The Court orders the demoltion of 111 unfinished homes and compensate foreign buyers in Zurgena with 650,000 euros.
A judge from Almeria has given the two administrators of the developer New Medina Villas SL six months to demolish a residential area with 111 unfinished homes in the municipality of Zurgena and to freeze their accounts in the sum of more than 650,000 euros for fifteen foreign citizens who acquired some of those irregularly constructed buildings.
Criminal Court 4 ordered the execution of the ruling of the Provincial Court that revoked the acquittal in the first instance and condemned the two businessmen who illegally started the residential buildings in Los Llanos del Peral when deciding the appeal filed by both the injured parties and the Prosecutor's Office.
The aforementioned sentence, regardless of the prison sentence and fine with the mitigation of undue delay as the events date back 12 years ago, forced the administrators of New Medina Villas to compensate buyers, in good faith, since they disbursed "significant amounts of money without having obtained anything in return".
The order of execution requires the defense and the private prosecution, exerted among others by the Legal Study Europe Forum, so that, within ten days, they provide the supporting documentation of the amounts paid by those injured for the purchase of the homes .
In total, the values judicially recognised, amounts to 650,662 euros and foreign citizens will have to be compensated with individual amounts ranging from 151,030 to 73,830 euros.
Judge Marta Inés Sierra also gives promoters six months to proceed with the demolition of the construction under the warning to proceed with the demolition at their expense and requires them to begin to fulfill the disqualification for trade or profession related to the construction and real estate development to which they were sentenced.
In July, the Second Section partially revoked the decision of the Criminal Court 4 of Almeria and appealed to the appeal filed by those affected and by the Prosecutor's Office before the ruling that acquitted the two businessmen and also the municipal corporation between 2003 and 2007 led by Cándido Trabalón and Manuel Tijeras.
The decision of the Provincial Court condemned Francisco Javier RDC and Juan José RA as perpetrators of a crime against the ordination of the territory but the court applied ex-officio the mitigation of undue delays due to the overall duration of more than 12 years of the criminal procedure.
They imposed, thus, six months in prison, 12 months of fine at a rate of six euros a day and special disqualification for the exercise of any profession related to the promotion and construction of real estate for the time of six months while maintaining the absolute pronouncements with regarding the former mayor, the ex-councillor of Urban Planning and other councillors.
"Important amounts of money"
The judgement of the Second Section did not establish the amount with which they had to compensate the injured parties but did highlight the damage suffered by the acquirers "as a result of the purchase of the same and disbursed significant amounts of money without having obtained anything in return as a result of the administration's reaction once the irregularities were heard. "
He also refused to declare the civil responsibility of the Zurgena City Council to be subsidiary and orders the demolition of the construction by the two convicted.
The fifteen foreign citizens, mostly British, were represented as a private accusation since they bought housing for the promotion and requested to be compensated in the amount paid and the expenses caused by the acquisition by the City Council and the builder.
The works were paralysed by court order in January 2005 and the buildings were not "finished or occupied, being on September 13, 2018 in a state of abandonment."
