Problems Getting Refund Following Cancellation

[lovesquadsue]

Originally Posted by queenie40something

What a mess!! Why cant the developer pay you the refund direct. Would it be worth a visit over to Egypt to try and sort it all out??

To be honest that is my next move. The agent has asked that we give them til the end of this week to speak with the lawyer - I am now not holding much hope on this front as the lawyer is soooo difficult to get hold of - especially when he's in Egpyt (as he is now) and not in the UK.

The developer told us that they need to refund back to the lawyer as they dont have proof of who I am over the phone or via email - which i can totally understand. They did say that they would refund if we went over to Egypt directly to us on production of passports etc. Only thing is i amnow sceptical that this will happen when we get over to Egypt.....

Only problem then is the developer only has £14448 of the £18,060 the other£3612 has been paid to the agent in commission (which is ridiculous when the deal has never been done) and now they are putting the ball inthe lawyers court saying its negligence on his part and he is responsible for refunding the money to us and then he should pursue them for recovery..... madness.

My view at the moment is get back what we can from wherever we can and then at least the figure of £18060 is decreasing.... its turning into more of a damage limitation exercise than anything at the moment!

[Peter Mitry]

Hi Sue although it sounds like a difficult situation it does appear that the lawyer has done what he was supposed to do by forwarding the money on to the Developer. It is unfortunate that he paid the agents fees; that money will be more difficult to get back. Your best bet there would go to the MD of the agency, explain the situation and make a case for the return of his fee. at least he is in the UK and presumably has a reputation to protect. With regard to the money which has been paid to the Developer, as the lawyer passed it on in the first place it should work the same in reverse. Do you have any reason to suspect that the lawyer would act fraudulently? If you are worried about that I am sure that my lawyer, Hamdy el Sawy (based in UK) could act on your behalf to get it returned but it would cost you something for his time. (Maybe 250 GBP?)

[queenie40something]

Hi meant to have said - where was your purchase?

[lovesquadsue]

Originally Posted by queenie40something

Hi meant to have said - where was your purchase?

On the Suleder development in Hurghada.

[lovesquadsue]

Originally Posted by Peter Mitry

Hi Sue although it sounds like a difficult situation it does appear that the lawyer has done what he was supposed to do by forwarding the money on to the Developer. It is unfortunate that he paid the agents fees; that money will be more difficult to get back. Your best bet there would go to the MD of the agency, explain the situation and make a case for the return of his fee. at least he is in the UK and presumably has a reputation to protect. With regard to the money which has been paid to the Developer, as the lawyer passed it on in the first place it should work the same in reverse. Do you have any reason to suspect that the lawyer would act fraudulently? If you are worried about that I am sure that my lawyer, Hamdy el Sawy (based in UK) could act on your behalf to get it returned but it would cost you something for his time. (Maybe 250 GBP?)

That fee sounds very reasonable and certainly would be worth parting with if it gave us the best possible chance of getting our full monies returned.
The reason I am having bad feelings is because it has been going on for a while and communications have become less and less frequent... We pulled out of the purchase on 8th Nov 07.
Do you think the lawyer should have released the money given the fact we hadnt signed a contract?

[Peter Mitry]

Absolutely not! It is the lawyers responsibility to get the contract signed by all parties and to be trustee for your money until both parties are happy. Certainly without a contract he had no right to pay commission to an agent, nor to forward funds to the Developer. Have I given you Hamdy el Sawy's number? If not PM me and I will give it to you.

[lovesquadsue]

Originally Posted by Peter Mitry

Absolutely not! It is the lawyers responsibility to get the contract signed by all parties and to be trustee for your money until both parties are happy. Certainly without a contract he had no right to pay commission to an agent, nor to forward funds to the Developer. Have I given you Hamdy el Sawy's number? If not PM me and I will give it to you.

