San Roque Court has dismissed the criminal complaint brought by no less than 80 claimants against Landsbanki & others. The disappointing ruling lacks legal depth and factual understanding, mistakenly inserting copy-pasted excerpts of other rulings (which refer to a complaint over an unfinished car paint job) and ignoring Tax Office binding opinion.
ERVA lawyers, who’ve had access to the content of the ruling, have been left baffled as to the level of comprehension of the essence of the dispute by the presiding Judge after years of alleged “investigations”.
For instance, the Judge still today believes (September 2016) that it is legal to use a mortgage to reduce the value of a property for Tax reasons, notwithstanding several writs submitted by this party pointing to a binding tax ruling from the Spanish “Hacienda” that states that is actually tax fraud (not even current Landsbanki lawyer’s believe in this scam any longer).
In 2013, following an extensive press release by firm Lawbird Legal Services, Sur in English published this article.
A year later, 2014, The Olive Press ran a similar article.
On a positive note, the ruling confirms that the ultimate aim of the Landsbanki Equity Release publicity (as confirmed by their lawyers -subsequently sacked) was the reduction of the IHT element
According to the ruling:
the ultimate aim of the marketed product was the reduction of the tax burden that inheritors would eventually have to face, when they received the property after the demise of the subscribers.
And throughout these years, what was the Judge doing? Several options come to mind: Cloud Cuckoo Land, kitesurfing in Tarifa, learning Korean language, studying hard for his copy-pasting exams…which he clearly failed.
On reflection, we should ask ourselves a crucial question: how many of the copious claimants’ lawyers writs -submitted between 2009 and 2016- did the Judge examine when, as has been revealed, he would not even bother proof-read his own 16-page ruling?
Lawyers for claimants have already announced they will be appealing this preposterous ruling.
