Our story starts in August 2004 with a trip to the Murcia region to house hunt both for a place to live and a place to rent out. Two and a half years later we are still waiting for both. We bought on phase one of Polaris Hacienda Riquelme and are still waiting for that to be completed. Hopefully it will be ready by Easter 2007…
Our experiences of trying to buy a house in which to live permanently have been dogged with difficulties, the main one being our problems with Trampolín. I was recommended to Eye on Spain only a few weeks ago by our agent in Spain, who’s also a friend. Until then I had imagined that our experiences with Antonio were unique, so you can imagine my horror to discover that the whole development is a can of worms and my chances of recovering the €23000 that Trampolín still have of our money are virtually nil but I think maybe we have got off lightly.
Friday 13th August 2004 was the day we signed the original contract. I think that should have told me something. This contract was for the house that was known as “La Casa Vieja” – The Old House – being as it was built on the foundations of the original house on the plot of land right at the far end and overlooking what was going to be a sort of village green. At that time there were the pepper pots, and a few houses on the right hand side of the main street, a couple of which were occupied. La Casa Vieja was virtually finished apart from the kitchen and Rafael took me to the kitchen and bathroom shop in Roldán to choose the tiles. We went home to England over the moon. We had found exactly what we were looking for in only a week.
We filled in our mortgage application and were convinced that we would have our own Spanish villa by the end of October. Then we discovered that there were paperwork problems…! Our mortgage lenders had based their offer on the whole of that triangular plot at the end, not just the 500 odd square metres that our house was built on. Rafael then explained that he had not put in the “parcelisation” application because he didn’t know what the final plot sizes would be as some people wanted double plots. He said we could use the house as a holiday home once we had paid the 60%. Does this sound familiar?
We weren’t happy with this and neither was our lawyer. By this time we had paid the holding deposit plus €20000 but we weren’t prepared to pay any more money until the paperwork was sorted out. Christmas came and went and nothing was heard from Trampolín. Then suddenly in January 2005 our lawyer received notification that the paperwork was complete so he asked to see it – several times. In the meantime Trampolín kept trying to ring us to demand payment but our lawyer had told us not to talk to them until he had seen the paperwork. Another couple of weeks went by and then we heard from our lawyer that he had sent one his assistants down to the site and that it looked as if “our house” was occupied and therefore possibly sold to someone else. This in fact was the case. Trampolín still had our money but had sold the house to a third party.
Our lawyer tried various tactics to get Antonio to return our money, including threats of denunciation. All letters fell into a black hole. Eventually we decided enough was enough and we would go and see him ourselves (May 2005). In the company of our lawyer’s assistant we eventually managed to get an appointment to see Antonio. It took three days. A very heated discussion took place (in Spanish) in which Antonio said that our lawyer was not acting in our best interests because he hadn’t come to Spain with us but only sent his “obrero” (workman) ie his assistant, and no he was not going to give us our money back because we had defaulted on the contract by not paying the stage payments on time. However, he was prepared to put the money that he held on another house.
At this point we had to make a very difficult decision. My partner and I had two houses in England, one of which was on the market, but there had been very little interest. The house Antonio was offering was a Macarena which was supposed to be completed in the summer of 2006. We liked the design, we chose a plot and we decided that in view of the fact that we probably wouldn’t get our money back that this was probably the best option. We signed the contract. However our lawyer wasn’t prepared to let us part with any more money until he’d got the contract to his satisfaction and bank guarantees in place. We were supposed to paying €10000 more or less immediately and then nothing further until completion. We paid the €10000 but into our lawyers escrow account and then, guess what, he did it again! Antonio sold the Macarena house to someone else. We were told that we could have another one just down the road… At this point we decided that enough was enough.
Our lawyer paid us back the €10000 from his clients’ account but Antonio still has our original €23000. Our lawyer seems to have lost interest in taking Antonio to court. I have wondered, after reading some of the posts on Eye on Spain, if he has been threatened.
Since then we almost bought a house in Pinoso (Alicante) but withdrew from that when we discovered that nearly half the money was expected in a brown paper bag. We were not prepared to go down that route. Our current situation is that we are now having a house built and we hope to be in it by Christmas 2007 – but don’t hold your breath! My house has sold, at last, my partner’s house has just gone on the market and maybe, just maybe, it will be sold by the time our apartment in Hacienda Riquelme is ready so that we can live in it until our house is built. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever get there!
I hope all you guys get your paperwork soon. Moving to Spain should be a dream come true, not a nightmare. If it ever comes to a situation where a group of you get together to prosecute Antonio, I'd like to be part of it.