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I am writing on behalf of a very good friend of mine called Dennis Godfrey. Dennis is 76 years old now and fears that he will not get his money back before he die’s.
4 years ago he paid “El Trampolin” nearly 200,000 euros for a villa in Murcia as he was going to retire there. To this day he never got it - they sold it to someone else at the last moment - and they have refused to give him his money back even though he has successfully taken them to court twice and won. Can you advise what he can do next? His solicitor seems powerless to be able to retrieve the money. And this has dragged on for over 4 years.
In the UK if you win a court case, you are entitled to pay a bailiff to go into the premises and remove property to the value of the total that is owed. Can this be done in Spain, for instance?
Your help would be much appreciated.
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Dear Nick:
The solicitor needs to ask the Judge for the execution of the Court Decission against Trampolin assets. If they had no liquid money, the seizure of assets will work for the achieving of the refund. Maybe not all at once but it needs to be done little but little, a persistent fight will success for sure. No doubt.
Best regards,
Maria
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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Is this not also a long drawn out process however Maria, given the backlog of cases awaiting hearings?
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It is not. Execution do not wait the long queue again. As soon as assets are discovered they are frozen for you.
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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What happens once the assets are frozen?
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It depends on the nature of the asset. If they are bank accounts, the Judge will order the payment of your debt with them. If they are goods to be converted into money they are auctioned.
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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Is it not true that having won your case and the enforcement order being petitioned by the clien'ts lawyer, that there could be a considerable delay however (over a year due to court overload) before the judge/court actually enacts that enforcement order? I'm concerned that there is a discrepancy of timescale here which I find confusing.
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One year to enact an enforcement order? Oh no! The enforcement order can take 2,3 weeks on average and the patrimony investigation is by Law inmediate after the enforcement of the execution.
Best,
Maria
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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Having won my court case my solicitor told me we had to wait 20 working days in case the developer appealed. After that we had to go back to court. This has taken about 6 weeks at the moment - I am told that it is because the main court has to send the case out to a local court to be heard (because of where the developer is based) and this court is slow. My solicitor is chasing the court up at the moment and hopes to hear this week.
One of my concerns is that the property my solicitor has found (which he says has no mortgage on) will either be sold, taken by another person suing the company or mortgaged. Is this likely?
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What property? The one you were buying, whose contract are cancelling?
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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No - the property I was buying did not have planning permission and building work was stopped by the police (despite me being told by the agent that It had full permisson) - also I had no BG - again my agent said I would get one and it was specifcally mentioned in the contract.
My new solicitors have taken a law suit against the developer (which we won in January) we then had tro wait 20 days for the developer to appeal against the law suit. We then went back to court to ask for a property owned by the developer to have an embargo placed on it. This went to Murcia court but then had to be sent to Mazarron court (I believe this may be a subsidiary couirt of Murcia court and is where the developer resides).
I have today heard from my solicitor the following:
- The Court accepts the execution of the Sentence
- The Court has requested to embargo three properties in Mazarron in the
name of Huma Mediterraneo
- The Court ha requested to embargo money which can be in the following
Spanish banks: Caja de Ahorros de Murcia; Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo;
Banco Popular Español S.A. and Banco de Valencia.
- The Court has requested to Huma Mediterraneo to give us other possible
properties, accounts or assets without charges which can be embargoes.
This sounds good news to me.
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It looks VERY good news Nigella. Well done to your lawyer.
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I have been told that there are two routes you can take. A penal and civil route. Dennis's lawyer took the civil route to try to get his money back. Does anyone know if this is the reason it has taken so long and doesnt look as if he will get any money. Should he have taken the penal route. Is it a more aggresive or stronger court. Is this where he went wrong?
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We also put down a deposit on El Trampolin 4 years ago and then were coerced into paying 75% of the purchase price and given our keys with the promise of Completion.. We have furnished and landscaped the property and now two years later we still have no Escritura. Completions have taken place on phases one and three but not on phase two where we are. The reason for this is that the builder took out mortgages, AFTER we had all paid him, for sums far in excess of what we still owe . We also have embargos on our properties, possibly put there by people we know. It has become dog eat dog!!!! The Courts and the Banks seem to be unaware that there are third parties involved who stand to lose a great deal of money. I am at my wits end. He is also trying to charge us €200 per month community fee when we dont even own the house and cannot live in it because it is damp and has no electricty or water. He is not allowing people who have already completed to collect their habitation certificates unless they give him the money which means they cannot be connected to the utilities.
We are going to try having the embargos lifted and put elsewhere. But this does not look good. Surely there must be some European directive or something that can be done. We are hard working people with serious medical issues. My husband is 74 and I am not sure whether he will ever reap the benefit of our investment. In fact it is killing us both.
I don't know what else to say............
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As an explanation of a former post in this thread: please have commentaries below in bold green:
One year to enact an enforcement order? Oh no! The enforcement order can take 2,3 weeks the enforcement order ( despacho de ejecución) is an initial judicial pronouncement that can be opposed by the execution debtor, if opposed, a new Court decission (Auto) needs to be passed for final resolution on the executive action. on average and the patrimony investigation is by Law inmediate after the enforcement of the execution.
Provision 553 on enforcement order states:
1. The judicial order by which the execution is enforced needs to contain:
- Determination of person/persons who are the execution debtors.
- The character of the co-debtors ( joint or joint and severally)
- Amount which is executed.
- Measures for location of goods of the execution debtor.
- Necessary execution actions, and if possible any orders for seizure of properties.
- Content of the pay requirement to the execution debtor.
Hope this clarifies further,
Maria
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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Many thanks for that Maria.
In your experience what would you suggest is a realistic timescale (best and worst case) therefore between getting the first instance court decision and regaining monies via an enforcement order procedure?
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It depends on Courts workload and speed, execution debtor actitute and solvency.
Best case: 3 months.... worst case:? cannot really answer.
Best regards,
Maria
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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Thanks for the reply Maria but what do you mean by execution debtor actitute?
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I mean if developer pays once an execution enforcement is on him.
_______________________
Maria L. de Castro, JD, MA
Lawyer
Director www.costaluzlawyers.es
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Hi To everyone who has placed a "post" on this thread. Look ... the Criminal route IS the best route and the direction I have gone in. However you do need to have grounds to prove "Fraud" ... in my case it was easy since having paid over a considerable sum of money Trampolin simply moved Mr and Mrs Philips into my plot! We have a Querrella before the Court at the moment and Rafael / Trampolin have to pay €200K into Court to resist this action. However, I believe that CAM Bank did not excercise "due diligence" in granting Mortgages across the whole of Phase 2. My estimate is that they owe some €20million to CAM Bank and having suggested only this morning to the current occupants of my home a course of action ... a "Class Action" ... against both CAM and Trampolin. One regular reader / contributor to Eye on Spain is known as "El Ginge" ... send him a personal message and he will put you in touch with Javier at Iberbrit or the barrister, Corlos Moral Servet, in Murcia. These thieves will NEVER have enough money to clear the mortgages so a class action against CAM has to be the best or indeed the only way forward. Sadly criminal action will only "catch" Rafael and I doubt Antonio will bail him out! Kind regards to you all Andrew Wilford. As for Dennis ... I will contact you upon my return to the UK next week. i am currently at my home on Mallorca TRYING not to stress about Trampolin!
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