Law in Spain

Law in Spain is a dedicated Blog to advise British Expats living in Spain about their legal issues through the expertise of Abad Abogados lawyers. The main purpose of this blog is helping Expats to find useful and updated legal tips to deal with Spanish Bureaucracy.

Recovering the Money you paid in advance to a buiding developer.
Monday, June 6, 2016 @ 12:03 PM

There is still hope of recovering the money if you were affected by a failed housing promotion in Spain.

A law from 1968 holds banks responsible for the amounts that were paid in advance for unfinished properties: The Law is 57/68 covering the receipt of ‘payments in advance ‘ in building and selling apartments. The law is crystal clear in that building developers have the obligation to be co-signed by banks, and that banks are to be held responsible for the amounts paid in advance. This law was created to prevent the fiasco of the building developer Nueva Esperanza from happening again, a fiasco that left more than 10,000 Spanish people without houses… and without the payments in advance that they had made for them.

Banks state that many developers did not follow the guarantee procedures in order to save on costs, which, after their liquidation, would hypothetically leave buyers without any chance of claiming these amounts. However, the Supreme Court judgment of 21 December 2015 is clear in this aspect.

“When buying or selling properties under the 57/1968 Law, credit entities that admit to having received payments from the buyers in the developer’s bank account without demanding that a special account with the respective guarantee be opened, will have to take responsibility regarding the buyers for the whole of the amounts paid in advance to the developer’s account or accounts opened within the said entity”

According to the BBC, in the United Kingdom there are nearly 100,000 people affected by the Spanish real estate fiasco, and there have already been plenty of positive judgements.

If you paid money in advance to a developer that did not keep its promise and you do not know how to get the money back, today could be your lucky day! Thanks to this Law and to our Firm you can now finally recover what is rightfully yours.

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5 Comments

briando55 said:
Monday, June 6, 2016 @ 3:20 PM

I think that most people from the UK, having already lost money will be very wary of entering into actions with someone they don't know.

Can I suggest you tell everyone who and where you are and what experience you have and any results you may have had?

AbadAbogados said:
Tuesday, June 14, 2016 @ 3:10 PM

Dear Briando55

We pride ourselves in our transparency. We are a firm of fully qualified lawyers and full details on who we are and the services that we offer can be found on our web page www.abadabogados.com

We have had extensive experinece with recovering monies of this nature and if you would like to discuss the results that we have had, then please do not hesitate to contact an english speaking member of staff on 968 15 57 85.

I hope that this puts your mind at rest and please do not hesitate to contact us if not.

Kind regards

ads said:
Thursday, July 7, 2016 @ 9:24 PM

Could you please clarify to readers the following scenario and ongoing concerns.

If a generic bank guarantee existed without offplan purchasers monies being safeguarded in a special account but were placed in other banks developer accounts without provision of individual guarantees, has jurisprudence been established to ensure that the bank providing the generic guarantee is ultimately responsible for return of monies ( plus legal interest)?

Also has jurisprudence been established to ensure that legal interest should be backdated to the date monies were deposited into developer accounts?

Are banks consistently appealing successful rulings thus significantly delaying actual return of monies and adding to the litigation costs?

Is it correct to say that some regions are suffering significant delays that in effect are compromising the rule of law?

AbadAbogados said:
Monday, July 11, 2016 @ 11:59 AM

Dear ads

Thank you for your comments on this subject.

Your questions are very technical and complex and we feel they would be best answered if you contacted us directly with the specific details of your case.

You can follow the links on the right hand side to contact us.

Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you.

ads said:
Monday, July 11, 2016 @ 1:02 PM

Thank you AbadAbagados, but my point is that for the sake of transparency it is necessary to identify that many cases appear "technical and complex" in this ongoing scenario, and it would be of benefit to identify instances in a more transparent manner, where jurisprudence might not have been sufficiently established under certain scenarios to guarantee return of monies without prolonged and costly litigation.

To also forewarn that Banks are appealing against successful rulings as standard practice and that many regions are suffering from prolonged abusive delays, both administrative and judicial, which require effective monitoring to ensure that adequate resource is being provided so as not to compromise the rule of law, which stipulates
"The process by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced is accessible, fair, and efficient.
Justice is delivered timely by competent, ethical, and independent representatives and neutrals who are of sufficient number, have adequate resources, and reflect the makeup of the communities they
serve."

Therefore in the interest of transparency, is it not necessary to highlight these facts to readers, and forewarn that sadly litigation is rarely a straight forward exercise as you appeared to imply by such statements as
"If you paid money in advance to a developer that did not keep its promise and you do not know how to get the money back, today could be your lucky day! Thanks to this Law and to our Firm you CAN now finally recover what is rightfully yours. "

It would be of enormous assistance to those striving for justice if legal firms were also to assist in bringing attention to the lack of adequate resource impacting timely justice and the rule of law to the attention of the powers that be in Spain (and the European Commission), especially if the pressures on the Spanish legal system are now being further compounded by increasing instances of litigation, and the fact that Banks, as STANDARD PRACTICE, are appealing against successful rulings in these lengthy interim periods, "playing the system of delays" to their advantage in the hope that clients will be disincentivised to litigate.

Isn't it time that legal firms were more proactive in this regard, to ensure that the justice system is adequately financed, and that Banks should be made fully accountable in a timely manner?

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