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Can anybody offer any advice on this please. We are changing our lawyer and sent notice both by email and fax on 9 August. Both the new lawyer and I have sent emails (asking for delivery reports and suprise, suprise their system will not allow this to happen) and faxes to no avail asking for the file to be handed over. I have also said that a courier will collect the file. Absolutely zilch. The obvious answer is to go to their office and camp in their reception area until it is handed over, which I fully intend to do when I visit in a couple of weeks time, but other than that has anybody any suggestions to get this file handed to my new lawyer? (He too has said he will collect from their offices). I had hoped on my visit that I would be able to have a meaningful discussion with the new lawyer, but that looks unlikely at this stage. 👿
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Suggest it is worth trying a telepone call first just to try and establish that the person concerned is not on holiday, and that everything you have sent is not just stacking up in his in-tray, waiting for his return.
If you establish he is around, in the past I know of someone who managed to get a result with a fax stating approx. the below:
“Am most surprised you have not responded to any of my requests for my file to be collected by/sent to my new lawyer.
Unless I receive a response from you within 48 hours, I shall be making a report regarding you and your firm’s behaviour to the Colegio de Abogados for misconduct”.They got immediate action.
We also used this threat with our original lawyer while in Spain. Standing nose to nose with her, demanding our file, she refused until we paid her yet more money.
We mentioned the Colegio would be our next port of call if she didn’t give it to us.
We left with our file 😉It is worth a try?
Barbara
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I must say Maria, that I am astonished at how many times I have heard ‘Indecisions’ story above.
Out of 14 purchasers on our development who changed lawyers, there were quite a number of lawyers who behaved in this way.
Coupled with the numerous stories of lawyers being in cahoots with the developer, not looking after clients’ interests, not obtaining Bank Guarantees, allowing lousy,developer- biased contracts to be signed, etc. etc. etc. – I think Operation Malaya should also look at certain lawyers and their part in all of this in order to clean up what has been going on on the CDS.
Sorry to criticise your profession, but do you agree that there are so many lawyers ‘behaving badly’, that really something should be done to address this?
They all just seem to be getting away with it by their disgruntled client simply changing lawyers. But their misdemeanours are hardly ever addressed or penalised.
The reason? “No lawyer likes to ‘take on’ another lawyer”. We hear this so often, yet why should it be like this?
Would be interested to know your opinion on this.
And besides resorting to the Colegio de Abogados after the event, what can be done to clean up the profession in general so it doesn’t happen in the first place?lt is, in my opinion, rather disgraceful that on this forum we have to keep stressing the importance of finding an independent lawyer in order to have your interests looked after.
Surely all lawyers should put their clients’ interests above anything else and to uphold the law – the fact that some do not goes against the oath they took and in my book these lawyers should receive some kind of comeuppance.Apolgies that I bang on about this subject quite a bit on the forum, but if one thinks about it – there are thousands of us who would not be in the position we found ourselves in when buying a property in Spain, and so much stress and heartache would have been prevented, if our lawyers had done their job well and in an honest way in the first place.
Barbara
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Barbara quoted;
Surely all lawyers should put their clients’ interests above anything else and to uphold the law – the fact that some do not goes against the oath they took and in my book these lawyers should receive some kind of comeuppance unqote.But they do put their “clients” interests first. The problem is the client is more often than not the Developer!!!! not the buyer who is under the impression they are the client.
Hopefully in the future lawyers will be made admit an interest in the developements then future purchasers will know if their lawyer is truly independant
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Dear Charlie:
I completely agree on all your comentaries on the behaviour of some colleagues of mine. I am about to proceed to approach the issue and talk to the General Counsil of Lawyers in Spain. Once I am done with some important cases I am dealing with where, of course, there are some of my colleagues making noise and mess.
By then, I will probably ask for the assistance of some of you, so I can gather good, enough information to bring to the higher institution for Lawyers´discipline in Spain.
You can email me with the subject topic : GCA in order to start gathering information.
Best regards,
María Luisa de Castro
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