Yes thank you - I pm'd you already so thanks for your help with that.
Hopefully people thinking about buying will make sure they use a lawyer who is regulated by the UK Law Society. If our Lawyer had been a member of the UK LS he would have been regulated by them. As he isnt then basically he can practice Egyptian Law in the Uk unregulated if that makes sense.... I will give the agent til friday as I served a 7 day final notice on them which ends Friday and they have assured me they will have the matter resolved by then (which i seriously doubt!) After that I will contact Hamdy el Sawy and hopefully he will be able to help! Thanks again! Sue

[dave99]

Originally Posted by lovesquadsue

Hi again Dave,

No we have not signed anything at all.
The lawyer has told me that he has released the money as follows:
£14448.00 to the developer and £3612.00 to our UK agent as commission.
The developer and the agent have confirmed this. The developer have said they have got not problem refunding their part but want us to pay a canx fee of 15% (they are looking into this now as they did not know we hadnt signed anything as the lawyer told them we had signed). The UK agent is saying its down to the lawyer to refund us the money they have received as commission as its down to his negligence (which is a total joke - why should the get commission on a no deal?).
I have not got anything in writing that confirms how the client account will be used - just verbal information from the agent and the lawyer.
I have got confirmation that the money has been received by the lawyer and have also got a transaction complete confirmation from my banks International Banking Team.
I have not got anything in writing from the developer re the cancellation although they have confirmed over the phone and via email that they will refund the monies etc. The stumbling block here is they want to refund the monies to the lawyers client account - I am then worried if he will refund them to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. The UK agent can only have been authorised by the developer to be given any commission I would have thought, and therefore the developer should have the ability to recover this if no sale contract has been signed - the problem could be in the terms of the agent agreement.

If the UK agent is now aware that you have cancelled I can see no acceptable reason to keep YOUR money (maybe a small amount for admin).

2. In most legal systems canellation fees must be "reasonable" and can only be claimed to covered "costs" for example, commisison / admin / lost profit etc. - if the apartment you cancelled on has been resold for the same or more money then there is very little cost incurred (maybe admin costs).

3. It is possible that the developer is following the accepted route for refunding since you were never the source of the money as far as he is concerned.

Just to be clear:
- you say that you did not sign any agreement with the lawyer
- but did you actually signed a contract with the developer agreein gto the 15% cancellation fee ??

.
.

[lovesquadsue]

Originally Posted by dave99

1. The UK agent can only have been authorised by the developer to be given any commission I would have thought, and therefore the developer should have the ability to recover this if no sale contract has been signed - the problem could be in the terms of the agent agreement.

If the UK agent is now aware that you have cancelled I can see no acceptable reason to keep YOUR money (maybe a small amount for admin).

2. In most legal systems canellation fees must be "reasonable" and can only be claimed to covered "costs" for example, commisison / admin / lost profit etc. - if the apartment you cancelled on has been resold for the same or more money then there is very little cost incurred (maybe admin costs).

3. It is possible that the developer is following the accepted route for refunding since you were never the source of the money as far as he is concerned.

Just to be clear:
- you say that you did not sign any agreement with the lawyer
- but did you actually signed a contract with the developer agreein gto the 15% cancellation fee ??

.
.

To confirm - no we didnt sign an agreement with the lawyer and we havent signed anything from the developer either - contract or otherwise.

We have not signed anything at all - from any party.

[dave99]

Getting more tricky

If no written contract then the only possible authority that may be thought to exist is going to verbal.
This would seem as though it willcome down to who said what to whom and who is going to be believed.

Are there any e-mails that would support that you stated that no money should be released.
What about anything that you may have e-mailed about reserving a specific apartment - this would indicate your likely (but not absolute) wish to proceed to at least the first stage.

Why did you actually pay any money - was this a request by the agent, the lawyer, or the developer.

Was the money a deposit or a reservation FEE, do you have anything that states that this payment is fully refundable if not proceeding.

Sorry for all the questions - maybe you might want to go PM if not happy to make all this too public.
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