Lets Eat in Benijofer

This posting apppeared on another site yesterday :

 "  Los Lagos de Santa Maria Golf - Preventative Action

As many people already know, the situation of Los Lagos de Santa María Golf is rather serious, given that the Town Hall has rejected the License of First Occupation and has even started an administrative procedure to declare null the building license, which reinforces the court procedure initiated by the Junta de Andalucía to revoke this license.

There are nearly 200 buyers who, not surprisingly, don’t want to complete on the Santa Maria Golf properties due to this fact. It is quite probable that the developer will start having serious financial difficulties if buyers don’t complete soon. As there are no bank guarantees in place, buyers could find themselves left without anything if the developer goes bankrupt. I know many of you think this is just a ploy normally used by developers to force people to complete, but be warned that this has happened before (e.g. the case of Jardin Botanico).

How to protect against this?

I filed a lawsuit last December on behalf of one of my clients against the developer of Los Lagos to claim the deposit plus interest on the amounts he’s paid so far. My client, similar to many others who find themselves in the same circumstances, has decided not to complete. Due to the risks that surround this development, and considering that the development has no bank guarantees, I requested that a preventative embargo be put on one (any) of the properties of Los Lagos registered in the name of the developer at the Land Registry.

Happily, the judge has accepted this, and my client now has his credit registered with the Land Registry, and in the event of liquidation he is now a preferential creditor.

As all the properties still belong to the developer, a third-party buyer, who has reserved a certain unit, could discover that the property she has the right to purchase has several embargoes, and not only will she not be able to complete on it, but she will also be put at the end of the creditors’ queue if the development goes into liquidation, whereas anyone who has been registered as a preferential creditor will get refunded the deposit first.

This is being provided on a first come first served basis, so my recommendation is that anyone in the same situation should try to register the debt through a court of justice by means of an embargo as soon as possible.

Anyone interested in this course of action can contact me through PM or on jose0107@lawbird.com .

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Jose Ramon Gutierrez
Abogado/Lawyer
Lawbird

The LFO is not in doubt, it was denied by the Town Hall the 19th of July 2006. The General Urban Plan of Marbella established for this area single small villas and they constructed blocks.