new technologies for preventive legal safety".

 Christmas tree and Picasso Tower, Madrid by Alotor at Flickr.com

Liquidation is a last resort. Even though, this poor solution is preferable to the continuation of a company that will only bring more bad debt to the market.

 The liquidation process has these phases:  

1. - Liquidation opening at the request of a party. 
2. - Liquidation opening by the Judge. 
3. - Publicity of the liquidation commencement. 
4. - Liquidation operations.

1. - Liquidation at the request of a party: Either as an alternative to the agreement or, once the agreement fails, once the debtor sees the payment of those credits agreed as impossible, after the agreement has been passed.

 2. - If the liquidation is opened by the Judge or a creditor, this always needs to be a subsidiary solution

 In the liquidation phase, deferred payments are earlier terminated and payments of every nature are transformed into money payments. 

Even when being liquidated, the Act seeks the preservation of firms or productive units of goods or services integrated into the company through its sale as a whole, unless division is more convenient to the interests of the insolvency proceedings 

Payments to creditors are performed in the liquidation phase.  Credits against the estate are paid first, before those specially privileged. 

Christmas in Madrid 2007 by MnGyver at Flickr.com

Decisions phase

 
Final solutions of the Insolvency proceedings under the Act are:

• Agreement.
• Liquidation.

 
They are alternative but it is possible to start an agreement and to end up in liquidation.

 
The agreement

This is the outcome which is preferred by the Act. There are two types of agreement:

1. Anticipated agreement proposal - which can be offered with the initial Lawsuit, when it s the insolvent company who initiates the proceedings.

 
2.  Agreement proposal - where the procedure has not been initiated by the insolvent company, following the common phase, this company can propose an agreement to prevent the liquidation.

 
The Act regulates a whole procedure for the processing of the agreement to determine whether the liquidation of the company can be avoided by agreement. Many agreements represent significant remissions and long waits.

If there are more than one agreement, the creditors’ meeting is held for them to approve or reject the proposals.

Once the meeting has approved an agreement, a judicial approval of it is needed, even at this stage, the agreement can be opposed

Ultimately, the judge's subjective belief about the commercial viability of the agreement should determine that this is approved.

 
With the approval of the agreement, and even though the law considers it within the same stage of the proceedings, in practice, a new phase is opened: compliance of the agreement.  Generally, the insolvent company itself will execute the agreement and will be reporting the execution to the Judge.

(Tomorrow: Liquidation)

Christmas in Compostela by Isidro Cea at Flickr.com

Edict published in the National Official Gazette on the 17^th of November

Commercial Court No. 1 of Malaga pursuant to Article 23 of the Insolvency Act, announces:

1^st-That in proceeding number 1075/2009, by order of 30 October 2009 the debtor Eve Marina SL has been approved as in insolvency status. The company has as tax identification number: 92,222,421 and its centre of main interests is in Malaga province.

 
2nd-That the debtor has been suspended to the exercise of faculties to administer and sell its patrimony, being replaced by the Insolvency administrator.

3rd-That creditors of the company need to communicate their credits to the Administrator according to provision 85 of the Insolvency Act.
Deadline for this communication is of a month from the last of the publications that has been ordered to be published in the Official Gazette.

 
4th-That the creditors and interested parties must appear in the procedure with a Procurator of Tribunals and a Lawyer (provision 184.3. Insolvency Act). Notice is hereby given to interested parties that according to provisions 184 and 185 of the Insolvency Act must attend first section and register their credits in fourth section and advised that they must do it in two different writings. Submitted a single letter stating the credit, will be implied that they are just reporting the same.

Malaga, November 5th, 2009. - The Judicial Secretary

Madrid Christmas lights by Alotor at Flickr.com

The Council of  Notaries of the European Union has highlighted as good practice the experience of collaboration in the fight against money laundering by the Spanish notaries, courts and government bodies involved in this matter.

 
As explained in the latest issue of its newsletter, Notaries of Europe, the Spanish notarial experience through the implementation of the OCP (Centralized Prevention Authority ), 'has served to channel and optimize the collaboration between Notaries, Courts and Public Authorities with responsibility in this field in Spain, and to assist notaries in meeting their individual duties'.

 
According to the European publication, the OCP has the task of analyzing and reporting on behalf of the notary in question, on operations where there is evidence or suspicion of money laundering.

