Hi, My name is Elaine.
I have had so much trouble with this company it is now affecting my health.
It has always been my dream to own a property in Spain, In 2007 I gathered up all my saving and went to Spain to look for a property, after a long search, I stumbled across some beautiful apartments in San Juan De Los Terreros in Costa de Almeria. Advertised in Positiva estate agents for 144,000 euros.
I was informed that the apartment had not yet been built, so we would have to buy off plan. The apartment would be ready to move in on March 2009. I was introduced to Victor at Martinez-Abarca & Munoz Solicitors;
So I paid 3000 Euros retainer to secure the property. Then 02/08 15,408 euros (The bank guarantee never came for that transaction). 05/08 15,408, 07/08 15.408 (these two payment were held in the solicitors account).
At the end of 2008 I received an email saying that the apartments would not be ready in March and they gave a date sometime 2010. This was totally unacceptable to me, and I started to worry. So I did a little research and found out that Peinsa the property developer for my apartment, made an application for voluntary liquidation that the courts refused in October 2008. At this point my head was spinning, so I got back in touch with the estate agents and solicitors and informed them that I didn’t want to go ahead wanted my money back.
Sometime later Positiva emailed with an offer from Peinsa, instead of pulling out completely I take a 2 bed house worth 190,000 and they would waver the difference as way of compensation. This sounded to good to be true, well it was a week later they withdrew the offer.
We instructed our solicitor to retrieve the money back since then I have received the last 2 payments as the solicitor had them on hold in their account luckily. However I am still outstanding the 3000 and the first payment of 15,408, and 4000 in solicitor fee’s .
On the 23rd Oct 09 the solicitor sent an email to say that Peinsa has contacted the barrister to see if there was a possible way to reach a solution by giving us back our money without paying interest or legal fees. We agreed to this saying we would accept if they returned the monies within four weeks. Now on the 6th Nov 09 the solicitor has emailed back to say Peinsa do not have the cash to pay us. The barrister is now looking for a freehold property to put an embargo on.
On direct from developers website they are advertising the same apartments now for 190,000 euros.
CAN ANYONE HELP