Rothschild should have known a thing or two about mortgaging properties, one would have thought. And presumably one would have thought that, had Mr. Steven Dewsnip been in doubt as to the legality of his spurious Equity Release Scheme, sold as SPAIRS by a close collaborator (Henry Woods, illegal Costa financial operator), sound legal advice could have been easily accessed by the endless pot enjoyed by the Rothschild family.
And so they did, choosing the sixth Spanish firm by revenue, Gomez-Acebo & Pombo.
Interestingly though, the lawyer acting for the above firm (PDF), Mr. Luis Sánchez Pérez, failed to spot one very serious breach of Spanish Banking Laws incurred in by Rothschild: the document used to assess the value of the property (PDF) was not legal, since it was drawn up by a company not authorized by the Bank of Spain, under no circumstance, to produce valuations for mortgage purposes, in Spain.
His shortsightedness has only recently been exposed, after the ERVA closely inspected all documents delivered by victims of this sham, but far from trying to cover up he chose to indulge in publishing self-aggrandizement articles (PDF) that, coincidentally, talks about the…Spanish Equity Release.
This is what he says:
“world globalization allowed the reverse mortgage to be introduced in Spain, particularly with the first contigent of British expat that settled in the Spanish coasts…”
“the majority of the population that chose warmer climates have come to Spain to spend the best years of their lives, albeit with limited financial resources that are obvious in people who live off pensions and that, additionally, have seen the value of these dwindling as a result of the unfavourable exchange rates…”
“In situations where there is a lack of liquidity, a good option is the reverse mortgage…”.
Just another example of greed and every one clamouring to get on the gravy train for fees and commisions at the expense of the British Pensioners. As ERVA delve more and more into these fraudulent equity release scemes,yet more criminal activities come to light. Is it any wonder that Rothschild Bank have been trying to distance themselves from the equity release schemes as more fraudulent activities are discovered. Perhaps Rothschild are not yet aware of the evidence unmasked by the victims lawyers who can quite easily tie Rothschild and the unlicenced IFA’s they used. I understand that the lawyers acting for Rothschild victims are gathering the evidence and will soon be in a position to submit this to the courts on behalf of their clients. Whilst commenting ERVA have just been informed by the Landsbanki group in France that the administrators acting for Landsbanki (in fact they should be acting for the creditors i.e Landsbanki victims) have lost their criminal appeal before a senior criminal judge in Paris. Landsbanki have been instructed to put 50 million euro in the bank and have been fined a further 1,875 million euro for failing to do so eartlier when instructed to by the courts. The same judge has apprently “ringed fenced” all the properties and the administrators can no longer foreclose on these properties. Further information will be given when ERVA receive the official court document. Their is no doubt, after many years of investigation that all these schemes are falling by the wayside. Many criminal and civil claims have/ and are being brought before the courts both in Spain and France against many banks, with some success. So keep the faith we are slowly but surely winning.
Gomez-Acebo & Pombo in my view knew exactly what was going on and were well paid by Rothschild for turning a blind eye.
The fact remains that any lawyer party to the Rothschild scam should be ashamed of themselves and if Rothschild were unaware of the consequences to pensioners of their rotten pseudo ER plan, as they claim, then really it has to be said they should not be in the business.
What is so appalling is that it is obvious Rothschild knew exactly what Dewsnip and the dodgy IFA’s were doing and what they would gain by so doing it.
What perhaps they did not reckon on is there are some decent lawyers in Spain who are not tarred with the Gomez-Acebo & Pombo brush.More power to them and thank God for them.
Rothschild can try all they like to distance themselves from the Credit Select Plan that has caught so many but I, and everyone else in the same situation have our documents and Roths name is all over them.
We were conned by a rep from Henry Woods but the mortgage they arranged ended up in the hands of an organisation called SLM Funding in Fareham and those funds were placed wtih The Premier Balanced Fund Plc.Has anyone any knowledge of these companys? and if they are legit.
We are with SLM and they are as legit as any other company mentioned on this site. We were sold thru Churchills who have name changed or been bought out so many times we have lost count.
Because we have been told not to have any contact with SLM we are currently been sent reminder letters for which we are charged €50 each,one thing they haven’t told us for about 3 years is how much is left in the fund but they send us regular paperwork filled with graphs and equations saying how their investments are doing which mean nothing to us.
Just to finish off,this is an excellent site for finding information. Before finding this site it was very hard to find out how different cases were going as the press after an initial interest things seem to have faded so thanks to the people running this site.
Does anybody know of a joint action against any of the crooks that conned us with the Equity Release scam?
