The Malaga’s provincial High Court has acquitted Jesús Ruiz and his wife Teresa Maldonado, the owners of the real estate developer company AIFOS, previously accused by the prosecution as perpetrators of crimes of fraud and criminal offence against consumer’s rights, for selling 16 to-be-developed apartments at Rincón de la Victoria, Fuengirola and Torrox that never came to be delivered. The public prosecutor had requested a punishment of four years in prison for both.
The Judgment determines that the defendants did not act with the intention of deceiving, in spite of apartments were not actually built in 20 months as per the commitment in the purchase contract. Here, it has been explained, they made different formalities aimed at promoting the land where the promotions had to be arisen but for different reasons those did not lead to the planned end. In addition, the verdict highlights that the company returned the amounts that had been delivered on account, and in cases when this did not happen it was exclusively due to expressed renunciation from the client.
In any case, the statement indicates that the contract is breached since the dwellings were not made available to customers in the agreed term. But this circumstance is not prosecutable according to criminal law, but to the civilian one and, more specifically, on the contest of the Administration procedure based on insolvency proceeding now taking place for the real estate promoter AIFOS.
The defendants’ attorney highlighted the value of this judgment as legal precedent for similar proceedings which are pending in different courts by similar facts. He has also emphasised that a “public lynching” against the owners of AIFOS has become evident in spite of ” Jesús Ruiz, his wife, Teresa Maldonado or their real estate promoter company have never been convicted in criminal offence.”
AIFOS is in the process of judicial administration since July of last year. Administrators have recognized 6,000 creditors and a debt approaching 900 million Euros, an amount not containing a large quantity forming part of a debt accumulated with the buyers of apartments since these credits are considered not yet due until the purchase contracts are completed or a judicial judgment is dictated.
The High Court of Malaga is today proceeding to judge the real estate promoter owner of AIFOS, Jesús Ruiz Casado, and his wife, both accused by the Malaga district prosecution for allegedly swindling over 626.000 EUR to 30 people with the sale of 16 apartments in different parts of the province that where to be built. According to the Prosecutor’s provisional conclusions, accessed by Europe Press, the defendants were the directors of the company AIFOS ARQUITECTURA Y PROMOCIONES INMOBILIARIAS. Such company started on year 2001 the promotion of several houses which were to be built at various locations.
The public prosecution contends that there was “an advertisement or an offer containing false statements about some uncertain features on the houses to be built” and points out that from August 2001 the company began to sign contracts with various people who wanted to acquire such supposedly “under construction” houses. According to these contracts, the public prosecutor indicates, buyers paid on the agreed dates the amounts stipulated “believing the construction of dwellings had began and that these where to be delivered within 20 months, while the defendant did not carry out the projected work”.
The Prosecutor’s Office notes that the works had not even been licensed by Town Hall authorities while the purchasers were making different disbursements that defendants took in profit, when to neither date there have been a construction nor any amount has been returned to any of the mistreated parties.
The Prosecutor alleges this is a crime against consumers’ rights jointly with another one, related to it, of continued fraud and requests a punishment of seven years in prison for each, plus a disqualification from leadership or management of companies for the same time and fines of 8,100 EUR for the first offence and 18,000 EUR for the second one. In addition, the Prosecutor urges compensation of the amount handed over to each affected person.
(Google revised translation. Source: malagahoy.es)
A conflict between the Spanish national tax legislation and the EU law could be very expensive to the Spanish public finances as can be deducted from several judgements by the National High Court in Madrid dated on 03-31-2010 declaring the discrimination caused by taxes withheld by the Spanish Treasury to several pension funds residing in Holland at the time of the receipt of dividends paid by a company resident in Spain. The Court of Justice of the European Union has stated that in case of conflict between EU law and national legislation, the primacy or prevalence of the EU must be acknowledged, even though integrating the system of each Member State with the EU rules has never been easy. In the commented case the Dutch entities proclaimed the EU principles of non-discrimination and free movement of capital of article 56 of the EU Treaty, which they understood was violated by the Spanish tax legislation into force until 1 January 2010 (a set of rules that was changed precisely as a result of infringement proceedings initiated against Spain). The Spanish National High Court resolves the disputes considering the implementation of article 24 of the Spanish law of the income tax for non-residents (IRNR) and article 12 of the EU Treaty to avoid double taxation between Spain and the Netherlands is contrary to basic freedoms recognized in EU law and confirming an existing discrimination between the pension funds residing in Spain and the non-resident pension funds from other EU member.
