Dream home horror at Bosque del Lomas III (Villa Martin, near Torrevieja) bought from Tecnologia Urbanistica.
Thursday, February 23, 2012 @ 7:11 PM
IMAGINE BUYING your dream home in the sun and paying for it in full only to have it re-mortgaged by a rogue builder before being repossessed? This nightmare scenario is a reality for more than a dozen homeowners who bought properties on Bosque del Lomas III from Tecnologia Urbanistica.
RTN met with Iwan and Jill Williams last week, who arrived for a half term break in the sun to be greeted with a two foot high pile of official documents on their doorstep; papers from the Orihuela Judicial Court stating their property was to be repossessed by the CAM bank as part of their lawsuit to reclaim €4,885,000 in debt from the owner of the now defunct property developers.
According to the document, Iwan and Jill’s house had been remortgaged by the owner of the company for €77,000 - accumulated to €132,883 with interest that is increasing daily.
POWER OF ATTORNEY
61 other properties in the community 15 of which were paid for in full were ‘remortgaged’ by the rogue developer. Iwan explained: “We bought the house in 2004 for €150,000 through the estate agents, Atlas. They recommended Aroca solicitors and we gave them power of attorney to deal with the purchase.”
The couple then moved into the property and set about on a four year battle to get their deeds from the developer. Every time they came over on holiday, they would enquire with the solicitor as to where the deeds were and every time they were fobbed off. So they found new solicitors that unfortunately turned out to be best friends with the solicitors of the property developer - so nothing was done.
JEOPARDY
The deeds were used by Emilio, the owner of Tecnologia Urbanistica, to remortgage the properties to enable him to buy more land to develop. When the property boom went bust he couldn’t afford to repay these mortgages. He then conveniently disappeared to Brazil. As CAM, purchased by Banco Sabadell for €1, couldn’t recover their €4.8 million plus interest from Tecnologia, they filed a lawsuit to repossess the properties mortgaged; of which Iwan and Jill’s is one.
Meanwhile, the couple’s new solicitor advised them to remove their belongings from the property; she suspects the house will have been taken by the time they return for their summer holidays.
And as if that is not bad enough, Iwan said: “House prices here are rock bottom so even if they sell they will only get 60,000€ maximum - so what happens to the rest of the debt? They could still come after the remainder and our UK home would also be in jeopardy.”
RTN has contacted all the other homeowners listed on the court documents and will be liaising with them to help find a solution to this scandalous situation.
***STOP PRESS***
RTN received an email from Iwan as it went to press to say that the Judge in Orihuela has informed his solicitor that on 21st June, 32 houses from the 61 affected on the urbanisation are going to be auctioned and one of them is Iwan’s property.
Source: Round Town News