[Anonymous]

We are two young girls with children and try to buy a house in lliria. We have given the deposit 3 months ago to Yomel S.L., and now found out the house is illegal. An agent from Yomel refuses to give us our money back. We can only use it on another house on his tuesing. Is this right or wrong, all ex-pats? On advise from Talk of The Town bar in Domeno, we were told to check this link. We were absolutely shocked.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2008/05/24/pspain124.xml

We are realising now that something is wrong with this company. Can anyone reccommand where we should go to, what we should do, as we really feel under threat.
Hope hearing and meeting from you soon.
Julie & Mel

[Anonymous]

First advice has to be talk to your lawyer – and quickly. People on this forum can give guidance but not advice (the lawyers here excepted) but to enable people to give that guidance, you need to add to your post.

You say you have paid a deposit – is it a holding deposit (say 3,000 or 6,000 €) or is it a 10% deposit? That could make a big difference in which way you proceed.

Do you have a contract – if so, is it a reservation contract or a private sales contract?

You say the house is illegal – in what way?

Is Yomel the owner of the property themselves, as seems to be so in the articles I have read?

You will have to watch legal fee costs compared with what you stand to recover if this is a holding deposit only. Do not let the legal costs get out of hand as it will hurt twice as much, especially if this company Yomel are as seasoned con merchants as the articles about them lead you to believe. UK or Spain, somtimes sticking to your principals and rights can become expensive – in these cases the only winners are the lawyers so do be careful.

I am not sure if the complaints book system here in Andalucia is a national one or one that is regional only – hopefully someone on the forum can advise. IF you have the same system, one of the cheapest and simplest ways to proceed IF the deposit and contract are only reservations is to go to the office of Yomel and ask for the complaints book. You will probably be told that he doesn’t have one which will be untrue. In that case, you call the local Police as every business must have one and produce it if requested. Instant fine if not! If it is produced (with or without Police involvement) fill it out (in English if necessary) and end your complaint with something to the effect that to resolve the complaint you require a refund of the deposit paid. Yomel would then have 14 days to resolve the complaint otherwise you go to the Town Hall Consumers Department with the two copies of the complaint you receive from the book and they will take up the problem. Because Yomel seem to be having a lot of bad press etc, it may be that they will give in and make a refund. The worse a business is, the easier they give into the complaints book system because they do not want the Town Hall or even the Junta’s consumer departments getting involved.

From what I read of this company ( a Brit again!) I can only wish you luck.

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