Zurgena: Corruption Trial - Judgement issued

[Altair]

MY personal experience is totally different,
I have a 3 bedroom house in Spain , purchased for approximately half the price of a studio flat  in the UK.
It is not a financial investment, It is currently a holiday home and will eventually be our main residence.
So my advice would be the same as any large financial transaction, make sure you have the right people working for you, it's your responsibility.

[zilnor]

People have said to me " You bought a house in southern Spain. I am considering it. What do you think ? "
I say " no, no, no, and no , no, no ". Rent in Spain but don't buy. IMO and with my personal experience of losing money on a property purchase, I would not advise anyone to buy a house in Spain. Why should people who have worked hard to retire to a life in a warmer climate be ripped off by a corrupt system of greedy bar stewards who don't give a s--t about people like the Priors ?

[pepe]

Don't let us forget the town halls they are much to blame as solicitors and builders ask the Priors know one knows better than them ??

[Tetley]

Thats fair comment jabba,but again its the diffrence in the systems,i was amazed in the early years on how area,s were just levelled and homes built,it certainly wouldent have happend in the UK.

[jabba the cat]

Fing is jabbs i paid a market rate for my place,17 year ago....then the market just took off a year later,i suppose its down to market forces realy at the end of day.

Tets............ i have no problem with that at all what me and a lot of people are annoyed with is the system i.e builders,solicitors.notaries estate agents and every man and his dog knew what was going on and as 345 challenger as said when they go to court they are allowed to negotiate re their lawyers.
They built on rustic land and they all knew it so what ever any one says they have for me destroyed people lives here and i for one will never forget that
and they should be brought to justice but hey we all know what justice is in Spain ask Lionel Messi. :91:

[Tetley]

Challenger you have omitted the" friendly fire" Brits.....that made a coin or two......down the valley and helped pull the levers and drive the boom ie all area,s.

[345 Challenger]

The very law put in place to protect people was abused by builders promoters, builders etc and not enforced at the time it should have been by the junta and the THs pure and simple, complete absence of foresight, commonsense and diligence. There is NO excuse and I mean No excuse on the part of all the authorities involved, coupled to corruption, and the THs complete disregard for anything regarding the legalities of the licences they issued. It's unfair to lay the blame on British purchasers, the vast majority were lead by to be polite dodgy solicitors, even central government made a killing on taxes, it beggers belief that they can profit from fraudulent sales taxes, but not surprised as they are imune.

[Tetley]

Fing is jabbs i paid a market rate for my place,17 year ago....then the market just took off a year later,i suppose its down to market forces realy at the end of day.

brits here made some good money between 2000/2006 ie buying an old house cheap,doing it up and selling it on,then the money they made in profit payed for a new villa to be built.

the area was an econamic power zone in the boom 6 years, very diffrent to today.

[jabba the cat]

Tets give it a rest what you paid for your place of residence is probably less than most people lost on their purchases due to the promise of paper work to be supplied on the assurance of the builder and solicitors and the system that it was legal.............God how do i wish Amanda Oakley was in business then,I for one would has saved myself well over 100,00 euros when we sold and what it cost me to legalize it by her telling me its NOT LEGAL.............say again its NOT LEGAL. :91: :91:

[Tetley]

Thing is we can all bang on abought Spanish law standards.....but juding by issiues like the tower block fire, or even Hiisbourgh its not mutch brighter in the motherland, ie the home of the politicaly correct  & upstanding English Law.......what happend to the planning & building control  enforcment there ??or in the Hillsbourgh case ie the wink wink nudge nudge offical paper amendments......leading to years of dragged out upset for the familys with our very upstanding English law that has just been guided by EU law to be in a postion to charge people with offences from years back,without the EU bit  it would have been English law,buck stops here guv.....shuffled away.

if people do there checks and get propper advice there are 100,000,s of buyers enjoying there purchases in Spain and if Brits are confident in the Brexit outcome (wich i arnt ) there are plenty of cheap legal homes in this area to take a punt on.

[Tetley]

Thing is..........some people have been victims of sharp practice and political wranglings,other people left there brains in the UK.....or payed FAR  to mutch money for a home in a rural area,in the boom,

i used to recomend my lawyer M Davies,only to be told later on by the same people that asked for my recomendation.......that thay used the builder lawyer.... as it was a bit cheaper..........OR  the legal fees are in with the house.

people are still getting off UK Planes thinking thay have the same rights and things run the same as they do in the uk,.....big mistake.

it always makes me chuckle when i read all maner of lay british... spanish legal experts handing down advices they have read somewere or the chap in the pub told them after only a few months here.

