Estate Agents Commission

Hi!

Has anyone had trouble getting their valuation done on their apartment?

We are with Barclays and they have tried twice to value our apartment which is on Jardins 4 and have been turned away on each occassion!

We are getting extremely worried as we are due to complete on the 19th June!

Regards

Pam

daft question, but Jardin 4 isn't finished yet and is inaccessible, so why aren't they simply visiting the equivalent property in Jardin 12/13 (?) which are complete

Just heard from Bancaja who are providing the mortgage on one of our apartments that PW have refused their valuer access to the site to carry out the valuation.  We are due to complete on 3rd June (next Tuesday) subject to the Certificate of Habitation being available and need the mortgage to be in place just in case the Certificate is received by that date.  Fortunately the CAM mortgage on the other apartment is approved.

As our apartments are both in Jardin 12 (same garden as show apartments), we know that the properties are finished as we saw them when we were over at the beginning of March. 

I really don't understand what PW are messing about at - they are putting pressure on all of us to complete quickly and won't even agree to requests from people to postpone for  just a few weeks to tie in with pre-booked holidays etc.  They must realise that people can't complete without mortgages in place and mortgages can't be sorted out if they won't allow valuers on site!  Not difficult to work out is it?!!!

Why on earth PW didn't wait until the Certificates of Habitation had been received and they could allow valuers on site before organising completion dates etc, god only knows!  What is the big rush to get these completions done so urgently I ask myself!

Next step is to send a ranting e-mail to PW - and then have a large glass of wine to calm down!   By the end of this week, I think it will take more than a large glass of wine to keep calm!!!

Debbie

HI Debbie

Well this was my point exactly, they are pushing and pushing ,but its either them themselves reluctant to compromise or CAM who I remind you  Polaris them selves are recommending for us to take mortgage with to speed things up ( which is a joke) not communicating, my solicitor said they are unindated with complaints and Polaris are avoiding issues at all costs, I was told that by no means would my completion date be postponed to a later date and if all was not in place I will in fact be in breach of my contract to complete and I stand to lose all the monies already paid !!!!

This is all happening way too fast .... Yes great to complete early but by 4 mths or so it didnt leave most of us a lot of time to sort out mortgages, money to buy furniture, fees on top that have to be paid upfront.... peeps thought they had time to get this all together but Polaris have decided that all has to be done early with no compromise whatsoever.

I hope all goes well and everyone gets what they want including myself, just another topic for us all to stick together on I think because some day soon I think the proverbial is going to hit the Polaris fans pretty damn quick !!

Good luck to us all
Carol

Hi

We have purchased two bed on Jardim 4.We are due to complete on 30th June.Our Mortgage seems to have been approved by Barclays subject to valuation.Has anyone actually had a Valuation carried out so far so that Mortgage can be finalised?

Carol- is it Polaris who are inundated with complaints or CAM Bank? either way its not good but I just wondered. From Polaris's point of view if they have to delay completion then they'll just insist you get POA so they can sort everything out at a date suited to them. None of which will suit any of us who have a completion date in mind and flights etc booked around getting everything finished. Hopefully its just a matter of the getting this all up and running and in doing so  ironing out the hitches. Afterall they've done it so many times before but it all begins to sound chaotic.

JH

No its my Solicitor that has been unindated by other buyers, all the various changes in plans and so forth and the constant changes in completion dates is all taking its toll and the fact that Polaris have pushed so hard AND highly rec'd CAM for mortgages, to be truthful CAM cant cope with the numbers and rather than be honest with people and say 'listen we have such a backlog but will get each one sorted as soon as is humanly possible' they are just ignoring all correspondance and leaving people in panic and stress.......Its totally unacceptable and damn right out of order........ and If I get to completion and its not all there .......... guess it wont be worth shouting and screaming to either Polaris or CAM because they dont answer your calls or emails now !!!!!!!!

Sorry rant over, just had enough of worrying whether I am going to have my dream home or be sat on a £35 K debt with nothing to show for it !

Off to have more nightmares oh what glee

Laters Peeps
Carol

Not aware of anyone that has had a valuation successfully carried out - a number of us have got mortgages 'approved in principle' subject to valuation.  If you are taking the CAM mortgage, this is not an issue as a valuation is not necessary.  Our mortgage application with Bancaja is approved in principle but without the valuation they will not issue the formal mortgage offer.

One thought that has occurred to me this afternoon whilst fuming about Polaris World is contacting a programme such as Watchdog - or certainly to threaten Polaris World that we will take such action.  There are some fairly serious issues looming here - people with missing and moved pools, a missing town centre, no facilities yet available - then we discover that we are being asked to complete without Certificates of Habitation being in place, valuers are being refused access to site, PW refusing to refund the cost of flights/hotels etc to people whose completion dates are delayed  etc etc.

