Lawsuits passed on to national courts after five years

After handling the lawsuits regarding Trampolin Hills for five years, a judge has recently passed the case on to national courts, according to an article in local media (Las Provincias, Murcia/Alicante, 09.12.2012, in Spanish). Please see the links section for more information.

Spain's "bad bank"

Reuters By Tom Bill | Reuters – Thu, 1 Nov, 2012 Reuters - Thu, 1 Nov, 2012 LONDON (Reuters) - Spain's "bad bank" will struggle to find buyers for swathes of empty land, unfinished housing projects and doubtful loans left over from a property crash, hindering Madrid's attempts to overcome the wider economic crisis. Real estate consultants predict that almost two-thirds of assets that the government's newly-created bad bank is due to take over from commercial banks will fail to attract investors, at least in the short term and possibly ever. Spain is setting up the bad bank, known by the acronym SAREB, under a plan to cleanse the banking system of toxic property assets. SAREB aims eventually to buy up to 90 billion euros ($117 billion) of the assets at deep discounts and then sell them to investors over 15 years. Buyers are likely to snap up the likes of prime holiday homes and completed properties, commercial and residential, which already have tenants. But that leaves a majority of assets that will be much harder to shift. Between 60 and 65 percent of the foreclosed property and bad loans to be hived off by the banks will relate to undeveloped land and half-built projects, according to forecasts compiled for Reuters by real estate consultants Jones Lang LaSalle and CBRE . CBRE gave the higher figure for this category which investors will probably shun, put off by high risks and costs such as having to rip down abandoned shells of buildings that no one would ever want to occupy. Together with Ireland, Spain has suffered Europe's biggest property crash, leaving the banks with 184 billion euros of bad real estate debt and incomplete developments around the country. This has brought much of Spain's property market to a halt. "In the last five years there has been virtually no value for land," said Rafael Powley, a Madrid-based director of strategic consulting at JLL. "There are no buyers and if you want to sell it right now, there is no price for it." CBRE and JLL are the world's biggest property advisers and helped consultant Oliver Wyman prepare a report this year that examined how exposed Spain's banks were to souring property loans after the bubble burst. The crash has put Spain center-stage in the euro zone debt crisis, now in its third year, as investors believe a high budget deficit, soaring state debts, and a deepening economic contraction will force Madrid to seek more external help. Spain has already secured up to 100 billion euros of European aid to rescue the banks worst hit by the property collapse. Madrid may now have to take a full sovereign bailout, with the state assuming the bad real estate assets unless it can find private sector investors to buy stakes in SAREB itself. HOPING FOR INVESTORS On Monday the Bank of Spain said property loans would be moved into the bad bank at an average discount of 45.6 percent in the hope of attracting investors. The figure would be 63.1 percent for foreclosed assets and 79.5 percent for empty land. The central bank declined to comment on the CBRE and JLL forecasts. Madrid hopes private investors will own at least 55 percent of SAREB, which was created as a condition of the European aid for the banks and is due to start operating by the end of November. About two-thirds of the assets transferred in an initial wave of 44 billion euros will be loans and the rest foreclosed properties. Investing in land or half-built developments means spending money to start, demolish or complete schemes without any guarantee of selling them or finding tenants. Investors are reluctant to do this due to the Spanish recession and excessive supplies of property built up during the boom years. "The money you need to spend upfront takes you backwards," said Justin O'Connor, chief executive of property fund manager Cordea Savills, which has about 7 billion euros of assets under management in Europe. "With land you need to take a long-term view beyond the five to seven year horizon of most institutional investors," said O'Connor. However, his fund will look at shops and offices in Madrid and Barcelona which have already been rented out. "The only assets of value in Spain are ones with an income stream attached," he said. DEMOLITION COSTS Investors are particularly wary of sites where incomplete developments will have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. "Land and unfinished developments are about the same thing right now," said Joe Valente, a managing director at JP Morgan Asset Management , who helps manage 7 billion euros of real estate in Europe. "Land is probably more valuable as it doesn't have any demolition costs." Buying loans secured against land or unfinished schemes is as unattractive as buying the assets themselves in the short-term, particularly given the lower discounts offered by the bad bank, Powley said. "A large majority will be bad loans and a discount closer to the foreclosed asset price would have been more realistic. I wouldn't expect more than 20 percent of the loans to survive." Like Cordea Savills, JP Morgan is looking for income-producing bargains in the bigger Spanish cities. Valente is raising equity to buy assets outside of safe markets such as London and Paris, which he believes to be overpriced, but the CBRE and JLL figures show there will be slim pickings. Only 10 percent of SAREB's assets will relate to commercial property while housing will account for the rest, both real estate advisers said. The commercial property that goes in will be "medium to poor quality" and not what investors are looking for, Powley said. Morgan Stanley and private equity groups Lone Star, Cerberus and Apollo are also hunting for Spanish bargains. They will be attracted to large portfolios of completed housing in areas such as Malaga and Alicante, boosted by Russian, British and German tourists and their proximity to major airports, Powley said. Areas to avoid due to "a huge oversupply" of housing include Valencia, Murcia and Almeria in southeast Spain, said Patricio Palomar, head of research at CBRE in Spain, who made the bad bank forecast for Reuters. Loans backed by rented-out commercial real estate will be the other bright spot but the fact that the good is so outweighed by the bad renders the 15-year disposal time meaningless, property experts said. "About 40 percent of the land that goes into the bad bank will never come out," Powley said. "They may have to eventually get rid of it for a tenth of the price as farmland."