1000,s of Brits have retired in Spain,had clean air breathing and healthy eating,thus probably prolonging there life cykle with a pension that went a lot further in rural spain than it ever would have done in Down Town Doncaster.


people should not be put off..... but do your homework,if you want to buy a holiday home or full time home buying retail homes should not be a problem with a correctly registered property........were it whent" wild west"...was olive groves been   flatternd 15 years ago to cope with market demand and people bought off plan with no paperwork.

the good news is......the market is still fluid,the lorry lads are busy as are the folks convayensing wich has to be good for the area.

[zilnor]

Telcaz,

We bought our new villa for 225,000 euros (  with pool, garage etc) in 2006 and sold it for 135,000 Es in 2013. Taking into account the difference in exchange rates over seven years, we lost approximately £65,000 on the sale. I sympathise !

Tets,
What went wrong was too many Spanish builders, local politicians, local lawyers  and ex-pats setting themselves up as estate agents, getting in on the act of making loadsa money who did not give a s--t about planning laws etc etc.
As for " local governments that could'nt cope" they were part of the problem. I am not saying they were all involved but plenty were.

In the 1970s a friend of minevwent to work as a child minder for a Spanish family on the island of Majorca. Family members owned acres of land and survived as farmers. Within a few years they had become wealthy people by selling off their land to property developers , both Spanish and European. Money talks everywhere, and principles fly out the window.

[Rod]

The ex mayor of Albox still walks the streets without a care in the world. He was the one involved in the builds in the early 2000's and is seen driving various motors including a Porsche. No action was taken against him.

[telcaz]

I too was able to sell my house, also at a loss, to the tune of around 60,000 euros, and i foolishly sold my house in the UK, now as a eighty year old have very little hope of returning which i would love to.
                                                                                               Terry

[Tetley]

The thing is.......when i bought here 17 years ago it was a very poor area,i bought my house in a bar,on a handshake without any money exchange,the house then had to be correctly registered to do this BOTH  partys used my lawyer M Davies Mojacar this took months to sort ie mains water,electric pylons correct registration paperwork,but no money changed hand until the day of the notary.

approx 1 year later the area started to explode with brit home buyers,my kid whent to Arboleas school from aged 8,i think there were approx 7 brit kids there around 2003,two years later i think therewere approx 90 Brit kid there,it was as tho the UK was emptying.

the plannin laws have been in place for years and are very strick were it whent wrong is this area was a poor area were land could be bought for pstas per meter,then it boomed over night and land was exchanging at 70,80,90e a meter hence everything got out of control Driven by Brit buyers on a mission and local governments that couldent cope.

however
there have been plenty of Brits here,that bought a cheap NEW  35,k villa,had 10 to 15 years in the sun and sold at 150k,were it whent wrong for a lot of people apart from the paperwork,it they bought in to high,plenty of Brits here are still in equity with the correct paper work and have had a very nice retirment.

my advice is rent,but if you can afford a cheap home buy it providing you keep a UK home ,anybody in there 50,s now can buy a cheap home for 60k,private medical for 900e per year,and even if we get total chaos in 2019 will still be able to use there home for holidays and all will be probably back to uk eu normal by the time there on a pensions at 66 & 67.

[webejamin]

Great post 345 :bravo_2:

[zilnor]

345Challenger.
:bravo_2: :bravo_2:
Totally agree with you.

Like you, we were able to sell our house although at a loss. But we considered that for seven years we had a good life in Spain and met some nice people, both Spanish and ex-pats.

Many ex-pats continually criticise the UK and I am the first to say it is far from perfect , but Spain is no paradise.

[jabba the cat]

absolutely spot on what a good sensible reply to what a lot of people agree with.  :clap:

[345 Challenger]

Well I think I gave Spain a fair chance to show me what sort of country it was. 14 years later, and what did it teach me? Never ever buy there, unless you want to loose money, and still pay taxes for the privilege, I actually consider myself one of the lucky ones, and was actually able to sell, and without losing all of my shirt, I feel so sorry for the people on here who have been caught up in the corrupt and illegal building and political malpractices.
It will take an entire generation in time to begin to sort out the mess,. I gave up bothering, when you have politicians point scoring over different parties with absolutely no regard for the people and area's they represent, and loathing so deep they are prepared to ruin an entire region to prove a point, I just can't be assed  to comment any further.
Spain would have been the best country in the world had it not been for the 500,000 full time politicians, yes the figure is correct, there are more full time politicians in Spain than the rest of the EU put together
. But when 12 or more years are spent trying to put  politicians behind bars, the waste of millions and millions of euros spent trying to do it is criminal in itself, in Zurgena's case it's totally vindictive, yes he should have been jailed 10 years ago, along with all the other corrupt administrations. There is always enough money around for prosecutions and defence lawyers, but funnily enough nothing to pay out the Priors, who won their days in court on more than one occasion.