Clearly PW are not ready for completions to take place next week so why have they put such pressure on buyers to complete?

There are of course disadvantages to going down the 'Watchdog' route - in particular it would draw attention to the problem potentially resulting in reduced sales for Polaris World, which may affect the completion of facilities at Condado but I think we are all getting to the stage now where something needs to be done to make PW listen to our concerns.  It is appalling that they are threatening buyers with the loss of their first two stage payments if they fail to complete when told to do so by PW - we have always been willing to complete on 3rd June but will probably be unable to do so now because of their inefficiencies and incompetence.

As you will see -  the large glass of wine has done absolutely nothing to calm me down!!!

Debbie

Debbie do you mind me asking why you didn't, or couldn't take both your apartments mortgages out with Cam?


This message was last edited by cuz on 5/26/2008.

Dear all,

Theres a pattern emerging here that's all too familar.  And believe me when I say I speak from experience and lots of aquired knowledge. 

Polaris World are starting to fail to issue Bank Guarantees (see other PW forums/developments), when this starts to happen it says one of two things, one, that the Bank does not want to take the risk with PW as they are ultimately left holding the baby, or two,  the developer has to pay the bank for the Guarantees to be issued at around 5% a year of total monies held.  Point being that PW don't have the money to pay for them.

It suggests perhaps that Polaris are starting to run short of funds and need the money quickly to remain fluid.  Hence the early completions and unfinished or incomplete developments (no pool etc).

Also I can almost guarantee that there will be no License of First Occupation (Habitacion License).  The Mazarron council will not issue licenses until the whole development (as per the plan parcial) are complete, unless they have submitted seperate plans for each section.  As an example, only five minutes south of Condado there are over 5000 (probably closer to 7000) properties on what is probably the biggest Ex-pat urbanisation in Spain, none of which have LFO (some for as long as 10 years), the reason being that the urbanisation remains unfinished.

You are fortunate that at least your property has been built.  But there are signs that PW are in trouble and you are baring the brunt of their financial problems.  Your best advice is to consult your solicitor, especially if you're having trouble getting your mortgage and being threatened with losing your deposit.  Legally you do not have to complete without the Habitation License but the best way to do it is to have your solicitor hold your final payment in a client account until he/she has the HL, but the chances are, as in most cases is that you will want your property long before the licenses are issued and PW know this.

Good luck to all, stick together and keep gathering and sharing information.

Kind regards,

Steve.

Whilst this point wont resolve anything for anyone- surely if the valuers have been declined entry onto the site thereby making it impossible to continue with the mortgage application how can Polaris threaten to withhold anything. Maybe a Solicitor would need to clarify that point but provided the valuers have records of attenpting to visit it would surely mean a delay but nothing more. Do they valuers just turn up or do they got by appointment and are then turned away. It all suggests the apartments aren't ready which is a blow

We're not yet in this position as our completion is 14th August and with CAM Bank (if they get their act together) they already have a valuation. But when we were given the date our Solicitor said to us to be prepared for the dates to change, nothing is cut in stone and they would hold the final payment until Polaris have everything in order for us to complete. This wouldnt be an easy option for us as we've completly rearranged a holiday incurring more cost to be available in Torre Pacheo on 14th August but it did make us feel there was a good chance completion will be delayed.


This message was last edited by JHMurcia on 5/27/2008.

Hi all,

This is all new territory for us and we are not comfortable that we have not yet received the bank guarantee for our deposit and stage payment as this has obviously has serious consequences.

We have spoken to Polaris World Customer Services and told them that we will not be releasing the next stage payment until we have the outstanding bank guarantees. They advised that they would not request the payment until the guarantees had been issued.

We have also instructed our solicitor that, whilst we will lodge the next stage paymnet funds with them, they are not to release until the bank guarantees are available. Again they have confirmed that we are within our rights to do this and have formally advised Polaris of our position.

As our next payment is due at the end of July it will be interesting how this progresses. Whilst we are not happy with the position we can understand why Polaris hold off until the last moment to obtain the guarantees as no-one wants to lose their capital until they have to.  We have found Polaris to be fairly good at responding to us on enquiries so far, even though in this case they have not taken action but offered platitudes.

Picking up on Redmans point about a completed development and the issue of the Certificate of Habitation does anyone have a view on what constitues completion for us. We are in Naranjos and assumed that completion would mean when all the apartments / villas bracketed under Naranjos were building complete but not necessarily released. A question we will fire off to PW but sure someone on this furum has a view as well.

