We have now won more than 220 cases against Spanish Off-Plan Property Developer’s Banks and have sent millions of euros back to our clients, making them happy and achieving good justice in Spain.

Victims were those whose off plan purchases failed in Spain after the financial and real estate credit crunch.

Let me tell you something you may or may not know: at the beginning of our fight in 2009 we were called a bunch of fools fighting recklessly and lying to people to make our own treasure.  Yes, some other lawyers even described us as Ambulance Chasers.  The same type of lawyers who were an important part of the mess and who are trying to entice people again with a so-called instant-100% safe-no win no fee action.

Their laughing at us was actually a good sign for us.  Robin Sharma’s quote: “If people are not laughing at your dreams, at least once a week, you are aiming too low!” describes very well how we process our profession:  fighting like dreamers to protect the rights of British people in Spain.

The point we were fighting for was to make the banks liable for the off plan disasters they had financed, for buyer’s money they held in developer’s accounts and whose refunds they often guaranteed in writing.  In many cases, when a client did not have an individual certificate of Bank Guarantee, there was NO WAY TO OBTAIN YOUR REFUND, so thousands of people ended up with no house and no money in a foreign country with an unknown legal system.

Back in 2009 we took this fight upon our shoulders and filed our first LEY 57/1968 Lawsuit in February 2011……..and the victories started coming, initially from the First Instance Court in Hellín in June 2012 and more recently from the Supreme Court in Madrid in March 2016.

Five milestones we have achieved so far are:

1. Keith Rule’s Finca Parcs Case in Hellín against Banco CAM (now Sabadell) and the developer Cleyton Ges was won in the First Instance Court in June 2012 and then confirmed by the Albacete Provincial Appeal Court in April 2013.  That victory was the energy for many more victories to come after Keith joined our team in 2013.  Banco CAM was condemned to repay our clients all their off-plan deposits plus legal interests and legal costs.  A full account of the whole story is at Finca Parcs Action Group
2. Herrada del Tollo and San Jose cases in the development Santa Ana del Monte has produced numerous victories for our clients in that unfortunate project.  The most recent being in October 2016.  Banks who received the buyer’s off-plan funds and the entities issuing General Guarantees (Popular, SGR…) blame each other on many occasions.  The Supreme Court has already established doctrine by which once there is a General Guarantor, banks where deposits were made are not liable.  The simple mention of the existence of a General Guarantor in a contract opens the possibility for the buyer to claim against that Guarantor.  There is no limit to liability of the Guarantor, all the amounts the buyer can prove as being paid, plus legal interests from date of payment need to be refunded.
3. Huma Mediterráneo and Casares del Sol Victories are also very meaningful as there were hundreds of affected people in those developments.
4. Los Lagos de Santa María in Marbella made us especially proud as this is one of the developments subject to a corruption case by the Marbella Local Council.
5. Last but not least in our Top 5 is our case that the Supreme Court used in March 2016 to confirm its doctrine on Banks liabilities for receiving buyer’s off-plan funds.  This is of great satisfaction to us as the Highest Court in the country used our victory to confirm this successful strategy against the Bank.  The same strategy we have been fighting for since 2008 when Keith Rule first contacted us.  We actually lost this case against the developer’s Bank in both the First Instance and Provincial Appeal Court, however the client trusted us enough to instruct us to submit a Cassation Appeal to the Supreme Court which we won!  The development was “El Sobrao” in Triquivijate, Fuerteventura.

 The Supreme Court has now fixed jurisprudence (Case Law) regarding Banks liabilities and obligations according to LEY 57/1968 as follows:

‘In house sales governed by Law 57/1968 credit institutions (banks) that receive income from buyers in the promoter’s account without requiring the opening of a special account and the corresponding guarantee or warranty, shall be liable to the buyer for the total amounts paid by buyers and deposited in the account or accounts the developer has opened in that entity’

There are still hundreds of cases in the Courts.  We are very positive on the outcome of these and future cases as there is now, after all these years, a clear interpretation of LEY 57/1968 by the Supreme Court.  All we hope is that some of those funds that we successfully recover for our clients are then wisely re-invested in Spain to make many retirement dreams finally come true.