Not ANOTHER Trevor McDonald prog ?? YEP !

We purchased a 3 bed roda in November 2005,It was due to complete June 2007. Due to the delay we want to cancel our contract and get our money back.. or sell on our contract. I notice that someone posting on the google forum was wanting the same thing.

However our solicitor told us that we would be unable to sell the contract on as peinsa do not allow this. We asked the solicitor to approach Peinsa and tell them that we wished to cancel the contract and receive back our money-40% deposit, which of course peinsa have had the use of for the past 18 months - they certainly have not been spending it on the site! At the time we bought, the site across the road was at the same stage of development as la tercia. Anyone who has recently visited La tercia I am sure cannot have failed to appreciate the contrast in progress.

Peinsa told our solicitor that the property should be ready June 2008. If we wanted our money back now we would lose 60% of the money paid. If we waited till June we would get it all back, but they did not understand why we wished to cancel as we had made a lot of profit! No mention of 6% interest which we understand is guaranteed by our bank guarantee.

I don,t know what you all think about this but I thought you should all know what we are dealing with here.

Hi Liza, I am afraid I do not quite understand your message. Under what circumstances have you asked to come out of your contract.  Most agents are now saying completion Dec07 to Mar08 which seems now to be possible. I think that is also what the girls in the sales office are saying, so who has said June08. All the time they are building your money is making more money, just with the price increases. It is not just Peinsa that do not let you sell your contracts other Spanish builders also do the same.  Perhaps you could make clearer exactly what it is you are not happy with.

Carol   

I am sorry that you do not understand why I am unhappy. Perhaps it would be easier if I voiced my concerns and unhappiness in the form of a list.

First to answer your question. Peinsa told my solicitor that the property should be completed by June 2008- at director level - not agents and not the girls in the sales office.

For personal reasons June 2008 is not acceptable and that would be the case even if I believed it  which i do not. I am afraid that the reality of a dusty field with a few diggers moving earth around and a few men on site and a development company that have taken at least six months to build a few showhouse does not inspire me with any confidence whatever. As I said if you compare this development with the development across the road - which was in exactlly the same state 18 months ago one could be forgiven for having some concern.

I am unhappy that peinsa appear to believe that I have made a profit. With any investment a profit is only made when one sells the investment.. It may well be that at some point in the unforseable  future someone may wish to pay the asking price for the property and I may be able to make a profit on my investment. In my view given the realityof progress to date that will be a very  long time off.  In my view no one will be paying top price for a phase one villa on a building site. and given peinsa,s woeful progress to date this will remain a building site for a very long time and a very dusty dirty building site at that .Whatever that pretty little, narrow access road through the orange groves will be like if and when true building work begins and people actually start to move into the golf union I dread to think.

The reality is that Peinsa have had my money for 18 months to date. The reality is that my contract states completion June 2007. The reality is that the only people who have made a profit off my money to date is Peinsa. The reality is both I and others when speaking to peinsa have been offered their money back. The reality is that as soon as I actually wanted it back I did not get it.The reality is that quite frankly and with what I believe good reason I do not believe a word they say.

I hope I have been able to make myself a little clearer.

Hi Liza, I can understand more now, if you are waiting to move over there it must be causing a problem. It seems funny though, that one of the directors only 2 weeks ago stated to a buyer that phase 1 comletion would be Dec-March. We all knew that whole development would take several years to finish, from size of it it was obvious. If you check progess I think you will find that Murcia Council, have been very cautious , which after the problems at Malaga and Cartgena councils is understandable. When we bought we automatically added 6 -12 months on th date given, as seems to be the norm with any off plan development. I have relatives who are now 4 years behind in Estapona. Carol

Hi Lisa

I can understand your anger and frustration. We were the very first to buy at LTR in April 2005 and were given Nov 2006 as the completion date. We had been looking around for a couple of years for a new villa, we already own one at Playa Flamenca, before we decided on LTR. After 12 months when we realised that what we would be getting was not quite what we were originally  told we would be getting we become very angry with Peinsa. We had meetings at Director level which did not help and we ended up moving to a larger plot because of a mistake that they had made on our plans, and paying a lot more for it. We were given a new completion date of June 07. When we visited LTR a couple of weeks ago we were told that building will commence  in April and that it takes 6 months to build a house, however we are not really expecting completion until about March 08. We are still angry with Peinsa. They will have had our money for 3 years by the time of completion and I am still not going to have the house that I want because of their lack of flexability around floor and wall tiles and a couple of other similar issues. However we have become resigned to the situation. We know that we cannot do anything about it at the moment. We will just wait to see how the house and develpment looks when ours is completed. We might love it or we might sell. Try not to let it get to you too much as it can just take over your life, as it was with us. 

