El blog de Maria

Makes me proud of our Spanish Judges. They do not dance with Banks.

 All registered lawyers in Spain have indemnity insurance

My opinion is that in a healthy professsional environement-- which  contributes to a healthy market--- all professionals need to be ready to admitt mistakes and cover them. No fears about suing a colleague. Actually, we should receive those claims as a way of becoming better professional people: a challenge: fun!

The hard path of auto- examiniation and self- discipline..... healthy, very healthy..

Maria

"Real Chancilleria de Granada, 1587", (Headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice of Andalusia), Granada, South of Spain, by Landahlauts, at flickr.com

Over 8 years ago I put a deposit down on a property in the Costa Del Sol, the build wasn’t completed on time, the FOL was issued 11 months after the contract date. My initial Spanish legal representatives informed me that there would be no point in trying to cancel the contract because the FOL had already been issued. I was understandably disheartened but after further research decided to take advice from Maria who confirmed my initial thoughts, these being that a contract is a contract and that 11 months is far too long a period to run over. After a review of my case Maria and her team made the decision to pursue it further. After 2 trips to Madrid by me to the courts I heard the news that we had lost our court hearing, Maria immediately put the decision to the appeal court which her highly trained team won.  

We are now over 8 years on, in receipt of our initial deposit and awaiting interest and fees to be refunded.

Please have faith in this company, Maria and her team are honest, hardworking and professional people. My wife and I visited their office in Algeciras and could not have received a more welcoming reception. It is important to recognise that sometimes responses from Spain are slower than what we are used to in the UK however, this is not to say that your case isn’t been worked on it is obviously just a different way of working. Do not give up the fight, although it was long and tedious for us it was worth the wait in the end. A huge thank you is deserved to Maria and her team.

Martin, UK (November 2012)

If you want to read other testimonials, go here

"Costa Del Sol", Málaga, South of Spain, by damejiar, at flickr.com

Secretary of Estate of Commerce, Jaime García-Legaz, has just announced that the Government is looking for changing Law in order to grant residency permit to foreigners buying a property in Spain valuing more than 160.000 €. 

It seems the measure is mainly directed to Russians and Chineses.

The project has been active since last springtime. It is being worked by Secretaries of Employment, Development, Interior and Exterior affairs and the goal is to reduce the stock of unsold properties in Spain.

I would encourage them to also reconquer those UK buyers which were left with uncompleted houses and try to bring market prices to them.

"Vejer de la Frontera (Cadiz) calles 002", Vejer, Cadiz, Southern Spain, by ferlomu, at flickr.com

 The legislative response to political and social outcry against evictions, increasing by the recent suicide of Amaya Egaña in Barakaldo (Vizcaya)

The Cabinet approved yesterday a law- decree so no one will have to leave home.  

Government is negotiating with Banks on the creation of a housing fund so evicted people can have cheap rental accommodation.

The entire financial system will work “to create this housing stock”. This means that homes will be come from both nationalized banks as healthy ones.  Overall, Spanish banks accumulate at least 100,000 available homes, and many of them are being offered at discounts of up to 70%.

The decree is an starting- point for a negotiation process in order to establish number of homes and rental fees.

Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks (CECA) said, meanwhile, that they will “bring expertise in this area." Savings Banks in Spain has programmes against social and financial exclusion, which include social rental programmes.

Some agencies already have in place affordable housing programs through its Social Programms. The most important example is La Caixa, which has a fleet of 3,000 own housing for supportive housing program, which targets families with incomes no greater than 2.5 times the minimum wage. Recently, Banco Sabadell also donated three houses to Caritas for this Institution of the Church to assist needy families in Alicante.

Furthermore, the Executive clarified conditions to benefit from a two-year moratorium for "evictions".

 Thus, entities shall not evict those families with annual incomes below 19,200 euros (about 1,600 euros per month).  Other households protected are those where mortgage burden is multiplied by at least 1.5% in the last four years, or where the debt exceeds 50% of net income.