The approximate number of mixed marriages in the EU amounts to 16 million. Yesterday, EU Parliament decided to give the go-ahead to the agreement reached between countries of the European Union to regulate divorces in international marriages and that will allow couples to choose which national law governs in its procedure. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain are the 14 countries that have undertaken to facilitate divorces to mixed couples. If the members of the marriage do not reach agreement, then the EU will establish a set of principles, giving preference to the place of residence of the spouses at the beginning of the divorce procedure. The law that becomes applicable shall govern the judgment of divorce, without affecting the assets´ area or the custody of the children.
Source: Cinco Días.com
On 29 April 2010 the new Act about prevention against laundering of capital and the financing of terrorism (the “Act”) which repeals and replaces the regulation currently in force in the field of such Prevention. The law has a dual objective:
- To strengthen the functioning of the Spanish financial system and other economic operators in these areas.
- To Incorporate the Spanish legislation in its entirety the contents of E.U. Directive 2005/60/EC on the prevention of the use of the financial system for money laundering and the financing of terrorism and subsequent E.U. legislation developed by this directive.
Among the major novelties the new law brings in respect of the current rules in force is the unification of the regulation concerning preventive aspects both about money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In addition, unlike the current regulations, any criminal offence –and not just some- is now to be considered as underlying offence to money-laundering.
On the other hand, the number of citizens and entities legally forced to adopt preventive measures is enlarged. Among these it is to be highlighted the inclusion of persons who trade professionally and receive funds in cash or means of payment made up to the bearer, amounting to more than 15,000 euros.
As required by the E.U. legislation, the Act enunciates measures to be taken by the obligors in relation to non-resident persons having political responsibility (Political Exposed Persons (PEP). It also reinforces the special examination regarding Spanish public officers. In addition a more detailed description is given in respect of both the contents of the obligations regarding client identification and the internal control measures to be taken by the obligors.
About the term of preservation of documents relating to the identification and operations, the new legislation extends it to 10 years and establishes the obligation to keep identification documents in electronic, magnetic or optical media to ensure its integrity. It also refers to a future regulatory development to be approved regarding obligors which are exempted from this obligation.
The new legislation also considers the creation of the Money-Laundering Prevention Commission and Monetary Violations as a body responsible for coordinating policy both in relation to money laundering and the financing of terrorism prevention and creates the File of Financial Titles (Fichero de Titularidades Financieras) imposing the banks and financial entities the obligation to declare the opening and cancellation of current accounts, savings accounts, accounts of values and term deposits and the holders of the same, for inclusion in this file.
Finally, in relation to the penalties regime, the Act notably conveys the regulation about the minor infringements and the equalisation of the period of prescription for serious offences to the one provided for very serious offences (5 years).
(revised google translation from VLEX)
The head of the organization that assigns the worldwide, Internet addresses such as ‘. com ‘and’. net ‘, was against the proposals about putting the group, now overseen by the United States, under United Nations control or any other international body.
The Internet Corporation for assigned names and numbers (ICANN), located in the Centre of the world debate about who should manage Internet, is the closest thing to a central authority that has the vast system of computer networks interconnected.
Countries such as Iran and Brazil claim that ICANN, founded in 1998 and covered by the U.S. Department of Commerce and still partially depending on the American Government, should assign skills to a global body such as United Nations.
“If you think about that proportion, or pace, in technology, it is simply much faster than the majority of traditional forms of political development could adapt to, said Rod Beckstrom, CEO of ICANN.
Being subject to multilateral State control would deprive agility to ICANN, said the officer, and would make the rapid development of technologies such as the domain names in Arabic characters that are providing a growing demand on the Internet, more unlikely.
“Is hard to imagine any replacement (of the current system), and I think I can say this objectively in a way because I have also worked for the Government,” he said, adding that such a decision would depend on the ICANN Directors.
Even so, the American Government agreed last September to several changes in the Corporation, which already does not respond only to the United States in an effort to give more voice to the international organizations.
