Holiday Homes from Hell

Did anybody else catch this horror documentary which featured two stories of what can go wrong when proper checks are not put in place when buying overseas property?(Meridian T.V)

Fifty Brits found they were conned out of an estimated £3,000,000 when they thought they were buying Cyprus villas off plan.  The small building company, led by a very professional seeming British developer said the villas would be built a year later.  After a long delay which concerned some buyers, diggers appeared on the building site only to disappear again before much work was done.

One couple confronted the developer and were thrilled when he agreed to reimburse their money.  However, yes, you’ve guessed it, the developer and money both vanished.  It would appear it was only at this point any of the buyers started to research the developer in question.  They found this charming man had previously been jailed for a £450,000 fraud in Kuwait!

It really shows that thorough research must be done and shows the huge merits of Overseas Property Centres Trusted Developer Program.  

Another story showed even big, and therefore one would assume, trustworthy developers can make holiday home hell.  Shortly after a number of buyers moved into their Spanish villas built by a large scale developer (none of their properties are featured on this site!) large cracks began to appear and walls started moving.

The owners featured on this program say they reported the faults to the developers who are a large national company, but the investigating architect they promised to send failed to arrive.

A structural expert brought in by the program-makers said the faults were due to ground settlement that a well-constructed building would have survived.  He advised the owners to leave their unsafe homes.

The program showed the residents having a meeting to decide how they could get the developers to fix their houses.  The consensus of opinion was that the firm had not delivered the service they had promised and legal action would need to be taken given their customer care was non existent.

A spokesman for G***** M*** the developers said the residents had caused the defects themselves!  They said they had solved most of their clients’ complaints without going through the courts so they wouldn’t be doing anything for these unfortunate buyers until the legal action is settled.  

Well I must admit the developers view that these mainly mature home owners had caused these mammoth cracks themselves made my mind boggle!  What had they been up to in order to make the earth move so much?  It makes the ageing process a much more attractive prospect!