Can Someone Pleae Help?

Hi Everyone

Looking for opinions as to how people have made the final payment to PW for their apartments.  We are due to complete on the 15th October, and as I understand it PW want the remainder of my money 15 days before completion.  What I am not keen on is giving them my money only to find out on the 15th that there is no habitation certificate and we can't complete.  Me being the cynic I am thinks that there is then no incentive for PW to chase the town hall for the certificate as they have my money.

I am therefore considering a number of options, and would be grateful for any thoughts:-

1) Getting a bankers draft issued in Euro's in the UK, and taking this with me when we go to complete.
2) Sending the funds to my Spanish Bank account and picking up a bankers draft from them when we're over.
3) Sending the money to my solicitors client account, and asking him to draw up a bankers draft.
4) Paying Polaris World 15 days before.
5) Taking a swag bag of used £50 notes and paying on the day

Not sure if options 1 and 2 would be allowed by PW.  Option 3 I am sure I've read somewhere incurs 'landing charges' whatever these are, and from what I read, they seemed quite high.  Option 5 doesn't sound bad, but might struggle to get through customs though!!

Look forward to hearing your thoughts and any other options I've not thought about.

Simon

Hi Simon,

We are due to complete on 24 October and have advised that we will not have our funds in Spain until October 20 (it will probably be a bit earlier but I've allowed some slack). Polaris / our solictor have not had a problem with this. 

We are going to deposit the money with our solicitor [which is what we have done with all our stage payments] who will not release the money until the habitation certificate is provided. Less hassle and let the solicitors earn their money.  We are completing by POA - if you are completing in person and have engaged a solicitor can't see any reason you can't use them to transfer funds.

HTH

Angela

Simon I am doing option 2, no way would I pay them 15 days before!

I have spoken to the completion department and they happy for us to pay by bankers draft although the bank charges 0.2% of the total amount to draw one

Dan

This message was last edited by danseex on 8/28/2008.

Are you taking over the developers mortgage ? We used CAM and our money only arrived in our account an hour or so before we completed ( despite being sent in time) . In reality , do you not think that Polaris will bend over backwards to get their hands on the cash, and will be as flexible as they need to be to get your hard earned?

As Angela says you could always leave the money wth your solicitor.

Hi Simon,

Did Polaris explain why they are asking for the money 15 days before completion as that is very strange.

We went through the scenarios you describe below. I wasn't keen on transferring that amount of money to my Solicitor's account as I'd only ever had e-mail and telephone contact with him. Also our Spanish bank account wasn't set up yet so eventually we thought the easiest and safest way would be to transfer the money directly to Polaris from our bank in Belgium. 

At first Polaris Completions Department weren't keen on this idea and they insisted on a bank draft, but when I persisted they finally agreed to it. But there was no 15 day limit in the payment being received, only that it was in their account before by the completion date. We transferred it 5 days before the completion date and sent the transaction details to the Completions Department and everything was OK. This was a Euro-to-Euro transfer though, maybe Sterling-to-Euro transfers are more difficult.

I could be wrong, but I think option 1 is not possible as I believe the Bank Draft has to be issued by a Spanish Bank. Don't take that as gospel though.

If you want I can give you the contact details of the person in the Completions Deaprtment I dealt with.


This message was last edited by Cappielow on 8/28/2008.

This message was last edited by Cappielow on 8/28/2008.

Thanks for your replies so far.

The 15 day thing was somethings that was put in an e-mail to me when I was told about my completion date.

We are not needing a mortgage, and currently have the funds sat between an offshore account which I opened with some Euro's when the market peaked a bit, and my UK based bank account.

Option 2 is my favoured option so far, as in my opinion, this gives me the most control over my money, although I realise I'm going to have to pay for the bank draft.  Although I could do a bank transfer straight into PW's bank account before completion, there is no guarantee that the habitation certificate will be there.  What I am trying to do, if possible, is to ensure that PW do all they can to get my Habitation certificate for the 15th Oct, and like wiredout says, I'm hoing that PW will do all they can to accomodate me.

The solicitor is my next option, but I think like a lot of others have encountered, he is not the greatest at returning e-mails and phone calls, so this does not fill me with a great deal of confidence.

Cheers

Simon

Hi Simon,

All in all we found direct bank transfer to be by far the easiest as best option and as we done it ourselves by Internet Transfer there were no fees either. You're right though about the Habitation Certificate, if it's not in place by the completion date then there's nothing to be gained by not completing as they have your money anyway, so that is indeed something to consider.

George.




This message was last edited by Cappielow on 8/28/2008.

Hi Simon,

When I completed I got a bankers draft from my offshore account with Bank of Scotland International, this cost £16, compared to the 1% of face value charged by Banco Halifax (same group, but Spanish bank charges).  The BOSI draft was posted to me in good time, and drawn on a Spanish Bank, so no problem with Polaris accepting it, and all went through smoothly.  This also avoided any rushing around when in Spain, as I had the draft at the start.

I do know that a friend had a panic with timing and sent the money direct to Polaris with no issue (on the basis that they already had 40% of the money .... , but I preferred to keep some control to completion.

Which ever you choose, hope it all goes smoothly.

Ted

Ted, I was told by Banco Halifax that the charges for a bankers draft would be 0.2%, you got me worried now, I'd better go and check........

Sorry - danseex, I should have said 0.1%!! - You may be right though 0.2% sounds more like it (about €150) - apologies for anyone else I have panicked with that one!!!

Ted

cheers mate, I just double checked my paperwork

Dan

This message was last edited by danseex on 8/28/2008.

Was the paper you were checking on a roll in the loo or very tears stained until you confirmed the 0.2%?

Did ours by bankers draft from Banco Halifax in Mazarron (0.2% charge - 160€) then handed it over in front of the notary on completion.

Would they not accept a cheque for the amount from you Spanish bank account? 160 euros is quite a lot for withdrawing your own money!!!!

No Cheques i'm afraid !

Just a word of advice for those who are paying by bankers draft - double check who the draft needs to be made payable to.

Our completion document stated that we should make it payable to jardines de alhama sl.  We sorted the bankers draft and then got an email from the solicitor the day before completion to say that it should be made payable to alhama golf resort sl.  Luckily we had our completion documents with us so we could prove Polaris were in the wrong.

They told us if their bank wouldn't accept it Polaris would pay to have another bankers draft issued. 

Just a word of warning for anyone writing spanish cheque to check(!) if there is a fee. 
I'm sure that we were told that many of the banks charge to process cheques and actively discourage their use. Not sure if it is a flat fee or % of the amount but they are proactively moving away from the use of cheques for payment by levying a fee.

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