Pauline  

I think we may find that they are progressing now - I feel better having just been over and the roads have started to be dug and Sonia has told me Dec 07 - Mar 08 completion and build to start 6 wks time (I may add a bit to this though!).  The show homes really look good and we thought the quality was great.

It is hard to be patient I know - we bought 18 months ago too - but I do feel more confident now.  The agent too was reassuring about it all and she has worked over there for 25 years.

Hi Tina,

Hope you enjoyed your recent stay .. have you any photo's? , we were over in Feb and unfortunately won't be visiting again untill Oct so would be nice to see some progess on site.

Julian & Valerie

Hi

Yes I have got some pics and need to get Steve to download them!  He took the camera to work this week!

We are going in Oct too - not sure on dates yet but will let you know and if we are both there at the same time we could maybe have a glass of vino or something one lunchtime!

Tina and Steve

Hi

We came back last Tuesday and have loads of pics of all of the showhouses, inside and out. We will post them as soon as I have sorted them out. We are going over again at the beginning of May  and again at the end of August.

We were generaly pleased with the quality of the build, however I am still not happy with the tile situation . I think that we should be given a choice of at least a few different colours, but there you go, you cannot have everything you want in life. Showerscreens were still being fitted and they looked good. I could not get much information on the aircon as we were told that a final decision is yet to be made regarding  supplier, brand and product. We were not impressed with the aircon system that has been installed into the showhouse for a number of reasons and therefore We are hoping that this is not the one that they will be using. I have asked Sonia to send me the details as soon as she has them  

We were told that the licence was due in another few weeks.

Sonia was ,as always, very busy but also very efficient and helpful.

There was a lot of people looking around the showhouses and they all appeared to be impressed. 

I have not covered everything that we saw or heard but if anyone has any questions please feel free to send a personal  message or post a message here and I will answer as quickly as I can.

Pauline

Hi Pauline, I have only seen photos of show houses, but the tiles look to be exactly the same as i was shown last August by Elena. If they are as nice as the ones I was shown, they were very good quality. Carol

Hi Carol

It is the colour and finish of the tiles that I am not happy with rather than the quality. They are just not my style and there are such lovely tiles to be found in Spain which I would not have minded paying extra for, but that does not appear to be an option.

Pauline

I quite like the tiles but I agree with Pauline in a way - Spanish tiles are famous for being really lovely blues, yellows etc and mediterranean looking!  They have gone for a very neutral option!

Hi Tina, You know what they say you can please some of the people some of the time but you cant please all of the people all of the time. i for one am qite happy especially with all the extras being fitted which we would have had to budget for. which means I now have more for luxuries. Carol

Hi All, we went over at the begining of March, and thought the colour of the tiles was good, i think Peinsa are playing it safe as some buyers will be taking their own furnitue over, so neutral colours would be the obvious choice they also give a light and airy f eel to the villas.

We were also told that we would have the choice of tiles and that the oven/hob would be supplied, but as we have nothing in writing to support this. there's not a lot that we can do about it and life is to short to worry about it.   

We  bought in Sept 05, paying 50% of the cost of the villa + the 3.000 Euro deposit and are waiting to retire to La Tercia, Air/con / Solar Panels / Shower screen/ Security system all at no extra cost which Peinsa didn't have to give us, we are looking upon these extras as a bonus  and if there is anything we don,t like or not happy with, we will change  when we get over there.

At the end of the day, we just want our villa built and are looking forward to our retierment in La Tercia.  

Hi

Please do not get me wrong. We thought the villa's looked lovely and we are very much looking forward to seeing it when it is finished.

Pauline

I think they have gone for neutral as it will go with anything you put in and if you want to sell it can be 'tarted up' with coloured accessories etc.   To be honest I hated the first lot which were yellowish and the kitchen border tiles were not to my taste either (cherries, grapes etc!) so I guess I was relieved when we saw the showhomes.    We were told there would be a choice but c'est la vie!  It does give a light airy feel to the villa the way it is.

I forgot to ask Sonia about air con units, alarms and solar panels being included.   I suppose we will have to wait and see.   It'll be good if they are included as each air con unit can be 300.00 sterling I think..

We were told that Aircon is included. It is a ducted system. Some ducted systems are good , some not so good. Peinsa have not decided which manufacturer they will use. They confirmed that Solar panels will be included. We did not ask about alarms.

Pauline