Turn a 9 over and it becomes a 6

Ginés Ruiz, the major partner in Star Sol has asked the City Council to explain the receipt for payment by the subsidiary Andrea Villas of 350,000 Euros at the end of 2003 for a “canon de urbanización” in Sector D-6. As Ruiz says, city planning in that sector had not been approved by the Consell.  Furthermore he wants to know whey they then went on to pay 27,000 Euros for work licenses in that sector.

Ginés Ruiz has documentation to show that the payments were made in instalments to the city council and now seeks clarification about the “validity, effectiveness and authenticity” of these documents. He says that they were not authorised by him even though they bear his signature. At that time Ruiz and Aurelio Murcia were partners in the company Star Sol.

The present mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina explains that the council have receive the documentation from Ruiz dating back to 1998 and they are looking into the matter. As Medina points out, José Joaquín Moya was mayor during that period.

In the meantime, Aurelio Murcia offers an explanation. He says that the “canon” was in fact for Sector D-9 (Urb. Villas Andrea) and not Sector D-6. In other words the documentation is a mistake on the part of the City Council.

That would of course explain why there have been problems for people selling their houses here. When it came to the point of sale, solicitors for the buyers were told that the the work licenses had not been paid by Star Sol. In each case, as far as I am aware, the matter has been resolved but clearly this has put off some buyers getting involved.

What I find incredible is, not that a mistake may have been made but that it has taken so long for Ruiz and Star Sol to discover it. How on earth could they have documentation for so long and not realise that it was wrong if indeed it is wrong?

This is not the only mistake made by Star Sol. For example, according to Cadastra I owned 40 square metres of my neighbours plot. At some point, the plot boundaries were changed but not notified to the Cadastral offices in Alicante.

Is it any wonder that British buyers no longer have faith in buying property here in Spain. The horror stories you read about illegal properties, followed by tales of corruption, shoddy construction, building on unsuitable land and then issues like this are bound to dent people’s confidence.