Disappearing Debtors

[Parilla]

A request for some help fro David please.

At a recent AGM, the community lawyer was present to advise progress on our ever increasing debtors ( now a total of 100,000 euros !!!!! ). Amongst them were 2 cases where the uk owners live elsewhere in Spain, but it is not known where, and because of this court proceedures were at a standstill as the papers could not be served. The police had been asked to trace these 2 (????????), but until then we were in limbo. Another does not live in Spain, but in the UK, and we were told Spanish proceedings could not be undertaken as his correct NIE number was not known, and like the other 2, a Spanish address was needed for the court to proceed.

We asked the lawyer about the LPH articulo stating if no address was notified tto the community, papers could be served at the apartment address, and when nobody was there to receive them, posting on the notice board for 3 days did the job. He replied that was ok for the notice of the debt and notice that we were going to court, but but did not apply for any subsequent court action.

These 3 clowns account for nearly 25,000 euros of our debtors, and I can't believe that just by them disappearing from view, we are left in thin air.

Is this right ?

Parilla

[julian]

I bet a private detctive would have all the info you need in 5 minutes !!

[Jool]

Who would you recommend as a good genuine private detective then?

I do not accept that the Administators cannot find the correct details for these people, what about bank accounts? Central database, esp at Trafico? British Embassy? A lot of the time it seems to me the Administrators cannot be bothered......yet I believe they can embargo the property, but that does not help community liquidity of course. What about using cobradores del frac or similar?

http://www.elcobradordelfrac.com/webdir ... pEdicion=1

[DavidSearl]

FROM DAVID SEARL

FOR PARILLA

Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here.

1. You wish to proceed against Community nonpayers to recover their debt, and you have already started.

2. You have the three basic items in place. These are the justification of the debt, the name of the debtor (never mind NIE) and a property in Spain which serves both as address (as you noted) and a valuable asset to seize.

3. If the debtor cannot be located or notified in person, publication in the Boletin Oficial can constitute sufficient notification. This all takes time, trouble and expense in a regular court proceeding rather than the simpler proceso monitorio, but it can be done.

So I am not sure why your lawyer is hanging back.

Good luck with it, David Searl

[Parilla]

FOR DAVID

Thanks David for your reply, which confirmed the situation as I understood it from your book.

We don't really have a misunderstanding here, not in the language sense as our spanish is reasonable and the lawyer's english is quite good.

The problem is he will not accept what we say or the information we try to show him such as your reply. His attitude is that all this may be ok in "theory", but the courts and judgeas in Marbella do not work like that !!!!!! We changed to this firm about a year ago on our administrator's recommendation, but seem to be out of the frying pan into the fire.

This just feels like banging our heads against a brick wall all the time while the debtors increase, we really don't know what to do next and my patience is becoming stretched very thin. If any brainwaves strike you that may help they would be much appreciated, but thanks for clarifying the matter for me.

Regards, Parilla

[Jool]

Parilla - do you have a copy of the relevant papers? If so perhaps you could get a second opinion? Or get a community decision to use debt chasing companies, they seem to be a growth business these days!