SISU FIRE: Marbella hotel gutted in blaze at centre of years-long legal dispute

A HOTEL razed to the ground in a fire that killed a Frenchman in Marbella has been at the centre of a long-running legal battle.

And it is not the first fire to break out in the hotel’s troubled history – a grenade attack started a blaze there in 2017.

The management company behind the Sisu Boutique Hotel has no right to still be in the premises, according to the legal advisor of the freeholder.

Antonio Flores says that the owner tried to take possession of the building on May 13 using a court issued order that the management contract had expired in May 2019.

This was so he could then hand it over to the bank as he had declared bankruptcy and had stopped paying the mortgage.

He is also demanding more than one million euros in allegedly outstanding rent from the management company run by Londoner Neil Acland

Flores told the Olive Press: “The owner has been trying to get possession of the premises for years.

“The court judged that Acland does not have a valid contract. But there was no date set for them to leave as such. This would have to wait until there is an auction for the premises, when the court would get involved again.”

On May 13, the owner – who has all the documentation related to the property, including a notary report – tried to take possession of the hotel in order to hand it over to the bank.

This attempt ended in an argument in the presence of the Policia Local and Policia Nacional and led to complaint being put before the courts of the owner being denied access to his property.

In 2017 a person who has never been identified threw a grenade from outside the building and set fire to several rooms.

No one was hurt in the attack as the hotel was closed at the time.

The fire that destroyed the hotel started sometime before 6am yesterday (August 21).

More than 100 guests had to flee the hotel, with one Frenchman dying. Two women aged 30 and two men aged 35 were hospitalised.

Eye witnesses told the Olive Press that the fire spread so quickly that guests had to leave everything and flee – in many cases without even having time to put their shoes on.

Some were seen clambering down the facade of the building to reach safety.