Problems Getting Refund Following Cancellation

[lovesquadsue]

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]

Hi meant to have said - where was your purchase?

On the Suleder development in Hurghada.

 

[lovesquadsue]

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]

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]

No contract - no cancellation fee - no commission

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 ??

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[lovesquadsue]

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 ??

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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]

Verbal contracts ???

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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[lovesquadsue]

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.
.

I fear that in Egypt a verbal agreement is enough to exchange contracts on. We did have a conversation with the lawyer saying that everything was generally ok with contract and once the few issues we had were rectified we would sign. I cant see what the point is in having a contract though if you dont have to sign it.... ??
We recd a letter from our agent asking us to pay the first stage deposit monies totalling 40% of the purchase price into the lawyers account as soon as possible - the agents KNEW at this stage that we had no contracts.
We did choose a specific apartment with the agent and it was confirmed which one we were proposing to buy via email. We were told verbally in a meeting with the agent that the monies were paid into the lawyers client account for safe keeping until contracts were signed and youwere happy with everything. We do not have anything that states that the monies would be fully refundable - again we were told this verbally by the agent.
I think the sticking point is that the lawyer has actually exchanged contracts without us being aware he had done so and without us signing the contract. It is whether he can do this legally under Egyptian law or not....
Also, there has been some deception on his part as he is portraying himself as a member of the UK Law Society and has done so to us, the agent and a room full of people at a recent seminar!

 

[queenie40something]

Hi Sue - the contract has to be in both English and Arabic - so I believe - or this will not stand for anything in Court of Law in Egpyt. Could be wrong though!

 

[lovesquadsue]

thanx for the info queenie! i have had lots of help and info from people on the forum so thank you all. I should know more by weekend so will update thread then. hopefully by the end of it all our mistakes will help others not make the same ones!

 

[dave99]

Hi Sue - the contract has to be in both English and Arabic - so I believe - or this will not stand for anything in Court of Law in Egpyt. Could be wrong though!

The point about dual language is that the court will use this to make sure that non-arabic readers / speakers were fully aware of the conditions, which is normally Ok except that the transalations are rarely perfect, and the court will use the arabic version anyway I think, if there is any difference.

However if the contract is with an English speaking owner / developer you and they can choose which version to adopt prior to taking it to court.

In this case it would seem irrelevant if nothing has been signed.

There seems to be sufficient "intent" to purchase that it could go either way in court, and that is the tricky part here.

The potential issue with a less than perfect lawyer may help but I doubt it.

What is needed is a sympathetic, and dare I say it, ethically bound agent and developer, to simply play fair and pay back all the money less maybe a small "admin" charge.

Maybe one of the agents on the forum can tell you if YOUR agent is part of any professional organisation that has a code of conduct or something, and then you could approach this body with a complaint.

Still worth asking the developer to recover the commission since there never was a contract.

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[awahee123]

Lets hope everyhthing works out well and you recover all of your money.
Keep us posted i'm sure we all wish you well.

 

[queenie40something]

Hi Dave - yes they do use the Arabic version in the courts.

Hi Sue - Everything crossed that things are more positive for you after the week - end.

This site is proving invaluable to many people. So keep the advise flowly freely on the forum.

Queenie.

 

[lovesquadsue]

Thanks all.
I will look into whether the agent is a member of any proffesional body today.
The thing that really annoys me is that we have our own business and if we treated a customer like this we would be in court quicker than quick! The would sue us for 'inconvenience', 'out of pocket expenses', 'time', interest on the monies etc etc etc. We just wouldnt get away with it!
Maybe there should be some rules/regs introduced to protect consumers buying abroad - after all, as a business we cant even fit a replacement window into someones own home without notifying the local authority and conforming with all sorts of building regs as well as it being illegal now to take a deposit from a customer without providing an insurance backed guarantee! Seems mad having all those regulations in place for something as simple as a replacement window and nothing in place for buying overseas!

 

[Peter Mitry]

Unfortunately it is all too easy to accept the Developers offer to cover the cost of the conveyancing by using their own lawyers. The problem is that this affords no protection for you if anything goes wrong, as in this case. Unless you know a good Egyptian lawyer you are as well paying the international department of John Howell Associates who are very well known and respected and members of the British Law Society. Costs a bit more but you get to sleep at nights...

 

[dave99]

Any update

Thanks all.
I will look into whether the agent is a member of any proffesional body today.
The thing that really annoys me is that we have our own business and if we treated a customer like this we would be in court quicker than quick! The would sue us for 'inconvenience', 'out of pocket expenses', 'time', interest on the monies etc etc etc. We just wouldnt get away with it!
Maybe there should be some rules/regs introduced to protect consumers buying abroad - after all, as a business we cant even fit a replacement window into someones own home without notifying the local authority and conforming with all sorts of building regs as well as it being illegal now to take a deposit from a customer without providing an insurance backed guarantee! Seems mad having all those regulations in place for something as simple as a replacement window and nothing in place for buying overseas!

Hi

Anything new - I think there are lots of interested people waiting to see how you progress this.

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[NeilHollingsworth]

Thanks all.
I will look into whether the agent is a member of any proffesional body today.
The thing that really annoys me is that we have our own business and if we treated a customer like this we would be in court quicker than quick! The would sue us for 'inconvenience', 'out of pocket expenses', 'time', interest on the monies etc etc etc. We just wouldnt get away with it!
Maybe there should be some rules/regs introduced to protect consumers buying abroad - after all, as a business we cant even fit a replacement window into someones own home without notifying the local authority and conforming with all sorts of building regs as well as it being illegal now to take a deposit from a customer without providing an insurance backed guarantee! Seems mad having all those regulations in place for something as simple as a replacement window and nothing in place for buying overseas!

Hi Lovesquad, see if the agent is a member of AIPP the new proffesional body for this industry. Even if they are not a member someone in the chain of agents/developers might be. Even if your agent says they are not involved in the problem they should still be fighting your corner and using their contacts within the industry to help you. If this is the way the solicitor works then a word of warning from the agent/s to them that they will not be receiving anymore business should make them listen. Hope you get it sorted out.