We did not foresee the Appeal Court in Alicante overturning a judgement that left little room for interpretation.
As expected, the Court of First Instance ruling forcing the all-purpose entity SGR- Sociedad de Garantía Recíproca de la Comunidad Valenciana (it comes across as a lender/insurer/guarantor, depending on who you ask) to refund fully a property purchaser of the failed Herrada del Tollo development, promoted by the developer Herrada del Tollo S.L., affiliate of the San José Inversiones Group, was ratified with ease.
And so, what are the most practical conclusions that can be derived from the premises set forth by the initial ruling that has been confirmed by the Appeal Court in Alicante?
- That a guarantee can be paid outside the receivership proceedings, whether by a bank, insurer or an all-purpose lender, such as SGR, and thus prior acceptance by the administrators is no prerequisite or prior condition for payment.
- That the collective guarantee cannot be capped, nor needs to be individualized, nor requires the off-plan property buyer signing any document to avail of its protection.
- That timescales are, contrary to popular belief, pretty acceptable (The civil lawsuit was lodged with the Court of First Instance in June 2010 and the Appeal Court ruled in February 2012).
- That SGR’s obstinacy will cost them dearly: judicial interest on the €60k deposit (since 2007, at an average of 4.5% per annum) and legal costs (€8,000 approximately).
- That SGR, who also guaranteed other developments of the Santa Ana Group, such as El Pinet, will presumably no longer be able to oppose payment on the above grounds.
Meanwhile, we have read that San José Inversiones has managed to emerge from the receivership proceedings and will resume its activities on projects that stalled as a result of the above process.
Documents
We took some chances and it worked out. A claim filed against the guarantor of the Herrada del Tollo S.L., developer for Santa Ana del Monte (and who we jumped over since they’d filed for voluntary insolvency), has been resolved favourable for the claimant. From a procedural point of view, it is an interesting case for it was not heard given that, legally speaking, the issues at stake were purely juridical and therefore, no evidence was to be proposed for admittance. In other words, there was no evidence of probative value in dispute and consequently, the pre-trial was enough to fix the object of the case and conclude that there was no possible settlement.