The two defendants accused of defrauding a couple by selling them an apartment in Playa Blanca, concealing that it had two mortgages, have acknowledged the facts and have accepted sentences of less than two years in prison, after reaching an agreement with the Public Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution.
In the case of one of the defendants, Jesús B.Q., in addition to a crime of fraud, he was charged with another of forgery of a public document. Initially, the Prosecutor's Office requested a sentence of 4 years and 5 months in prison when applying the aggravating circumstance of recidivism, since he has a history of similar acts, having been sentenced to nine months and one day in prison for another crime of forgery of a public document. However, his sentence has finally been reduced to 1 year and six months.
As for the other defendant, María José Q.R. has accepted a sentence of one year in prison compared to the three years that the Public Prosecutor's Office initially requested. In her case, as she has no previous convictions, she will presumably not go to prison. In fact, her lawyer has already stated that he will request the suspension of the custodial sentence. "It will be determined in execution of the sentence", said the president of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, Emilio Moya, who nevertheless pointed out that if she has no previous convictions, "the normal thing" is that said suspension is accepted.
In both cases, the mitigating circumstance of reparation of the damage has been applied. And, as has been revealed in the trial, the defendants have already paid 14,500 euros to the couple they defrauded, out of the 46,000 that they paid for the purchase of the apartment and that were claimed as civil liability. As for the remaining 31,500 euros, nothing has been specified in the oral hearing, but judicial sources have pointed out to La Voz that the defendants must also return them.
The private prosecution had also requested that the real estate agency with which the defendants contacted to carry out the sale be convicted, as well as the real estate agent of the same who intervened. However, the accusation has finally been withdrawn, so the acquittal will be recorded in the judgment.
"They informed us that the mortgages were paid"
Although after acknowledging the facts and accepting the sentences the trial has not continued, previously the victims of the fraud have testified. Both have done so by videoconference from Germany and have stated that the defendants informed them that the mortgages were "economically cancelled, that they were paid" when they made the purchase.
According to the man, they did not realize that the house had charges until they tried to sell the house and the buyer's lawyer requested documents in the Land Registry. Likewise, both he and his wife have confirmed that they paid 46,000 euros for the house and that the defendants have paid them 14,500.
Specifically, the apartment with which they were defrauded is located in the Virginia Park urbanization, of the Montaña Roja partial plan, and belonged to the entity J.S.L., of which the defendant María José Q.R was the sole administrator. In his indictment, the Public Prosecutor's Office maintained that the two defendants agreed "with the intention of obtaining an illicit enrichment", facts that have been recognized by the defendants.
To this end, Jesús B.Q. contacted the person in charge of a real estate agency, to whom María José Q.R. granted a power of attorney for the sale of the property, "making her believe that the mortgages that burdened said property were economically cancelled" and that only the granting of the cancellation deed was missing.
The property was sold in April 2014 and "as a condition precedent it was stipulated that within two months from the granting, the registration cancellation of the real right of mortgage that burdens the property should be carried out, the checks granted by the buyers remaining deposited during said period". One of those checks was to pay 34,980 euros in favor of the entity J.S.L and another of 6,420 euros in favor of the real estate agency. In addition, the buyers paid 4,600 euros in capital gains, taxes and other concepts.
During that period that they had given themselves, and "in order to cause error in the buyers, so that they would not exercise the resolutory condition agreed in the public deed, as well as to deceive the notary and the real estate agent", the defendant Jesús B.Q., "provided himself with several simulated certificates, in which the letterhead of La Caixa appeared, in which the economic cancellation of the loans was stated and, knowing their falsity and the error that his conduct created, passing them off as authentic, he sent them by email to the real estate agent, presenting them to the notary, as stated in the supplementary deed of August 25, 2014".
That month, both the sellers now accused and the agency cashed the checks and the sale was made official, despite the charges that weighed on the property.
In the trial, not only the victims have intervened by videoconference. The Sixth Section of the Provincial Court itself has done so from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the defendant María José Q.R from Madrid. Thus, in the courtroom of the Arrecife Courts only the prosecutor, the lawyer of the private prosecution, the defendant Jesús B.Q and his lawyer, and the real estate agent and her lawyer, against whom the charges have finally been withdrawn, were present.
