Eight people will be tried next week for a crime of fraud in the sale of an alleged plot of land on the Rambla Medular in Arrecife 16 years ago. The victim, a commercial entity, paid 119,400 euros, only to discover later that the land they believed they had acquired did not actually belong to the sellers.
Among the accused are a woman, A.S.S., and her five children, J.H.S., M.E.H.S., I.H.S., B.H.S., A.H.S., who claimed to be the owners of the plot, of 163 square meters, because they had inherited it from their father. Along with them, two people who mediated in that sale on behalf of the buyer will be in the dock: R.D.D. and a lawyer, whom the injured company commissioned to look for land in the capital to acquire and build on.
The Prosecutor's Office maintains that both, "acting with the intention of illicit enrichment", agreed with the other five defendants to offer the company that land, located between Santander and Doctor Juan Negrín streets, "making them believe that it was owned by the latter, despite being fully aware that this did not correspond to reality".
In its indictment, the Public Prosecutor's Office requests 3 and a half years in prison for each of them for a crime of fraud. In addition, for the lawyer, it also demands a fine of 4,320 euros and three years of disqualification as a lawyer, for a second crime of professional disloyalty.
Regarding civil liability, it requests that all the defendants indemnify the buying entity "jointly and severally" with 119,400 euros, as a refund of the money they paid for the land. Regarding the lawyer, it asks that she indemnify her former client with another 56,000 euros, which was the money she charged for her services in this operation.
What they bought was a property expropriated in 1990
The events occurred in October 2006, when a deed was signed before a notary. Along with the sale, the "acceptance of the inheritance" was also signed, since the selling party claimed that the owner had died five years earlier without leaving a will. Previously, they processed a notarial record of the declaration of heirs, in favor of his five children and his widow.
"The aforementioned A.S.S., J.H.S., M.E.H.S., I.H.S., B.H.S. and A.H.S. accepted the inheritance of the deceased and sold the aforementioned property to the buying commercial entity for a price of 119,400 euros", explains the indictment, which emphasizes that in that act, the company paid the money for the land and gave the lawyer 50,000 euros "as payment for the intermediation and advice received from her and R.D.D.".
However, the Prosecutor's Office maintains that the land they sold him "did not correspond" to the one they had "previously shown" him. Thus, what they "acquired" was a property that had been expropriated in 1990 and occupied in its entirety by the Rambla Medular of Arrecife.
The real owner of the land took him to court
Regarding the plot that the buyer believed he had acquired, it had another owner since 1964. He went to court when the victim of the alleged fraud tried to exercise his rights over that land. "During the entire processing of this procedure, the lawyer made the administrator of the buying entity believe that the property that had been shown to him corresponded to the registration number that appeared in the purchase and sale deed, despite being fully aware that this was not the case", insists the indictment.
Not yet aware of the deception, the victim commissioned the same lawyer to defend him in that procedure, for which he paid her another 6,000 euros, for a favorable ruling in the first instance. Later, the Provincial Court upheld the claim and ordered the one who believed himself to be the owner of that land to "refrain from disturbing or disrupting the plaintiff in the possession of the property in the future, as well as to restore possession of it". In addition, he was also ordered to pay the costs generated by the procedure, "increasing the damage".
At that time, he tried to continue litigating, relying on the same lawyer. She, according to the Prosecutor's Office, "hid from him that she had in her possession several documents and, in particular, two inheritance shares, a segregation plan and a request addressed to the Arrecife City Council -in which the family originally owning the property offered it-, which proved that the property that had been sold to him had actually been expropriated by the Arrecife City Council in 1990, thus consciously harming the interests that had been entrusted to her".
The trial will be held in Arrecife before the First Section of the Provincial Court and is scheduled to take place over two days, between October 4 and 5.