Success at Last

Just found out this afternoon that we have won our case against BBVA and SGR in Orihuela Court. Our hearing was last week so it has not been long to wait for the sentence. We have been awarded our deposits and interest from the time the bank received it. However we have to pay our own costs. Obviously we have to wait to see if the bank appeals the verdict, but feeling happy that there is an end to this after all these years. We paid our deposit in December 2006 so like everyone else it has been a long haul. I have to say it was not a very pleasant experience in court but thank you very much to Costaluz as their hard work has paid off once again. .....

Congratulations to all concerned! (Albeit be prepared for Bank appeal!)

May I ask what reason was given by the judge to deny you award of costs?

Congratulations, good news at last. Good that you didn't have to wait months for sentence. Why was court not good? Were you called as a witness?

The judgement we got sent was in Spanish, so I cant understand it all. It is just what the lawyers told us so i am not sure why we were not awarded costs, we were told that the particular judge we had did award costs the last time he listened to a case like ours, so not sure why really, i will ask the question to our lawyer to see if the judgement does give a reason. I am hoping they do not appeal, but i think that they probably will as they seem to be doing that as a matter of course unfortuantely. M11 i will pm you regarding the court as I am not sure what I am allowed to say on a public forum, however anyone who wants to pm me I am happy to answer any questions about what we have gone through so far if it may help others. 

We have been informed that SGR has appealed we do not know yet wether BBVA have appealed we expect they have. It could take a while for court to let us know if they have appealed due to heavy workload!!!... We have been told to expect the appeal process to take between 12-18 months, so not sure if we can have any of the money in the meantime. Definitely put a dampner on our initial celebration of winning our case, even tho you expect them to appeal when they do its really soul destroying.....

That's another set back, the timescales involved are soul destroying especially the longer it goes on and the older you get - in our case. However, I'm sure I've read that if you've been awarded deposit and even interest, they have to give you that part of the refund. Your Lawyer still has to present some sort of paper to the Courts but that only takes a few months, so at least you have that part of it. Good Luck.

We are very surprised to learn that BBVA have not appealed against our win and have paid our money plus interest into the court and now we just have to wait for the court to pay our lawyer which could be this month or September, as everything shuts in August in Spain. I am still in shock as we expected an appeal as SGR appealed and I was settling in for another 12-18 month wait. Great news wish we had won our costs tho as now we have a gigantic lawyer bill but it's better than nothing ....x

Well done

how big is the lawyer Bill?     Pm me if you want. 

Briando55 we have been told will be around 18,000 euros, we had 2 properties and paid 91,000 euros altogether, i'm presuming thats 9000 per property, seems a bit steep to me, as another person who we appeared in court with who has the same contract as us is paying 7000 for his fees. I have obviously asked the question why, but as usual it's like trying to talk to a brick wall, getting any sort of answer!!. 

Just to update people. Deposits totalling 91,000 euros given in December 2006. Started our fight to win it back in 2012. We were in court on 21st January 2016 in Orihuela against BBVA and SGR. On 28th January we found out we had won our case. (deposit + 4% interest since placing deposit (we did not win our costs) ) BBVA did not appeal, SGR did appeal. We received our deposit back on 10th October 2016. We are still awaiting our interest, which we have been told should be beginning of next year. 

Our fees so far before going to court were approx 3000 euros, We were told final fees altogether would be approx 18,000 euros minus the 3000 euros paid already so we were expecting 15,000 euros to be taken off our deposit before we were given it. They actually took 21,400 euros of our fees before giving it back to us. Apparantly this is due to the fact the bar association have changed the chart of fees??  Dissapointing but at least we have something back and many people do not. Not sure if there are more fees to be taken off the interest, probably will be..

Hope this timeline gives people an idea for their own journey....good luck everyone and keep fighting.... xx

Can you write to the bar and ask them what the fees are for lawyers?   They obviously are saying they are sticking to the bar fees.

It should be an accountable procedure with an itemised bill at that kind of extortionate cost.

Did the lawyer have a really difficult time of it?

If this is a significant unrecoverable amount might it be worth gaining an assessment into recovery of these costs from the original conveyancing lawyer if negligence occurred through non provision of BG, see Maria's recent thread on claiming against lawyers (presumably against their legal indemnity)?

Just a thought.