The agreement created an international team to oversee the work of ICANN and plans to issue its initial recommendations at year end. Basic guides have also been developed to give greater transparency to the group.
In 2003 several countries suggested that ICANN should be subject to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations, but that idea stumbled upon the opinion that the private sector is more able to manage the network address system.
The contract that gives authority to ICANN over much of the Internet basic tasks, such as assigning IP addresses (abbreviation for Internet Protocol), should be reviewed next year.
(from Vlex.com)
Marbella has its first PGOU (General Plan) for 24 years and becomes the first city in Andalucia with over 100,000 inhabitants to definitively approve such a document.
The new PGOU meets the requirements laid down by the LOUA (Ley de Ordenación Urbanística de Andalucía – Urban Planning Law) and meets the criteria relating to population growth and land use as laid down by the POTA (Plan de Ordenación del Territorio de Andalucía – Spatial Plan).
The plan is designed to help satisfy the demand for social housing, improve infrastructure and facilities related to the tourism sector, establish a network of open spaces and enhance the urban public transport system.
Under the new plan, the population growth is estimated at 40,193 and there is scope for the construction of 26,477 residential homes, of which 9,459 will be VPO (subsidised). The amount of developable land will increase by 16.7%.
A bank specialising in foreign mortgages is getting behind a plan to clear up Spain’s glut of unsold homes.
Solbank, part of the country’s fourth biggest bank Banco Sabadell, has agreed to provide mortgages for all properties for sale through the Spanish Homes Network – an initiative from a Spanish business school that acts as a master agent for tourist developers.
The company’s managing director, José Manuel Luque, said: “The main problem to be dealt with is not just the lack of trust created by recent real estate issues affecting Spain, but also the difficulty of finding finance for home acquisition, a problem that the signing of this agreement will help to alleviate.”
Recent data from Spain’s Ministry of Housing showed the glut of newly built homes on the market rose 12% to 688,044 in 2009. Added to the 300,000 units thought to be under construction, this takes the total to around 1 million unsold properties.
Cristina Pérez Zarza of Solbank said SHN was important to Spain’s real estate market because so many property firms had closed in the last few years. “New distributors with a clear and strong strategy are needed to boost the Spanish property market both nationally and internationally – SHN is a clear example of this. ”
Legal reassurance
She added: “Banco Sabadell through this partnership looks for a stream line of business for new customers which might need finance to buy their property in Spain. Sharing a similar set of values makes our partnership a natural and solid collaboration.”
SHN arranges a legal certificate for all its properties, provided by one of the ‘big four’ legal auditing firms, to help reassure foreign buyers who might be nervous about purchasing in Spain.
Solbank will use these certificates to assess what level of finance to offer customers. Buyers will also receive preferential interest rates on mortgages of 70% LTV ratio.
SHN has partnership agreements with around 30 developers and banks and about 100 agents to sell between 4,000 and 5,000 properties.
Source: OPP News
The Andalucian government has approved a new Law for Holiday Rentals business (the so-called Tourists apartments business), a sector that did not have a proper and specific regulation in the region until now.
The main features are:
The Spanish 2010 Budget Law includes a rise of VAT rates, that applies from June 2010, from 16 to 18 per cent for the general VAT rate, and 7 to 8 per cent for the reduced VAT rate from the next July 1st. The super-reduced of 4% is maintained.
Apart from this, the “VAT Package” parliamentary procedure applies from 1st of January 2010,
Features:
- Services between business enterprises (B2B) will in general be taxable at the country where the recipient has its establishment or headquarter.
- When the customer is an individual (B2C), the services will be taxed at the country where the provider has its establishment or headquarters. There are numerous exceptions when services relate to real estate, transport, restaurant, rental property, electronically supplied services or telecommunications, building work services…
- It strengthens the rule of taxation at the place where the service is really used or enjoyed.
- It considerably expands the cases where the taxable person is legally inverted for transactions performed by non-established persons – a case where the invertion acquires the rank of general rule-, up to the point that permanent establishments of foreign companies lose all significance for operations performed directly from abroad and without their intervention.
- It increases the formal obligations: the number of intra-Community operator, inclusion of intra-community services in the 349 tax form model request.
- New formal procedure to request return of VAT charged at other E.U countries, to be issued through an electronic request in the host State and subject to new terms.