Bill Blevins, the man that has lent his name to the company Blevins Franks, can be said to be one of the few that, when it comes to Equity Release, did the right things.
By partnering with Seniors Money Lifetime Loans, his company offered a serious, comprehensible and a more or less transparent service to equity rich expats, yet in need of cash, living in Spain. Or, at the very least, we could not find a search-engine enquiry result similar to the barrage of negative comments in respect to the truly fraudulent schemes this site is all about.
But doing things right did have its drawdowns: local land registries kept turning down the registration of many clauses of these mortgage loans because they did not adapt to mortgage laws. Seniors Money Spain Finance Ltd., not content with the antics of overzealous registrars within their jurisdictional fiefdoms, chose to appeal every single of the registrars rejections to register the “reverse loans” (at least 10 that we know of) to the Directorate General of the Land Registries and Notaries (DGRN), who partially accepted the claims (the decisions are mostly copy-pasted).
The Registrars, who had previously mocked the work of lazy Notary Publics by questioning their legal capacity, went to new heights by challenging the decision of the DGRN (their bosses), in Court, because the top brass of these privileged casts had issued their legally binding opinions…a wee bit late! And won!!
Such a mess could have easily been prevented by doing what other banks did so well: just cheat. Rothschild, Nordea, Jyske and a few others went down a straight line and signed straightforward mortgage loans to expats who thought they were being sold a reverse mortgage.
As Steve Dewsnhip put it: it is a mortgage loan that is not really a mortgage loan, so don’t you worry.
Well done Bill. Why does it take a true Brit, concerned about the ex pat retired community to come up with a proper equity release scheme. This is what equity release is all about. We all wish that we had known about this scheme before entering into fraudulent equity release contracts from the rogue banks. I wish also that the DGRN hadf refused to sign off on the other equity release products, if they had done so then we would not be in the mess we are today.
Blevins Frank. Evidently a name to trust on the coast. How nice to find one company with morals. All I can say Bill is that as soon as this mess is sorted out you may have a lot of people knocking on your door. Interesting to note with Bill and Seniors Money Spain Finance Ltd, there is no mention of IHT & Wealth Tax avoidance/evasion, perhaps they knew all along that this was not legal. Although I have not read everything in Bill’s reports I presume the money will be loaned from the UK and and a result will come under the umbrella of the FSA (UK) & English Law. Another thought, can one approach the DGRN and get them to object to the mortgage loan as this perhaps would not have satisfied the Mortgage Laws. Perhaps erva or their lawyers could respond to this question
If Blevins Franks are seen to be the saviours of expats in Spain then heaven help them (the expats). They are NOT independent financial advisers – if you consider investing money with them you’ll probably have a choice of investing with Lombard International or Lombard International. It might be something to do with the amount of commission they get paid by Lombard (I have heard 9%+). My tip would be to avoid any adviser who does not give you a choice of providers and illustrations that you can compare. Ask the adviser to confirm in writing what they are being paid by way of fee/commission and ask them to explain what services thye will provide in return – if they won’t do it then you should run a mile.
If you are resident in Spain it is VITAL to use a Spanish-compliant bond for medium/long term lump sum investments otherwise you’re likely to pay a shedload more tax than you need to. Following the recent amnesty anyone who is tax resident in Spain and has undeclared offshore assets of €50k+ risks losing the lot in tax & fines. Any one tax resident in Spain and likely to remain so should be looking to get rid of any remaining ISAs, UK investment bonds, non-compliant offshore bonds and put the money into compliant structures. You have been warned!