Increasingly, we are seeing buyers of new properties having problems with their purchases. Normally this is because the construction is delayed but it could be for other reasons. When a problem occurs, an individual purchaser often feels alone but knows that other people must be in the same position. Normally they have paid over a reasonable amount of money already and are worried about losing it.
They are also normally aware that the developer/agent has often got more money than they have to spend on legal fees. In fact, I was speaking to somebody the other day about a particular agent and was told that they take the view that if somebody is claiming £30,000 back from them they would rather spend £30,000 on legal fees rather than return the money to the buyer. With an attitude like that individual purchasers can do very little, whereas an action group each putting in money into a fighting fund, can.
Action groups mean a collection of people who get together to pool resources - whether information, tactics or to take joint action. Even an action group who gets together to pool information can be useful. I met up with an action group at the beginning of the year and the true story of what was happening only came about from their collective knowledge. Up until that point nobody really knew what was happening.
Probably the most difficult part of an action group is getting it together in the first place. Developers/agents in these cases will do everything they can to keep buyers from talking to each other. In the past this was a lot more difficult but with the arrival of the internet this has become much easier. There are many internet forums and chat rooms where buyers at certain developments can get together to discuss things - including problems. A quick search on the internet for the name of your development and the word problem will often quickly show various forums where people are discussing issues that they have with the same development.
Having said all of that I always feel that I have to put in a few words of caution about forums. I have known some forums to be set up by certain companies with the sole purpose of causing problems with their competitors and creating bad publicity for them. It is often difficult to identify who is actually behind a forum and what their agenda is.
Similarly be cynical about some of the posts that you see - again I have seen agents and developers pretending to be a member of a public with a view to either improving their image on line or rubbishing the image of their competitors. I was interested to read recently that over 50 per cent of male online gamblers hide behind a female persona and that about 70 per cent of female online gamblers choose a male persona - you really can't tell who is who any more and the same applies to some of the property forums. At least Iain has had the decency to put his picture on his website! (Sorry Iain, I couldn't resist...).
Which actually brings me very nicely onto the subject of Iain. His newsletters not only give lots of information but are quite a useful tool for you all to solve problems. Use him and interact. Your comments may be useful to other readers. Those of you who subscribe to SPA would have seen this to great effect with Mark at the Rights Group who asked for buyers at a certain development in Spain to contact him via Spain Property Alerts. In fact as a result of that comment I am currently gathering information as to how many clients we have buying at the same developments with the aim of contacting Mark to see whether there is anything that we can do jointly.
Of course there are the more traditional methods - I was recently speaking to somebody who placed an ad in a paper asking anybody who was buying from a particular agent to contact him and had a few people contact him (although he did admit that he also had a few other agents contact him and try and sell him their properties).
Often your lawyer (what do you mean you haven't got one?) will be acting for several buyers from the same developer/agent at the same time. If they are and they are aware of the problems then they will often try and tie in those buyers in some sort of action group. Of course client confidentiality means that they need to get the clients' authority to do so before putting the various people in contact with each other.
Once you have formed your action group the first thing that you will need is a spokesman or committee who are going to take charge (but for the benefit of the group, not just themselves). Often this is the person who set up the group in the first place. Without that you are just a bunch of people talking and no action will be taken. It may also be advisable to have a meeting so that you can all get together to meet each other and to decide on action points. This can often be difficult due to geographical differences. We tend to find that Birmingham is a good central point and are constantly amazed how far some people will travel for the meeting. We tend to find that an initial meeting will make sure that the whole process starts off in the right direction from the beginning.
One final piece of warning - infiltrators. I have seen companies try and infiltrate action groups by posing as a buyer. Cross reference your information and keep lists of who is buying where. You won't always spot them but do everything that you can to stop the other party finding out what you are up to until you want them to know. One action group that I know set up a private Google/Yahoo Group and you had to email the organiser of that group to become a member, which mean that people could be vetted before becoming privy to the conversations going on within the group.
I feel like a freedom fighter writing about such topics. Power to the people!
Peter Esders
The International Law Partnership LLP
Solicitors & International Lawyers
The Vaults
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London
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