Together with these economic conditions, assisted homes will have to count with one of the following conditions:

-          *Large family (i.e., three or more children)

           *Single parent with two dependent children

-          *A family member has a disability greater than 33% or a disability that implies dependency.

-          * Unemployed who have exhausted the unemployment aid.

-          * Members who have suffered gender violence.

-          * Households supporting disabled extended members of the family: children, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, brothers, uncles and nephews.    

    "Rota (Cadiz) 04 plaza", Rota, Cadiz, Southern Spain, by ferlomu, at flickr.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 From the Ministry of Justice

One on successions:

http://www.successions-europe.eu/

And another one on marriage:

http://www.coupleseurope.eu/

We are available for any remaining questions,

Kindest regards,

Maria

"Vista de Málaga desde un mirador", Málaga, South of Spain, by woto, at flickr.com

Bosch:  Judge and spokesman of Judges for democracy (JPD). Spain

 According to Bosch, the solution to mortgage drama in Spain is to  adopt "immediately" a moratorium with "retroactive" force, in favour of families who do not have sufficient resources. It also proposes to apply social rent formulas in other cases.

"It is worrying that the Government seems to be opting for patches and insufficient solutions that do not solve the underlying problems".

 In this sense, JPD spokesman said that "it's time to act responsibly to address structural reform of the mortgage system to end the hundreds of thousands of existing social dramas"

In addition, Bosch has mentioned the ruling issued Thursday by the Attorney General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (TEU), which accuses the Spanish law of evictions of infringing EU rules by failing to ensure effective protection of consumers from potential unfair contract terms on mortgages, shows that Spain "has been a haven for banks."

"They have had enormous procedural advantages. Meanwhile, unlike other neighboring countries, our citizens have had no protective legislation or have had the right to payment in kind ( dation), whose regulation also needs to be claimed.

Bosch also added that banks have received "substantial aid" without being required "the corresponding social counterparts.

Therefore, JPD encourages Spanish judges to perform this "pretrial motion" to the Court of Justice of the EU, and ask them to "automatically suspend all evictions and mortgage procedures at reasonable doubts about its legality." "We have asked the judges to paralyze everything. Current procedures may be invalid according to European laws," said Bosch.

Dation and Balance V

Dation and Balance IV

Dation and Balance III

Dation and Balance II

Dation and Balance I

"Desde el chiringuito de Hurricane", Tarifa, Cadiz, Southern Spain, by Chodaboy, at flickr.com

Out of a discussion on this thread at the forum:

 http://www.eyeonspain.com/forums/posts-long-16780.aspx

Horizontal Property Act applies to all communities of owners in Spain, regardless of the date they were formed: before or after the HPA was passed, in 1960.

Any internal rule or estatute in contradiction with the provisions of this Law is non applicable.

"Castillo de Sohail, Fuengirola", Málaga, Southern Spain, by woto, at flickr.com

"Torre del Oro y la Giralda, Sevilla", Southern Spain, by Chodaboy, at flickr.com

From the beginning of CostaLuz´s life, clients care has been at the center of all our management systems and work. We do care for you and want to take stress out of yourself the much we can.

Our difficulties:

Judicial processes are always very unpredictable in terms of time. Something that, in theory, should take 15 days can take 6 months or more.

We do not charge for the update effort and sometimes, specially if cases get too long due to different circunstances ( procedural difficulties,Court speed, appeal...) the cost of the emails sending and updates gets much higher and this clearly makes us go the extra mille with clients. 

The positive things:

As we do not want to charge for the updates, specially under the current economic climate, we decided to  rationalize and make efforts possible for us, mainly by selecting the information that we consider as necessary and relevant.

We are,  in my humble opinion and within the natural mistakes and failures of every company, doing a reasonably good job which is constantly under improvement and revision.

"Panoramicas y Calles de Vejer de la Frontera", Cádiz, Southern Spain, by Manuel Acebedo: El Viajero de la Janda Litoral, at flickr.com