OPEN LETTER TO SR. MARIANO RAJOY

Dear Sr. Rajoy

Congratulations on becoming the new Spanish President.

Our website and petition - www.bankguaranteesinspain.com - is representing all those innocent people who attempted to purchase an off-plan property in your wonderful country.

Unfortunately due to the lack of supervision by the Banco de España and the systemic corruption in the Property and Banking Sectors we are now victims of Bank Guarantee Abuse.

Our off-plan deposits have been stolen by the corrupt developers and negligent Banks. LEY 57/1968 has not been enforced and the Banco de España has failed in its role as the SUPERVISOR OF THE SPANISH BANKING SYSTEM.

Your court system is overloaded and cannot deal with the number of cases. On many occasions Judges are failing to apply LEY 57/68 correctly in their judgements.

LEY 57/68 was introduced in 1968 to protect the purchaser from the abuses and corruption in the property sector.

The rights granted to us by LEY 57/68 are 'Caracter de irrenunciables'. Our rights have been violated.

In your 100 Proposals for Change you make several references to transparency, trustworthiness, credibility and consistent justice. For example:

"A modern state must guarantee values of certainty, legal security and legal trust"

"rigorous tackling of many of the problems which have so far been ignored"

"We must restore our trustworthiness and credibility in the world"

"greater answerability backed up by full transparency"

Your document concludes by stating:

"We must recover our leading role abroad as a reliable, dependable and respected partner. The economic and institutional reforms we are going to undertake will contribute to international respect for Spain and its international role as an advanced Western democracy that is committed to freedom, democracy and the defence of human rights"

To achieve this you must immediately tackle Off-Plan Bank Guarantee Abuse and ensure LEY 57/1968 is enforced in all cases – past, present and future.

During the past year we have been in contact with the advisors of the former Housing Minister - Sra. Beatriz Corredor.

We look forward to working with your Housing Minister, Minister for the Treasury and Minister for Economic Affairs and Competitiveness to ensure that Off-Plan Bank Guarantee issues are resolved and measures are put in place so this corruption and abuse can never happen again.

Please take a look at our website - www.bankguaranteesinspain.com - and feel free to contact me by email: keith@bankguaranteesinspain.com

Yours sincerely


Keith Rule

Buyers take Campos del Rio town hall to court

While still waiting for the bankruptcy proceedings to come to an end, some Trampolin Hills buyers have decided to take the Campos del Rio town hall to court, because they have consistently refused to even consider the claims for refunds solicited since March 2011. They expect this to take months, but see it as a first step to hopefully oblige the town hall to admit their responsibility towards the buyers.

ONE OF THE BURNT ONES (Reuters)

Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo (CAM), a 135-year-old Valencia-based savings bank, was one of the profligate ones. CAM sits in a moderately sized Spanish region -Valencia is home to around 5 million people- but it financed grandiose projects like the Terra Mitica theme park in the coastal resort city of Benidorm, which emerged from receivership in 2006, and opened offices in Shanghai, Miami and Geneva. When the government slashed the number of savings banks by more than half last year and forced them to take on private investors or face nationalisation, CAM was one of those that failed to generate interest because of its real estate losses. On taking the caja over in July, the government found much bigger losses than expected. It also found that CAM directors and their equivalents at fellow failed savings bank NovaCaixaGalicia had awarded themselves multimillion euro severance pay packages while racking those losses up. Union data shows the pay packages of CAM directors increased more than sixfold over the 2004-2010 period, while profits grew 3 percent over the same period. Five directors at CAM got payouts of 12.8 million euros in total, while three top staff at NovaCaixaGalicia got 23.6 million between them, press reports say. Both banks were bailed out with public money. "There has been an embezzlement of public funds destined to bail out the bankrupt cajas," said the speaker of the United Left party, Gaspar Llamazares. The reports shocked Spaniards suffering the highest unemployment amongst industrialised nations -- one in five is out of work -- and the threat of deep cuts in health and education. CAM director, Maria Dolores Amoros, was fired and put under investigation for falsifying accounts. Roberto Lopez, a former director at CAM, had to leave an Alicante tennis club in October after people booed and shouted insults at him, according to a local paper. "It is an absolute disgrace that the managers of the bankrupt cajas should receive such massive bonuses," says Jose Luis Corell, lawyer and bankruptcy expert, at a cafe outside Valencia's 17th century basilica. Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez called the behaviour of the CAM executives "scandalous" and said the bank was "the worst of the worst" at a press conference in September.

