are lawyers required to keep deposit in special account ?

  In 2007 we paid deposit on apartment that lawyer and agent agreed was not legal then but we were assured in 2 months the Marbella town council would make legal after 4 months nothing hapening we deceided not to proceed but lawyer said he had given deposit of €40,000 to vendor and they could not repay.

has anybody any thoughts on what we should do now as we have heard of the poor reputiation of the courts

 If the deposit contract established that the lawyer would keep the deposit at his account till licenses were issued and he breached this with a consequent damage for you, you can act against the Indemnity Insurance of the lawyer

Do you have any paperwork regarding the payment of the deposit to your lawyer?

What did that say?

Was the lawyer authorised to release the deposit to the vendor?

Was the lawyer supposed to hold the deposit?

Also as this was a sizeable deposit I'm guessing it was at private contract phase?

Also did you find the lawyer yourself or were you introduced to him by estate agent etc?

Ii Faro thanks for your interest in our problem

 The lawyer was chosen by us before we deceided to buy this property after the agent showed it to us the lawyer said it was not built with genuine permission but in 2 months it would be made legal after 5 months we deceided to cancel then found that vendor had spent money an would not pay back

The lawyer and agent both knew that the building was ilegal that's why they came up with the scheme that we pay €1500 a month until it was made legal after 2 months we were assured then the rent paid would be deducted from the cost price.but documents were in Spanish

I think the lawyer was negligant in handing over the deposit when the property was built without correct permission, many thanks for your interest in our problem

redmac72