Notaries also highlights that the agency's technical staff is responsible for reviewing the information contained in the Notarial Computerized Single Index, which electronically stores and sorts the contents of all the deeds that are signed Spain.

 
The existence of the index, -says the newsletter of the notaries- can collate information of all notaries in the country, while fully respecting the Spanish data protection legislation.  

(New translated from Financial Journal Five Days, 08-12-2009)

Christmas tree. Paseo de la Castellana, Madrid, SPAIN, by j.labrado at Flickr.com

Executive President, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, pledged yesterday to alter the Horizontal Property Law within six months, so that the work necessary to make buildings accessible are supported by the whole community of owners and not by the disabled person who needs it, as it  happens now.

Zapatero, who yesterday met with President of the Spanish Committee of Representatives of Persons with Disabilities, Luis Cayo Pérez, also advanced that the Government is considering new deductions for housing rehabilitation.

Christmas lights on an orange tree in Sevilla by renmus at flickr.com

Secretary of Housing, Beatriz Corredor, has said that if there is an image that has hurt Spain in the European Union has been planning. This has been explained during his speech at the Joint Commission for the European Union in the Senate, where she has ensured that works to guarantee that the urban sprawl of years past "will not happen again" and that "is in the process of being corrected”.

To work on these issues with the other Member States, the Secretary of Housing will organize an informal meeting of Secretaries of Housing of the European Union in Toledo on the 21st of June of 2010 and another meeting for Secretaries of Urban Development Ministers on the 22nd of same month. These acts will be added to the High Level International Conference on Urban Sustainability and Comprehensive Rehabilitation, to be held in Madrid in April 2010, and the held of the European Forum for Architectural Policies, which will address issues such as architecture and innovation, energy and new models for space usage.

Good and expected news indeed, but let me launch some hopes:

I hope this matter will be addressed in relation to financial excess and lack of regulations and control which drove the real estate operators to insanity.

I hope that realism will make its appearance and they will go to the origins of the orgy: .... the lack of accountability on the part of financial institutions....

I hope they will pay special attention to the necessary reform of Law 57/68.

Have a great weekend! We have a puente (bridge) in Spain, which means we will not return t work till next Wednesday!

Enjoy!

Maria L. de Castro

www.costaluzlawyers.es

 Christmas tree in Madrid by Trinchetto at flickr.com

This week, a group of countries led by Spain has paralyzed Community rules governing the rights of patients to receive healthcare in other member states.

For Spanish Health Minister, Trinidad Jimenez, the directive does not guarantee the quality of care and also involves extra costs for the Spanish health of 2,000 million euros.

 French expert Francis Mountains, president of the Delegation for European and International Affairs of the National Council of Physicians of France, has suggested that 'the Spanish refusal is because  it is afraid to receive many patients from other countries', an argument which is dismantled by him: "Any citizen, by the mere fact of having the EHIC card has access to outpatient medical care. The problem is hospital care, but a system of prior authorization may be established for reimbursement of costs incurred and to regulate the flows of patients for this not to offset the health organization in the country".

 

 

Christmas lights by Pshab  at Flickr.com      

From now on information requirements to the central Office of Prevention of Money Laundering (OCP) of the General Council of Notaries shall be made by automated means, not in written as it has been being done so far. The chief Prosecutor of the Public Prosecutors National office, Antonio Salinas Casado and President of the General Council of Notaries, Antonio Ojeda Escobar, signed yesterday a cooperation agreement between both institutions to do so.

The agreement is born with the desire to contribute 'with the maximum possible intensity to combat the social evil which represent phenomena such as money laundering, economic crime and corruption', as the president of Notaries said, Antonio Ojeda.

In future dates, the General Council of Notaries will enable a web platform to channel the information requirements made by this office. To provide the system with the maximum guarantees of safety, the Notarial Certification Agency (Ancert), an entity organized in 2002 by the General Council of Notaries, will deliver corporate e-signature certificates for the correct identification of the prosecutors who make a request.

The current rules on money laundering determine that notaries have the status of obligated in preventing and combating money laundering. As a result of this, notaries have increased in recent years the amount of information they give to the authorities.

Free translation by Maria L. de Castro of new posted in business journal Cinco Dias, 2-12-2009

From Alhambra site by Nikda at Flickr.com