@Rawlins wrote:
Around Valencia, I know half a dozen lawyers that I would trust with my life savings and and I know a couple that I wouldn’t trust with five euros.
That equates to six lawyers you trust, two you don’t.
In other words, 25% of the lawyers you are referring to, you wouldn’t trust 😯
not a very impressive ratio in my opinion.
We have all read about the recent corruption stories along your part of the coast, including the Town Hall, mayors and right through the system – it is not just the Costa del Sol.
You say:
“The root of the problem is that naive and uninformed buyers generally accept those lawyers recommended by the agents and developers”.
This has often been written on this forum by ‘professionals’ in the property business – which I understand you are – and I for one really resent this attitude.
I don’t regard myself as naive or uninformed, and like many others I know – we thoroughly researched our development/developer before making our decision.
At the time of buying in 2003, our developer had recently won an award -presented in London at the Grosvenor Hotel, for best golf appartment in Spain.
Two years later, after our fight began to get our money back for an appartment they never built as the building licence had been suspended (they never should have received a licence in the first place as it wasn’t in accordance with the Junta’s PGOU plan), I asked the Director how was it they managed to get a BL in the first place and started selling. He openly made a backhanded gesture with his hand and said “back then (2003) things were done differently”.
The only thing we are guilty of, as Claire once wrote, is not having the hindsight of knowing there was a corrupt mayor (Gil), plus all the other corrupt factors that were going on behind closed doors.
When one hires a lawyer, he is supposed to be honest and act in his/her client’s interest. Full Stop.
If he doesn’t, don’t blame the client for being ‘naive’, blame the lawyer for being corrupt.
As Tilly says, there is The Law Society in the UK which every English lawyer would be very ‘reluctant’ to be reported to. There would be consequences.
In Spain, the Colegio de Abogados is just an impotent ‘Boys Club’ – which is why these rogue Spanish lawyers know they can get away with their dishonest/corrupt behaviour.
I’m not trying to make an argument here, Rawlins. I’m just trying to be realistic based on facts I’ve experienced/been told by other purchasers over a long period of time.
And I stand by what I said – such a mass scale of corruption amongst lawyers would not, in my opinion, happen in England.
