If you paid cash for the down payments on your off-plan property, your contract is sufficient to justify the payments and claim back the money you paid for your house from the bank.

Bufete Salmerón has won another pioneering judgment in which the financial institution ABANCA was ordered to return the amounts deposited and in cash for the purchase of a property located in Manilva (Málaga), Viñedos del Mar Development. There was a general guarantee for the development and the payments were made before this guarantee was signed between the developer, which is currently in insolvency proceedings, and the financial institution ABANCA; The significance of the judgement, which has not been appealed by the Bank and is final, is that despite the arguments of Abanca, which claimed that the payments had not been accredited, the Court of First Instance no. 20 of Seville held it responsible because it had the possibility of knowing about them “by simply asking the developer-seller for a copy of the purchase contract before becoming the guarantor”:

Continuing from the above, it can be concluded that the defendant must be liable in the present case, by virtue of the guarantee arranged, for the sum of 49,195.8 euros, as these payments are justified by the purchase contract itself (document 3 of the claim, stipulation 3a, paragraphs a, b and e), which states that these payments were made, and the guarantor entity had the possibility of knowing about this payment on account by simply requesting a copy of the purchase contract from the promoter-seller before becoming the guarantor.

In addition to this, the judgement obliges the Bank to pay interest from the date on which the payments were made (2003), and not from the date on which the lawsuit was filed, which considerably increases the amount to be returned.

According to Bufete Salmerón, there are tens of thousands of buyers who could be in the same situation, and this opens the door for them to reclaim their money.

The Supreme Court in 2015 acknowledged the liability of financial institutions in these matters.