Back in July 2010 we contacted an organisation called New Costa del Sol Action Group run by a gentleman name Steve Bicknell, after paying a joining fee he put us in touch with a law firm called IURA and they gave the impression that they were preparing a joint action, but following numerous emails and phone calls nothing happened. Out of the blue in March 2011 we recieived an email from a law firm Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo,Marbella giving the impression of their success against Landsbanki. On that information we contacted them and instructed them to retrieve all relavant documents from IURA.In July 2012 we were informed that they are not arranging a joint action , but preparing individual claims against SLM and the financial advisors, but since then nothing, with the exception of them requesting Power of Attorney but no further information.
Has anybody had any success with gleaning information from law firms here in Spain or is the aformentioned normal?
We are with Salvador at Cremades. We have organised Power of Attorney and paid 6000 Euros to prepare our case. We have since heard nothing although I have heard that this is normal. We heard good things about Salvador from others taking action so we hope that he can help us. I just wish that there was a little more information informing us of how things are progressing or what the current status is.
When we were contacted by Salvador back in March 2011 we were quoted that their fees would be 2000€, but to date we had no request for payment has been made even though money has been offered. We do not understand.
Has anyone considered contacting th UK Ombudsman, because SLM and The Premier Balanced Fund Plc are both UK based?
2000 Euros!!! He quoted me far more than that. The 6000 Euros was just the tip of the iceberg. Did you have to pay 700 Euros to get your documents translated? We have never considered any UK action as we the activity in Spain. May be worth looking in to.
We have paid Salvador €2000+€700 for translations and a further €7000 to be paid which hasn’t been asked for yet. I would not be happy to pay any more yet until our claim has been sent to the court in view of what IURA did to us,saying that our case had been registered with the court which turned out to be a lie.
we paid Salvador 10.000 Euro and 900 Euro for translations!!
We have now grabbed!! all our papers and gone to Antonio. He refuses to give us pour money back!
Beware of Salvador!
Message to Lancelot. The problem you will have with England is that there is a Statute of Limitations of 6 years from date of contract, under English law. First you must look at this date and then at the contract to see if it states in the contract that English law & jurisdiction applies. If the answer to both questions is “yes” then you will be able to take action in the English courts. The other alternative is that if the investments are part of an insurance wrapper (Life assurance policy) and you are domiciled in the UK then you can take action against the Insurance Company. Having said it is expensive to sue in England and usually the insurance company can make it very difficult for you to proceed, unless you can get a firm of Solicitors to act under a Conditional Fee Agreement “No win, no fee” The other problem you might find is that the FSA or Ombudsman may not be able to investigate the case as the contracts were signed in Spain. Quite honestly you need a good active Spanish lawyer. On reading this site ther appears to be no better choice than Antonio Flores. I am not saying that he is the only one, neither that the lawyers you are currently have are inefficient. Snr. Flores however does seem to get things done and of course they are the lawyers erva have chosen to take out the various actions you see on this web site. I am sure ERVA can advice if you want to contact them direct or Lawbird Legal Services, Marbella.
From what I understand there is no such thing as a class action in Spain, every case has to be judged individually on its merits. I understand that the Spanish Consumer Association can bring a class action in certain circumstances, but don’t know if the same applies to the Equity Release Victims Association. Personally and in my opinion, if you have been quote 2,000 euro some two years ago and not had any request for payment, I think you can safely say that this lawyer is not acting for you. Perhaps it is time to chase this up or forget it and find yourself another lawyer. You must lodge your case somewhere before time runs out. It would be foolish to sit on the fence and hope that some fairy godmother will look after you. I would agree with the last comment and find yourself an active Spanish Lawyer. Further more it may cost you less than you may have to pay other lawyers for the ongoing case. Just make sure that when you sign the letter of engagement, which any good reputable lawyer will ask you to do, you will know precisely what your costs are.
Antonio Flores seems to be not only a lawyer of action, but a man who cares and knows how psychologically destructive this whole cruel process is. He keeps us informed and keeps in touch with every case going on in the other European countries concerned, tying in with other lawyers to do his best to provide maximum protection. This is an intelligent, considerate and generous man in our opinion and this site is of great comfort and help.
We informed Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo of the Hacienda’s letter stating that Equity Release for Fiscal Planning is Tax Fraud and what effect this would have in respect the scam by Henry Woods and their cohorts, but as usual no responce.
We will be contacting Antonio Flores direct and trust he will be more proactive.
Contact me on email address neil.hartigan@btconnect.com and I will offer my recent experience with Salvador
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