Ripped off on Spain property

Ripped off on Spain property – hope still

In recent years there have been quite a lot of cases where North Europeans, mainly British, but also Norwegians, have been scammed in Spanish property deals. Most people are now aware of “Share-holding” scams, but there are other ways to be fooled into buying a non-existent Spain property.

Luckily, there is still hope to recoup at least some of your investment through a largely forgotten Spanish law regarding this. A couple of Irish brothers, who were in the same boat, may be able to assist.

Norway Today has therefore decided to publish an email they send to UK and Irish who have been scammed in Spanish property deals, together with links to some pertinent articles.

The email sent to Irish victims (applicable to Norwegians)

My name is Ollie Reel from Silverbridge in County Armagh, Northern Ireland and like yourselves, myself and my three brothers lost large deposits on property in Spain. Our development was in Estepona, Costa Del Sol called Estepona Beach and Country Club and we bought through a company called Ocean View properties. There was nothing ever built in our development and 395 people lost their deposits. We are now claiming our deposits back through our Spanish lawyer Martin De la Herran of Abolex lawyers in Benidorm/Alicante.

We took a law case in Spain with another Law firm called Lawbird from Marbella which cost us nearly £200,000 between 80 of us involved and we are still no further on after 7 years.

However, if you read on and listen to the radio interview on LMFM from June 2016 you’ll get a good understanding of this new opportunity.

Spanish law

This recent opportunity centres on a Spanish law that was intended to protect people against the loss of monies paid to developers for the purchase of off-plan properties

Introduced in 1968, the law is not new. But it has been largely forgotten, mainly because the Spanish banks who are liable for any losses did not inform the hundreds of thousands of the UK, Norwegian and Irish citizens who invested in Spain of its existence or of their legal liability.

But a series of recent legal decisions, all in favour of investors, has opened up the possibility to those people to claim their money back.

The Supreme Court in Madrid has given the Spanish Banks a clear interpretation of Law 57/68 which clearly details that they must pay out on claims made against them in cases where clients’ money has not been protected and the developer has either failed to build the properties and ceased trading or failed to deliver them on time.

No Win, No Fee

We have been working on this project for some time and have partnered with a Spanish Law firm – Abolex – that has a 100% success rate in the 130 + claims to date they have made on behalf of clients.

As you will hear in the LMFM radio interview – people only have one shot at this and the cases handled by Martin De La Herran of Abolex lawyers, Benidorm and Alicante ,were all quite complex but he managed to win them all, going through the three stages of court process in Spain right to the Spanish Supreme court, and has set a precedent for others to claim – Not all Spanish lawyers are equipped or have the knowledge to handle these cases so people have to be careful who they go with – There will be other lawyers from Spain claiming they can take on investors claims and many will offer to do it No win No fee but if they lose the case, people will not get a second chance and may be eligible for court costs in Spain – Martin De La Herran will take on the cases No Win NO Fee (which is rare for Spanish lawyers to do) and will not go to court with a case unless he is 99% sure that the case will be successful.

His precise knowledge of this very old law has meant that, as I said before, he has had 100% success rate with over 130 + cases, some of these won even before the Supreme court ruling in March 16’ which upheld Law 57/68 – he is quite confident he can succeed for Irish, UK and Norwegian investors who fall within the remit of Law 57/68

UK Scheme

My brother John Reel and I now work as consultants for The Claims Bureau Ireland based in Dundalk, County Louth and we know this opportunity may be of great interest to you and could be a lifeline for those of you who may have lost large deposits in any developments in Spain. You may also know some other people outside of your development that may have lost also.

The Claims Bureau have already helped me claim back £ 70,000 of my deposit which was over £ 145,000, through the UK based Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and have helped a lot of people to reclaim their deposits in the UK. My UK Claim was based on me having received poor financial advice from a financial adviser who encouraged me to remortgage my home and use the equity to buy off-plan property – like an eejit I bought as well. If any of you are UK based and did what I did, you may have a Claim in the UK as well. You can Claim for both, as they are two separate claims.

No Scheme in Northern Ireland or Norway

Unfortunately, there is no such Government scheme in the South of Ireland (or Norway) to claim in this way. Reclaim in Spain is the only option available to you.

I left my teaching job of 24 years to help others throughout Ireland and the UK to try to reclaim their deposits and I hope to get the rest of my deposit back through Martin De la Herran. We have over 300 cases in court already for Irish/UK investors since we started working in June/ July 16 on these claims and you will see below that after 6 months we’ve already had a payout for a couple in the UK. This is brilliant news considering we originally thought it would take up to a year for most of these cases.

The first Irish cases we submitted in November/December 2016 have hearing dates in the next few months and we expect a steady rate of successes in all our cases heading into 2018

Put a claim in now and it is possible you could have your money back by end of the next year.

Radio interview

Please have a listen to the LMFM radio interview we did in June last year – it was our first bit of airtime to get the message out there of this possibility, it may help you understand the new claim – you’ll hear me, Martin De La Herran, Mick Coyne and Peter O’Donnell who are directors of the Claims Bureau I now work for, talk about the possibility that there may be light at the end of the tunnel for many of us.

If we can be of any further assistance – please do not hesitate to contact us.

Look forward to hearing from you