Wednesday, January 26, 2011

NI people lose holiday home cash

Pat RenixPat Renix who lost her deposit after the collapse of the company

Up to 80 people from NI have each lost around £70,000 following the collapse of a company based in Staffordshire.

They thought their money was being used as a down payment on property in Spain but the holiday homes were never built.

They paid deposits for "off the plan" luxury apartments in the Estepona Beach and Country Club through the Staffordshire based company Ocean View Properties.

The company went into liquidation in August 2009 owing millions of pounds.

Pat Rennix from Lambeg was among those who lost money.

"This has totally changed everything that I wanted to do," she said.

"Although I like working, I now have to work. I will not own the small house that I owned outright.

"I will probably have to sell this in 10 years time. I'll end up in a one bedroom apartment.

"I really don't want to think about it."

The stress has had an impact on her health.

"I've been on anti-depressants for a couple of years because this is something that is out of my control now," she said.

"I have absolutely no control over this. This was my redundancy from a firm I worked with for 25 years."

Mervyn McKay from Larne also lost money.

"In total I think it was about £80,000 deposit," he said.

"There was a single deposit at the start, £5,000 and then there was £76,000 that had to be finalised a month or six weeks later.

"At the time it was a euro conversion and the euro at the time was very high. In euro terms, it worked out as 124,000 euro.

"We got a lot of promises but we didn't get anything, nothing at all."

A Spanish lawyer is meeting the chair of the Office of First and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) committee, Tom Elliott, on Wednesday.

He hopes to enlist political support for a legal challenge against a Spanish developer.

It is though investors from Northern Ireland may have paid as much as £6m between them.

Some investors paid more than one deposit.

Hundreds of people from across the UK were caught in the scheme and have now lost their money.

This article is from the BBC News website. � British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-northern-ireland-12282264

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