Lawers, Developers, Banks!!
Posted: 15 Jan 2010 15:49
Hi Nigel
I am new to this forum- litterally within the last couple of minutes! Anyway I wondered if you could give me some advice! We bought an apartment off plan in 2006. It was a 1 year build with a guaranteed rental for 2 years. We paid our 20% and the mortgage had a grace period of 1 year until completion. In 2008 & 2009 we were still frantically chasing completion (now 2 years late), we were also requesting that our developer upheld the "Late penalty" clause in the sales contract whereby for each month it was late he owed us 400 euros-almost 8k at this point! After numerous meetings with our lawyer and the developer we still were not told of a completion date- we then discovered that our lawyer was related to the agent who sold us the property and was also good friends with the developer! By the way at this point the bank was chasing us as there was now 15,000 euros of interest on our unpaid mortgage. Anyway I managed to find a PDF version of the Cyprus Bar Code of Conduct on the internet- I subesquently faxed my lawyer accusing her of breaking this code in 5 different areas- and reporting her to the Nicosia Disciplinary Board for not being independant or impartial, not acting in our best interest, lying etc etc and I sacked her! I then started dealing with the developers lawyer direct-didnt trust another lawyer to act on our behalf. I received a fax off them in August 2009 stating that as they have tried numerous times for us to take delivery and hand over the final payment of 26k then they would be cancelling the contract. I responded by asking them to submit evidence that they had informed us/our lawyer on numerous occasions that the proeprty was ready for delivery because we had had many meetings and couldnt get any answers- also the contract is between us and the developer therefore they are responsible for making sure we were contacted (at this point they knew we had sacked our lawyer) our bank also confirmed that the final payment had never been requested! The devloper is still refusing to pay the late penalty but will NEGOTIATE and put in solar panels for free. My repsonse was that by virtue of the fact that he will negotiate deems him liable to compensate so we want the whole lot. I also pointed out that a contract should be upheld by both parties and not just by US. I have probably really bored you now so the top and bottom of it is, we are refusing to take delivery- the 26k still sits in our Escrow account until they pay us what they owe. What are the implications? I dont see us getting any money off them now, the interest on our mortgage has wiped out any equity in the property so I hope the bank reposess as we dont technically own the proeprty so hopefully the developer losses out all round- am I right? I havent heard from them since September- I faxed them again 4 days ago with no response.
I am new to this forum- litterally within the last couple of minutes! Anyway I wondered if you could give me some advice! We bought an apartment off plan in 2006. It was a 1 year build with a guaranteed rental for 2 years. We paid our 20% and the mortgage had a grace period of 1 year until completion. In 2008 & 2009 we were still frantically chasing completion (now 2 years late), we were also requesting that our developer upheld the "Late penalty" clause in the sales contract whereby for each month it was late he owed us 400 euros-almost 8k at this point! After numerous meetings with our lawyer and the developer we still were not told of a completion date- we then discovered that our lawyer was related to the agent who sold us the property and was also good friends with the developer! By the way at this point the bank was chasing us as there was now 15,000 euros of interest on our unpaid mortgage. Anyway I managed to find a PDF version of the Cyprus Bar Code of Conduct on the internet- I subesquently faxed my lawyer accusing her of breaking this code in 5 different areas- and reporting her to the Nicosia Disciplinary Board for not being independant or impartial, not acting in our best interest, lying etc etc and I sacked her! I then started dealing with the developers lawyer direct-didnt trust another lawyer to act on our behalf. I received a fax off them in August 2009 stating that as they have tried numerous times for us to take delivery and hand over the final payment of 26k then they would be cancelling the contract. I responded by asking them to submit evidence that they had informed us/our lawyer on numerous occasions that the proeprty was ready for delivery because we had had many meetings and couldnt get any answers- also the contract is between us and the developer therefore they are responsible for making sure we were contacted (at this point they knew we had sacked our lawyer) our bank also confirmed that the final payment had never been requested! The devloper is still refusing to pay the late penalty but will NEGOTIATE and put in solar panels for free. My repsonse was that by virtue of the fact that he will negotiate deems him liable to compensate so we want the whole lot. I also pointed out that a contract should be upheld by both parties and not just by US. I have probably really bored you now so the top and bottom of it is, we are refusing to take delivery- the 26k still sits in our Escrow account until they pay us what they owe. What are the implications? I dont see us getting any money off them now, the interest on our mortgage has wiped out any equity in the property so I hope the bank reposess as we dont technically own the proeprty so hopefully the developer losses out all round- am I right? I havent heard from them since September- I faxed them again 4 days ago with no response.