Off-Plan Property Fraud Case

Jim and Pamela Donnelly’s Story

Jim and Pamela Donnelly are now a happy, married couple, but their story wasn’t always pleasant. Their life changed thanks to Pellicer & Heredia Law Firm after they saw themselves involved in an Off-Plan Property fraud case.

Today, theirs is one of our biggest success stories.

For Jim and Pamela, it all started in 2003, when this nice, British couple started looking for a villa in a sunny, calm place. Though they didn’t care much about the location, one thing was for sure: it had to be in Spain.

They fell in love with the Costa Blanca, specifically, with the Orba Valley, and found a builder who has promoting some small villas in Sacra, Alicante. Jim and Pam put their trust in this builder, who seemed legal and trustworthy –he even had an office for this promotion–, and bought one of the off-plan properties he offered, along with other excited couples.

By 2005, they had paid 90’000 euros: all their life savings.

Then, the nightmare began.

Though they had hired a lawyer and consulted him about every payment and decision, everything started to get suspicious when months and years passed and the villas didn’t start to be built.

Jim and Pam were told excuse after excuse: the builder argued that more licenses were necessary, and also bridges and tunnels to take the water away from the zone… Not long after that, the couple realized the villas were never going to become a reality.

They went to criminal court and the builder was sent to jail, but they did not get their money back.

Back then, Jim and Pam were devastated. “How could we be so foolish!” they thought. The thing is, the whole story had been really plausible: the builder had his documentation, they had their lawyer… but, obviously, not the right lawyer.

“Is this right?” they asked before every payment.

“Yes, pay it!” was their lawyer’s response.

A year after the criminal proceeding, Jim and Pam had abandoned all hope. They had lost all their life savings and, although the builder was sent to jail, their dream of having a villa in Spain had disappeared along with their money.

That’s when we came on board.

When we met Jim and Pam, we knew there was a good possibility of getting their money back. After all, we had had previous, similar cases in which we had been successful.

We already knew that, in off-plan property claims, we just need to prove that the bank knew about the transaction, that the buyers’ money went into the builder’s special client account, and that the builder committed a breach of contract.

Once this is proven, there’s a lot of doctrine which confirms that the buyers should get their money back, especially if the bank has committed negligence.

We also knew that the bank could be held responsible for not protecting the buyers with a bank guarantee and would have to pay not only the money Jim and Pam lost but also interests and legal fees for the case. 

We put ourselves to work and nowadays the story is very different. Jim and Pam are happy again because they got most of their money back thanks to Pellicer & Heredia. They cannot be more grateful, and we are also thankful to them for putting their trust in a Law Firm after their terrible experience.

At Pellicer & Heredia we have been fighting this kind of cases for more than ten years. In all of our experience, we had noticed that not many people knew that they could ask for their money back. That’s why we share testimonies like Pamela and Jim’s so that other people can see justice being made, even when they did not expect any.

In Jim’s words, “It was like winning the lottery, because we had lost all hope”.