9- Preparing legal actions against the former owners and the community of neighbors

After my initial meeting with the reigning troika of Community Representatives, I realize that I must get better informed about legislation and the options I have in order to push things my way.

I therefore book a meeting with  my lawyer to discuss the following themes:

1. What kind of actions can I take against the former owners who obviously lied to me and also signed a contract with a clause where they state they know nothing about the bad roof and the, by the community of Madrid, enforced renovation
2. What does the legislation say bout the responsibility the Community of Neighbors have, when an apartment is inhabitable
3. In what way can I prepare and get everything in order for taking any possible legal actions

Actions against the former owners

In order to take any legal actions against the former owners, I must be able to prove that they knew about the bad state of the roof and that they were aware of the "Orden de Ejecución", the enforced renovation.

I therefore request the minutes from all the meetings (juntas) the community of neighbors has had during the last year and a half. Note that this is something that you cannot do until you actually own an apartment in the building and therefore the hidden facts are impossible for you to know about until you have bought the pig in the poke. 

Behold! I was in luck! 
It turns out that the enforced renovation was discussed in a meeting where the owners participated, and not only that. In the same meeting they actually bring up the fact that they have water entering through the ceilings! Voilá; busted!

Now I have to decide what to do with this information
One option that  I have is to simply get the old owners to take the apartment back. However, since I had torn out the kitchen etc, this would probably mean they would have to pay less than I gave for the apartment, even if the work was indeed needed, they would have had to do it if they wanted to keep the apartment, and I also had paid for the work done.

Also note that this is one of the reasons (apart from that is totally illegal) you should not accept doing what I write about in this blog post; paying part of the agreed purchase cost under the table and put a lower figure on the purchase contract. That will, of course, automatically make you lose money if you want to force the previous owners to take the property back.

Since I didn't want to lose money or having a long and costly court process I opt for another path: I will tell the previous owners that I am prepared to force them to take the property back, but that I can accept a reimbursement covering the money the enforced renovation will cost me plus the extra costs I have, due to the fact that I have an apartment I cannot use and am forced to pay rent for another one. In total about 10.000 Euros.

My lawyer talk to their lawyer but we withhold the fact that we have proofs that the state of the building was know to the owners. Don't ask me why, I guess it is a lawyer trick or something.
The owners comes back to me with an offer. They are willing to pay 700 euros. What a shitty offer!

This all happened during autumn 2014. Now it is autumn 2015, and still nothing has been resolved regarding getting compensation from the previous owners. I will update the blog as soon as I get any news.

And it starts to rain...

During one of the meetings with the lawyer, the sky opens up and even Noah would have been surprised over the amount of water that tumbles down over Madrid.
We quickly end the meeting; I need to see how this downpour affects the apartment, and also get in touch with an architect and a notary in order to get any damages officially recorded.
As I haves said before; Spain feeds its notaries in many ways, and you are totally dependent on them to get any kind of legal documents done.

Next chapter will be about indoor water falls, the sight that met me in the apartment, a new meeting with the the Community Troika and the increased conflict concerning air conditioning. It will be fun.


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