Happy Holidays, Zapatero

FAO: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, President
Email: jlrzapatero@presidencia.gob.es
The Spanish Government
MADRID
Spain

7th August 2011

Dear Sir

This is the third occasion on which I have written to you and maybe it will be third on which I do so without response; nevertheless, given its anticipated “circulation” I feel sure it will not go unnoticed!

I am prompted to write, yet again, after hearing of your Countries continued economic gloom and the fact that you are having to cut short your holiday in order to deal with the crisis … LUCKY YOU … I cannot afford a holiday after having been defrauded of some €250,000.00 by citizens from your Country! Your problem, Sir, is the underlying corruption and fraud which underlies every facet of Spain’s culture. Take a long hard look at the situation you have with CAM Bank … I alerted the Authorities to the extent of the fraud taking place there years ago … AND VERY PUBLICLY AT THAT. CAM Bank HAS BEEN BUILT upon an overall ethos of fraud and corruption for years and you sir have simply allowed it to perpetuate. A fraud based upon the exploitation of largely innocent “Non- Spanish Nationals” in a huge “Property Scam”.

This scam has been allowed to perpetuate by what must undoubtedly be the most dilatory Legal System in the World … one which would be more at home in some of the more corrupt African States. I commenced a fraud action (“Querella Criminal”) against a Developer, Rafael Aguilera and his Company Trampoline Solera, some three years ago for signing a contract with me for the purchase of a property, taking nearly €200K, then in collaboration with CAM Bank arranging a huge fraudulent Mortgage before finally fraudulently selling MY PROPERTY to a third party. In any Country in the World that IS FRAUD but bringing someone to trial in Spain … particularly if they are NOT Spanish citizens … is impossible! You have a law in your Country … LEY57/68 … but does it ever get applied … a law designed to safeguard the deposits of purchasers from an “off-plan” developer. Justice in your Country is impossible and yet here you are “crying” over the state of your Countries “economic crisis” whilst ignoring the underlying problems. Your actions are akin to the treatment of a Headache with Aspirin whilst ignoring the underlying cause … a tumour the size of the combined area of the Spanish Costa’s which requires removal! Apart from Oranges, Olive Oil and Melons the Spanish economy has relied heavily upon Tourism and the Construction industry fuelled by a desire to “entice” overseas Purchasers to but property in Spain. A construction industry based upon greed, corruption and fraud and yet you have the absolute downright nerve to send a Government representative to the UK with the sole intention of organising a “Road Show” to defraud yet more UK residents!

Sadly I think you will fail to appreciate the severity of the concerns voiced here because I suspect that fraud and corruption run through the veins of all Spaniard’s and therefore you too will not appreciate the points that I, together with thousands of others, are trying to make. For sure, had I known way back in 2004 the “cultural level of fraud” which exists in Spain I would NEVER have attempted to purchase a property in Spain or indeed the one I now have on Mallorca! Justice in Spain is an absolute “non-starter” and then … even when the Court appoint an official as they did in the case of the collapse of Trampolin Solera … Monzón Abogados … obtaining an intelligent response to a question is impossible. Sra. Monzón’s sole intention is to drag out her enquiries for as long as possible in order to build up her fees in an attempt to defraud still further thousands of innocent victims from yet another Spanish Property Scam!

So Senor Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, what are you going to do about this? My guess is NOTHING … you have postured about cutting short your holiday but my guess is that this will be a short lived reaction before you return to another bottle of Fundador Brandy before your resignation on, I assume, a lucrative pension from the Spanish Government. My suggestion is that you go now and at least show the world that you want to see your Country recover. As for me I simply want to see Justice in your Courts, the return of my money whilst I rue for the rest of my life the day I purchase ANYTHING in Spain! I have alerted you now for a third time to the extent of the fraud in your country, to the docile nature of your Legal System and to the corruption within both CAM Bank and Monzón Abogados … doubtless you will do nothing but in case you have forgotten what this is really all about I repeat below the text from my letter of March this year:-

I have written to you on a previous occasion sadly to little effect but on searching the Internet I find that not only have you been contacted by many others about the “off-plan” building scandal in Spain … more specifically have you been contacted by many others about the situation with a company in Murcia appearing in several guises … Trampolin Solera, Trampolin Hills, Trampolin Royal Dreams. All of these are separate companies which are interlinked who together, I suspect, with the respective Banks … most notably CAM Bank … have been able to defraud many hundreds of people of their homes and their life savings.

