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NORTH EDITION roundtownnews.com
19 - 25 APRIL 2013
Issue 705
Off-plan victory offers hope by Jack Troughton
A small survivor needs a new home
Tambourine needs a home
THE FIRE brigade was called out this week to a roadside fire near an urbanization bordering La Amistad in Benissa. The fire was not a serious one but as fire fighters tackled the flames a plaintive meaow was heard from a tiny ginger kitten trapped by the fire. Apart from a few scorched whiskers she was unharmed. The fire fighters scooped her up, passed around the brigade for hugs and kisses and took her back to base where she is presently recovering from her ordeal. The fire fighters have named her ‘Tambourine’. Please contact RTN on 902 118 999 if you can give Tambourine a loving home.
PROPERTY VICTIMS are celebrating a “landmark” court victory over shamed CAM Bank over the failure to protect cash deposits for their dream homes in the sun. An eight year battle involving 1.5 million Euros ended when the bank – now Sabadell CAM – lost its appeal at Albacete over a failure to issue 47 buyers with legally required Bank Guarantees. And the court’s decision offers hope to others who lost money in failed off –plan projects to what was described as “a feeding frenzy of sharks”. The action was brought by the Finca Parcs Action Group against the bank, the sole financial body backing the project, and developer Cleyton GES over the Las Higuericas Finca Parcs development near Agramon in Albacete, just over the border with Murcia. Found guilty of “malpractice” by a lower court in Hellin last June, the bank launched its appeal but it was dismissed by judges last week. It has the right to appeal to Supreme Court. However, the losers will be refunded their principal losses and received both interest and costs when the time allowed for any further appeal expires and the case becomes “firm” – or after the highest court makes a ruling. A second case involving another 13 of the action group’s members will
soon be before the Hellin court involving 500,000€ - CAM has chosen not to defend the action – and there is a third case involving a similar amount of money in the pipeline. The Albacete Appeal Court upheld the Hellin judge who ruled the bank “failed in its legal obligations to control the use of off-plan deposits paid in advance” and showed an “absolute disregard” to the obligations imposed on financial institutions by the law “and this behaviour can only be described as malpractice”. And the appeal court ruled that: “CAM knew perfectly well that the payments by the plaintiffs into ordinary current accounts were payments by buyers in an off-plan property development in which it had assumed the role of guarantor under the law, Ley 57/1986”. And it noted that CAM did issue guarantees to other purchasers of property at Finca Parcs. Action Group co-ordinator Keith Rule said it was quickly realised that in order to get any money back it was necessary to pursue the bank itself as the developer – which did not appeal the original verdict after also being found guilty of charges relating to homes that were never built. He said the group first contacted CAM in 2008 and submitted dossiers of evidence yet the bank continued to claim it was oblivious to the payments made by victims. Continued on page 3