Regards

Gary & Angela

With regard to the bank guarantees, I think that PW just don't issue them until they are chased.  We paid our first stage payment in October 2006 and when I received a reminder from PW that the second stage payment would be due in July 2007, I advised them that I would not be making that payment until I had received the bank guarantee for the first payment.  They were fine with this although Parador Properties advised me that I would be in breach of my contract if I did not make the payment!!!  They seem to have overlooked the fact that PW were actually in breach of their contract in failing to provide the Bank Guarantee, but I guess Parador were keen to get their hands on the rest of their commission!   We retained the money in our savings account and earned extra interest for about three months whilst PW sorted out the bank guarantees.

Not sure whether this is a sign that they are having money problems or whether it's just the way they work.  However, the other issues do cause me some concern - particularly the speed at which they are trying to push these completions through.  

When they rang me to say that the Habitation Certificate probably wouldn't be available for 3rd June, they were really trying to put pressure on me to complete without it on the basis that it would be received ten days later!!!   

I am waiting for a response to my ranting e-mail to PW about why they are not allowing valuers on site - we are now five working days away from our proposed completion date and getting very concerned.

Will update this thread when (or if) I receive a response.

Payton- when you email Polaris do you use the 'contact us' button on the Polaris web site?. To date no-one has ever replied to us on that- most recently we made an enquiry about the changes to  El Foro because had we not been on the Forum we still wouldnt know that was happening- which I think is appalling. Moving El Foro makes quite a change to what we have all been buying into and is a major modification rather than cosmetic. Refusing access for valuations or licence approval suggests they dont think these licences would be approved yet.

All,
The best advice is surely to use your solicitors as much as possible. Also, whilst remaining wary, let's not immediately interpret the Spanish way of doing things (not the most efficient/quick) as being a deliberate tactic to defraud us of our money. My dealings with UK institutions are sometimes unbelievably inefficient and highlight their incompetence. We are buying on Naranjos and our solicitor has been excellent to date. We paid the deposit in October and were told the norm was for the Bank Guarantees to be available in 3-4 months. Our solicitor chased them and we received them in Feb. We have just made our second payment and have already been sent a copy of the request that our solicitor has made to Polaris for the second guarantee. Again we have been told it will be several months before it wil be received. All posts on various forums tend to suggest tht if you and your solicitor chase these up then they do eventually appear. We should also bear in mind that Polaris are a major company working in now difficult economic circumstances. They will obviously try to make savings, hang on to their cash as long as possible and take their clients cash as soon as possible. We all want this to succeed including them so we have to trust them whilst making sure we protect our own interests. As was said in an earlier post, let's share information and remain vigilant. I'll end by saying what I said at the start - the best approach must be to use your solicitor as much as possible.

Kevin,

We agree whole heartedly and have to say we have not found PW to be unhelpful. Your point about UK businesses is valid and there is bound to be a level of discomfort due to the distant and different protocols involved for the transaction (or maybe that's just us).

At the end of the day we are paying our solicitor for a service and it is up to us to make sure that we use them as we should.

Regards,

Gary & Angela

I'm in agreement with the recent posts and looking at the general site its clear at the beginning of development completions there often seems to have been quite substantial problems. Almost as if the system becomes overwhelmed. Lets hope its teething problems. I've asked our agents if they've had any recent information about Condado- plans or information about modifications, progress reports or general news about Polaris.

Just received phone call from Silvia at PW to confirm that Bancaja's valuer carried out the valuation this morning.  I am now chasing Bancaja for the mortgage offer!  Nothing like cutting it fine and leaving it to the last minute!

For those of you who are completing later in the summer or even later in the year, it might be worth getting your mortgage applications in now in view of the delays we've experienced.

Silvia also transferred me to Customer Services to discuss my concerns about the disappearing Foro and lack of facilities - will post this info on a different thread so things don't get any more confusing than they already are for those of us who are stressing out!

Hi all,

This should probably go under a different thread as it does go off on a tangent but picking up on our earlier postings our solicitor has just confirmed that:
1) They are not aware of any financial issues that could jepoardise completion.
2) They are handling a number of completions for Polaris through June, July & August where everything is in place.
3) They can not know when the bank guarantees will be made available as this is dependant on the bank that is issuing the guarantee (and as we know that Polaris is using more than one bank this could explain why some have had guarantees and some haven't).
4) They will not release the next payment until the outstanding bank guarantees are in place (would assume that other solicitors would take the same stance but that would probably need to be confimed).

Hope this is helpful.

This may not satisfy all but given the logistics involved and the service to date it has given us enough of a comfort factor not to be concerned at this stage.

Regards

Gary & Angela

 

Hi Payton & Others

It would be interesting to know the outcome of your Banks Valuation if you would let us all know and any others that have them done.

Regard,

Phil