[jabba the cat]

It's called hypocrisy. But then those in power, with power, with money are above the law, well they think they are. Really it's no wonder that in all walks of life there is a feeling that man and woman in the street has had enough and looking for a better deal of the cards.

Well said KJH3.

Reminds me of somewhere is it 27 or 28 but lets not mention that there are other boards swarming with people that dont agree with you.  :67:

[shadeseeker]

 the euro weekly has become a political paper now. It only reports on certain things and other things like the builder of the 98 illegal houses in court were not reported.

[byrney]

That's the word !!!

But then some have pretended for years (and lied) that they were not politically motivated......

Hey ho- they'll also have their day in Court one hopes.

Incidentally, what's the debt owed by certain local Councils?  Euro Weekly only mentioned a few of the main offenders.  Strange they didn't give the full list.

[KJH3]

It's called hypocrisy. But then those in power, with power, with money are above the law, well they think they are. Really it's no wonder that in all walks of life there is a feeling that man and woman in the street has had enough and looking for a better deal of the cards.

[byrney]

Without getting into the wrongs and rights of the Zurgena Court cases, don't you just love politicians from other areas loving politicians from other areas getting stuffed.

And then you look at the local papers and see that their own areas are not free from any form of guilt.

What's that about people in glass houses and chickens coming home to roost?......

[zilnor]

JohnJones
Spot  on.  :clap: :clap:

[KJH3]

I could not agree more.

[JohnJones]

Great. Judgement issued. And? Still not locked up? What value a Judgement with no consequences in Law and jail time? Albox too. There's a rogue or two that should be in choky....those robbed will never see there money spent in good faith again. Nice. Flacid Judgements that do not return the parties to original position. Rob at will.

So.

I Would  still think long and hard before buying in this area given all that's gone, bulldozing et al.

Better to keep an asset in the UK and rent here, generate an income, leave when you want to and maintain an asset in the UK legal framework of Title on a Property and solicitors governed by The Law Society. Who strike dodgy Solicitors off.

UK Market will always outstrip Spain for asset growth. And most of Europe. Rent here and rent your home in the uK out for an income. Capital growth too. Daft to sell up in the UK. Spain is fantastic but very high risk and exposure to rogues in unregulated areas where you can, and others have, lost everything. Priors were just one high profile case of thousands. Not just Spain, Crete, greece, Italy et al. Law Society do not extend this far south. Don't get mugged and enjoy the best of all worlds.

[lorrydriver]

Have to say Michael Davies - Mojacar is truly legal. We have used him for some time and would not trust ANY one else.

[Tetley]

The other thing is..........one bloke practised as a lawyer for 20 years..... without the correct papers/quals ( not this area ).



for anybody buying/thinking of, in this area now,we have a good lawyer on the coast M Davies ( English chap trained in Spain )

and  locally a well experienced Legal Sec/conveyancer Amanda.

both fully bi lingual with years of experience.

[hedges]

Well if he's been given a prison sentence does he not get put in jail straight away.
Personally I don't see how come the solicitors in all this haven't been charged as well, after all that's what you get solicitor for to see if everything's kosher. Our solicitor in Albox, was a nightmare things spelt wrong then when we complained she wanted us to pay to have it changed. mind you from my experience solicitors in the UK are not much better. But at least in the UK you can do something about it. Maybe hard to get somebody to take another solicitor to court, as they don't really want to do this but it's more possible in the UK then here.

[Trucker]

Quote...If this judgement really is the end, and not subject to further appeals, Zurgena Council will at last be able to make a fresh start, for the benefit of all its residents.


That's if the residents are still alive....

[Tetley]

And off topic /genral

the next problem will be getting the momentum from any small village /town council to spend the money on the plans & work,especialy if the Brit,s leave the political arena.

any area now will have to have all the T,s crossed and I,s dotted spains a very diffrent ball game to the 1990,s on the admin front.

[Roger]

The problem for the people with illegal houses in Zurgena is that they are caught in a catch 22.
The Council has to produce an Urban Plan for the Junta to agree, which can then be amended to include the existing rustic houses.
BUT
To do that they will have to register the existing rustic houses as that, rustic.
However
The council has been defending the previous councilors in court, claiming that the rustic land was always urban.

If this judgement really is the end, and not subject to further appeals, Zurgena Council will at last be able to make a fresh start, for the benefit of all its residents.

[345 Challenger]

Shame it's not 60 years, Teflon Candido hopefully finally met his Waterloo

[Maura]

The judgement was pretty damning. He has a big problem.
Some promoters were also convicted.