El blog de Maria

Elisabeth Oxford said:
Sunday, January 31, 2010 @ 3:37 AM


Should Good Practice by REAL ESTATE AGENTS be made Law?
or is the voluntary Code of Good Practice subject to interpretation?

One would have thought that it is simply Good Practice that
Real Estate Agents make sure that their clients are protected when a builder goes bankrupt.
Afterall they charge a fee for doing the deal between developer/
builder and client/buyer and therfore it must be the Real Estate Agent's responsibility to insure that their clients will get their deposit refunded, if the builder does not keep his side of the deal.
Equally, if the buyer brakes his side of the deal and does not
pay or accept responsibility for a property when it is finished, he will loose his deposit and the right to own it.

Am I right in assuming that that is Consumer Law in most civilized countries or am I wrong?

MY husband and I put a deposit down in 2004 for a one bedroom apartement in the EL Zoco developement in the Alpujarra mountains ready for our retirement.
We paid REAL ESTATE AGENTS PALMERA PROPERTIES 15781 EU on the 09-02-2004.
In return for the deposit the Palmera Properties lawyer sent us our contract.
The apartements were due to be finished in about 18 months.

In 2006 we received a letter from Palmera Properties saying that there was going to be a delay.
In 2008 they published on their website that the developer/
builder, a company called Proturex from Almeria could not be contacted.
Only 2 weeks ago I received an email from the director of Palmera Properties saying, the Website was being reconstructed
and he would be recommending an independant lawyer to deal
with the compensation claims.
Previously it said on the Palmera Properties Website, that their in house lawyer would deal with the matter.

However, when I tried their new website a few days ago, it had completely changed.
No mention of the location of Palmera Properties's Office (their main office used to be in Malaga), no telephone number,
no fax number, no email address or contact us link. Completely and utterly unpersonalized.
I am bewildered. Is Palmera Properties going to follow the builders example and disappear

I wonder what will happen to all the record keeping and files
of all the different clients?

If the EL Zoco developement gets finished one day by another builder, will the people who paid a deposit be informed?
Where should people in our situation register their interest.

Elisabeth Oxford said:
Sunday, January 31, 2010 @ 10:51 AM

Should Good Practice by REAL ESTATE AGENTS be made Law?
or is the voluntary Code of Good Practice subject to interpretation?

One would have thought that it is simply Good Practice that
Real Estate Agents make sure that their clients are protected when a builder/developer does something wrong.

Afterall they charge a fee for doing the legal deal between the developer/builder and the client/buyer and therfore it must be the Real Estate Agent's responsibility to insure that their clients
interest is protected.

Equally, if a buyer brakes his side of the deal and does not
pay or accept responsibility for a property whithin the time agreed then he risks loosing his deposit.

Would it be right in assuming that that is how Consumer Law
works in most countries ?

Are there INSURERS for REAL ESTATE AGENTS in Spain to cover such events?

In England insurance fees always go up, when people make claims for their losses.

Elisabeth Oxford

Maria said:
Monday, February 1, 2010 @ 8:23 AM

Yes, Real Estate agency should be more regulated.
Real estate agents need to have proffessional insurance.
For the rest of the questions I would ask you to please email me to: web@costaluzlawyers.es

Best regards,

Maria