repton55

In February 2006, we put deposits down on 2 apartments on the Beach 2 development. Afterwards we found out that when we paid the deposits, they had not even got planning permission for the development. Planning permission was duly given, with amendments having to be made to the plans. They cleared the land, and put a road and parking spaces around it, but did not build anything. We asked about moving our deposits to Golf or Beach 1, but they were over 70,000 euros each more expensive than beach 2. We were lied to repeatedly to by our agent, and Duja. The most annoying thing is, we went back to Cabanas in October 2006, and we could have bought a two bedroomed apartment outright for what we had paid in deposits on two apartments. We still holiday in Cabanas, and intend to rent long term in the winter when we retire.
Regards

Joao

Do you know, I wish people had taken on board what I said about 5 years ago when I was living in Portugal and had quite a bit to do with developments in the Tariva area, especially regarding Duja. But I'm REALLY sorry for those who have lost out.
Joao

Dal Dy Dir

Really don't think an "I told you so" is much comfort to Repton55.

tombo

Property purchase Spain v Portugal.

So all the people who praise the safety and security of buying property in Portugal, as against buying from dodgy spanish developers, are wrong?

One may as well just take a chance on the buy one get one free offers in Spain.

Fredbargate

Thank you tombo. If I had posted that I believe I would have received a lot of abuse

Mitzyboy

If I may say, a lot of problems caused with property (and I am not saying this is the case in this instance) is that people choose to go through the whole procedure without doing checks, and in some cases without solicitors at all.

In new builds it is slightly different, especially when we have a developer going bust. You cant tell whats going to happen with a developer, and all you can do is your best research on the company

But certainly with older property (and definitely in Spain), the problem is often lack of research and lack of following the proper legal procedures

tombo

I am trying to get my head around this.

Did Repton55 place a deposit on a specific plot which subsequently gained planning permission?

Or did he just pass a deposit to the developer saying you build me a house?

If its the former then I don't see how they could sell off that particular part of the development as he would have had a legal contract to build on it?

Oh! and by the way. This is not the best forum to seek advice on these Portuguese legal technicalities although it does focus on the eastern Algarve.

ptmatt

As regards checking out Duja....I asked the first solicitor we used to check them out..response was not a problem.This solicitor went to work for local authority and used another solicitor..and asked her to check out as well.Same response.I. Later made more detailed checks myself....we are so fortunate to have come through all this with a great apartment.If you cannot rely on the legal experts do do basic checks then the buyers are always walking a tightrope...especially with the likes of Duja.Joao was right years ago...but by the time I saw the comments I was already in it to the end.I would NOT have bothered years ago if I knew what I know now...but it's turned out well for us.Seems wrong that the people who ran Duja can walk away,go insolvent and that's it..end game for people's hard earned money

repton55

Hi Tombo, we paid two deposits for two x two bedroomed apartments, that were to be built by the new church in Cabanas. They were to be constructed after Golf and Beach 1 apartments had been finished, they were never started. We were lucky we didn't decide to transfer our deposits to Beach 1, they wanted an extra 70,000 euros per apartment, we were over on holiday in October, and we were talking to someone who had just bought 2 x 2 bedroomed apartments on Beach 1 for 190,000 (we don't know if it was euros or pounds). If we had followed Luis's advice, we would have ended up paying 560,000 euros, for two apartments, that would only be worth 95,000 each. It has been an expensive lesson, losing 105,000 euros, but it could have been a lot worse.

bejaboz

It is true that there are people who did not use what would seem common sense when buying a property abroad, but there have also been many examples in Spain where the correct legal process has been followed only to find the local council. developers, banks and solicitiors have been complicit in fleecing people want to buy a property or apartment.

Apart form anything else, I've always thought buying off plan has seemed to me, to be very risky.

Mitzyboy

Agreed. there are many examples of bad practice with so called professionals. We bought off plan with no real issues, but maybe we were lucky. We bough off plan on an established area (20 previous years of building) as opposed to buying on a brand new development

EMR

I trnk that the law has now changed, developers have to have a habitation lisence before they can sell.
Certainly this is what we have seen in the past 24 months.
Not much help to those who have lost not just on this development but a few others we know of but better news for the future.

tombo

This is't the end of the story. Related to this is a new govt dept set up to capture people who have misused rural land. This could be pub-talk but a guy told me he received a bill for €20k for parking a static home on a bit of land he bought which turned out to be rural. Said that his legal brief had made no mention of it being rural. Even if he was told, then unless explained to him he would probably have just ignored it. He said he was caught by satellite imagery.

With this legislation the 50 metre/30m rule of waterways can be significant.
One area of the Sotavento that springs to mind is the waterfront development
at Fuzeta. Building took place within a 50 metre range of high tide I would have thought.
How are the land owners going to prove this was private land 150 years ago?
This will be "muito complicado".

EMR

The " mobile home " story could be one that we will hear more of.
There are a large number of expats who have moved on to plots of land with caravans, yurts etc with a the mistaken belief or preferring to ignore the laws of Portugal.
There is even a well known site in the Algarve for mobile home owners with its own web site etc clearly on rural land.
If they get caught then they have only themselves to blame as the land classification is on the documents you are given when you purchase.