One of the “letters” you have received early this year starts in the following vein:-
“We understand that improving Spain’s economy is proving difficult. We are very sorry about that, but not surprised.

We feel it is necessary to draw your attention to a case which no doubt is keeping European citizens of all nationalities from buying off-plan property anywhere in Spain, and will continue to do so if it is not dealt with in a just and appropriate manner. ….”

The letter then goes on to document a catalogue of errors made by the authorities which have brought many families across Europe to their knees … mine included!

I really wonder whether or not you have any idea of the mammoth scale of the fraud involved … indeed I wonder whether you really care? The Legal system in Spain … a system over which YOU preside … is so lax that I am forced to say “is it any wonder that your own Costa Del Sol is known throughout Europe as the Costa Del Crime”! Criminals in Spain appear not just to survive but to positively flourish in your Country due solely to the dilatory nature and handling by the Courts and the Justice System in Spain.

I take my own situation as a case in point although by NO MEANS isolated. I purchased an “off-plan” property from Trampolin Solera in or around 2004 and over a period of months paid over some 185,000€ leaving a small balance to be paid upon completion. Eventually the property was finished but when my Lawyers checked through the details of the transaction it became clear that a large Mortgage had been taken out with CAM Bank in 2007 which was (a) far in excess of the balance due to be paid (b) taken out against a highly inflated Bank valuation and (c) some +- 2 years AFTER I HAD SIGNED AND AGREED THE CONTRACT! Worse was to follow … the Developer had in fact subsequently sold my property twice and in fact moved the SECOND purchaser into our home … even in Spain this has to be FRAUD!

The Civil Judgment which eventually followed after some two years produced no satisfaction. A second CRIMINAL action was commenced in early 2009 with a “Querella Criminale” being issued against the Developer, Sr. Rafael Aguilera. All of this was two years and in spite of my making two personal visits to the Court number 2 at the Royal Palace of Justice in Murcia and spoken directly to the Judge Miriam Garcia this matter STILL has not been progressed to Trial. In the meantime the Defendant has been able to dissipate all his assets before placing his company Trampolin Solera SL into Administration. The appointed Administrators are Nerea Monzón and Rafael Jiménez from Monzón Abogados in Murcia.

My question of you, Senor, is just what does an innocent victim have to do in order to gain Justice in your Country … I have been defrauded of in excess of 250,000€ including costs ect and all the while the Defendant is able to simply continue enjoying the “spoils” of his crimes whilst continuing to attempt to defraud others. From your point of view, as the President of your Country, perhaps the real concern should be the involvement of the Banks … and in this case CAM Bank … in what is potentially a fraud of over 100,000,000.00€! I would welcome the opportunity of meeting with either yourself or one of your SENIOR advisers in Madrid but in any event I am copying this email to The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, our own Embassy in Madrid, my Lawyers based in La Manga … Iberbrit and the administrators for Trampolin, Monzón Abogados.

I look forward … hopefully … to your meaningful and constructive response.

Let us now see whether or not you really do have the “courage” to respond!

Kind regards

Yours sincerely



Andrew Wilford


cc: The Rt. Hon. David Cameron, UK Prime Minister
Alex Brown, British Embassy MADRID
AUN, Alicante
Sean O’Hare, The Daily Telegraph
Michael Cashman MEP
Monzón Abogados
Atencion al Ciudadano; case no. 1533/2009
Buyers For Trampolin Hills
ITV Homes from Hell
Finca Parks Action Group

The mayor of Campos del Rio refuses to consider claims

As a reply to our claims of refunds to the town hall of Campos del Rio, we finally received a certified letter. The mayor says he will NOT take into consideration our claims and that he will inform the council about his decision in their next meeting. He also says that we can appeal, which we certainly will. The decision regards whether or not our claims will be considered and is NOT an answer to our claims or requests for clarifications. In our opinion, this is just yet another example to show how lack of proper management and faulty administration on behalf of the town hall is causing unnecessary delays and further grievances to the buyers.
We might add that the new mayor as of the May 22. elections will be Miguel Buendia, whereas this reply is signed by the current mayor, Miguel Navarro Romero.