Joshua Parfitt
A BRITISH family who lost their investment in a retirement home when a Costa Blanca construction company folded have 15 years later been paid damages.
Richard and Pauline Pope were awarded €72,000 for money they lost paying Monte Puchol SL to build a house near Lliber back in 2004.
The company’s bankruptcy affected 17 British couples who lost all their investments and were left with houses yet unbuilt.
Regulations require construction companies to take out insurance in the event homes are not delivered within terms established in their contracts.
But now Jose Antonio Martin Rodriguez, from Legal Action Asociados, won close to €300,000 from Bankia and Bankinter in the Provincial Courts of Alicante and Cartagena.
The legal firm estimate a full payout to victims will cost the banks ‘more than €3 million’, yet currently only 6 of 30 claims are favourable, and only two so far have been successful.
Martin Rodriguez said damages paid to the Popes included ‘interest accumulated over the last 15 years’.
Many of the Brits involved sold houses in the UK to pay for their future retirement homes, with at least one family forced to live in a camp site.
