LEGAL ACTION

Hi everybody

i hope some of you have had better luck than me with retrieving your deposits. 

The latest update on the Aureus situation is very worrying, it seems the judge has ruled that the developer can sell without our consent if we do not go through with the purchase regardless of the fact that each one of us have paid 30% deposit on the unit.  The judge has recognised that we are all 'entitled' to a refund but if there is no money there is no refund, so this 'entitlement' means absolutely nothing. 

My lawyer has advised to that the only realistic way of retrieving anything is finding a buyer myself who will agree to pay full price.  As we are all no doubt aware the chances of finding somebody to buy into this type of development (aparthotel) at a price which was relevant 4 years ago are slim to nil. 

I have suggested if each individual who has paid a deposit on a unit and who made the request for a refund before completation as was their right to do so made an offer to purchase their unit at a heavily discounted rate then the developer would have an obligation to sell to them before offering the property for sale on the open market.  My lawyer has stated that as there is a mortgage on each unit this would be impossible but surely the developers financial arrangements with the bank is not our business or indeed concern.  We all paid deposits in good faith and have papers to prove so, we had the right to have our deposits refunded should we wish to do so, we requested our refunds within the time limits stated, the judge has ruled that we still have an entitlement to retrieve our refunds.  If there is no money to pay us back our deposits by offering to go through with the purchase as a discounted rate surely the developer cannot refuse.  Any fair minded judge would rule in our favour.

It is obvious that the developer has absolutely no intention of refunding our deposits, why should he when he can legally sell each unit  on the open market, units which  each one of us has paid a considerable deposit on (30% of the agreed purchase 4 years ago!).  He will make on the double while we will be left with nothing.  I intend to fight this, as already stated in my previous posts on this site, we are stronger and louder as a group.  Please let me know who is interested and we can arrange to meet somewhere in order to discuss our option.

Many thanks

Hi All,

i agree with irish iris, we need to stand together to fight this so lets all get some ideas together to consider our next steps.

i spoke with the lawyer recently and his next step is to sue the developer.  he says it could take the court 10-14 odd months to reach a verdict, most likely in our favour.  BUT, this only says the developer has to give our money back when it actually has enough funds to do this.  So technically they could turn around and say that this will take a very very long time. 

apparantly the mortgage on each unit is almost what our buying price was 5 years ago so there is no chance of buying out appartments cheap.  Plus the interest on the developer mortgage has been rising, so i don't think it's an option to consider buying even as a last resort.

in the mean time the lawyer wants 4 to 6000 Euros for the next steps and there is still no guarantee of our money being refunded, any time soon

if the eventual outcome, regardless of the route we take is just to wait until the developers have enough money to refund, then we should find a way of waiting with minimal use of lawyers and avoiding any further charges.

please feel free to add your thoughts.