The promoter Federico Díaz de Aguilar assured this Tuesday, during the trial held in Court Number 5 of Arrecife, that he was unaware of the existence of legal problems in the Playa Blanca Partial Plan, and that is why he built and sold homes without warning buyers of the situation. This is how he responded to the request of several of these buyers, who have gone to court to demand that the real estate company Agueri return the money they paid as a down payment for the houses, which have been declared illegal.
The plan was extinguished and was appealed for the first time in 2003 by the Government of the Canary Islands, but even so, the promoters continued with its construction, and now they claim that they were not even aware of the judicial proceedings that had been opened. To deny them, the buyers' lawyer has provided during the trial the minutes of the Compensation Board of the Partial Plan in which, among the points on the agenda, the "legal situation" of the plan was included. And among the signatures of the attendees was that of Federico Díaz de Aguilar. "I don't remember. I may have signed without looking," the promoter responded during the trial, when faced with those documents.
Even, in one of the meetings it was his own brother, Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar, who exposed the "risks that threatened the interests" of the promoters. However, and despite the fact that his signature also appears in one of the minutes, Federico Díaz de Aguilar has assured that he does not remember it either.
"Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar was an advisor to the Compensation Board, he is Federico Díaz de Aguilar's brother and he advised him legally. It is inconceivable that they were not aware of these legal problems," the buyers' lawyer argued during the trial. Therefore, he maintains that "the selling party concealed information from the buyers that, had they known it, they would not have given their consent to acquire a home."
However, the promoters' defense has lashed out against the buyers, whom they have accused "of investing in homes in Lanzarote and, with the arrival of the crisis," wanting "their money to be returned."
"They told us it didn't affect us"
In his statement, Federico Díaz de Aguilar stated before the judge that the promoters "thought everything was fine" and that "they had permits from the Yaiza City Council and the approval of the Cabildo", despite the fact that the proceedings against this partial plan began in 2003. Precisely that year, the Government of the Canary Islands appealed a plenary agreement of the Yaiza City Council in which the statutes and bases of action to constitute the Compensation Board were approved.
Later, in 2004, the then mayor of Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes (charged with bribery and prevarication, among other crimes), authorized the urbanization project of the partial plan, which was appealed by environmental movements and by the César Manrique Foundation.
Likewise, the Cabildo sent the City Council a request for annulment to the authorization that the mayor had granted. Despite all this chronology of legal proceedings against the partial plan, Federico Díaz de Aguilar has insisted that he was unaware of it. "They told us that any problem the urbanization had did not affect us," he stated. He has even assured that to this day he "does not know" the ruling that declares the Partial Plan illegal.
According to his testimony, it took him five years to find out about the legal problems. "There was a moment when the problems began and he went to the Cabildo to ask." "The president Manuela Armas allowed the construction of the homes to continue," he assured, despite the fact that the former president herself indicated in 2008 that "when detecting that the development in the area had skyrocketed, it was decided to request precautionary measures to avoid, among other things, that the list of those affected continued to increase."
The statement of a representative
After the statement of Federico Díaz de Aguilar, the representative of Agueri, Manuel Lago, entered the room, who assured that the law firm of Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar began to collaborate with this promoter "after the first lawsuit that was initiated" against the Playa Blanca Partial Plan. It should be remembered that Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar is charged in the "Reyes case" for the alleged payment of bribes to the former mayor of Yaiza, supposedly in exchange for the granting of illegal licenses.
In the same line as the promoter, Manuel Lago also did not remember if he attended the Compensation Boards in which the legal problems of the partial plan were discussed, despite the fact that his signature also appears in the minutes. "Maybe I appear because I went and signed the minutes, but I don't remember," he said. "Apparently the plan was spectacular, it was almost finished. I have never been informed of any lawsuit," he indicated.
According to what he stated, coinciding with the testimony of Díaz de Aguilar, they found out about the legal situation of the plan "in May 2008". "We informed the buyers and told them that the lawsuit was stopped by the Cabildo, because that was the case," Manuel Lago stated. "We told them that we were going to deliver the house to them with all the legal papers. The promoter was negotiating with the Cabildo, to the point that the Cabildo stopped the lawsuits," he stated, despite the fact that the reality is that all the appeals continued their course in the courts, which have ended up declaring the plan and the homes illegal.
"I warned the buyers by phone"
Despite the statement of the representative of Agueri, one of the witnesses assured that he was the one who warned the buyers of what was happening. In those years, he was acting as an intermediary and selling these homes for Agueri in the Basque Country. However, he assures that the promoter did not inform him about these judicial processes, so he could not warn the buyers.
"I was also a buyer of one of the homes. I received the first precautionary procedure in May or June 2008. Then I realized what was happening. I went to the Agueri office to ask, and they told me that nothing was happening, that it would be solved. Then, I warned the buyers by phone to warn them and so they would find out," he related.
This witness has maintained that "the sellers were aware of the legal problems before 2008". "I think they did know," he stressed.
Other witnesses
Although both the promoter and the representative of Agueri have assured
that they did not know about the legal problems of the partial plan until 2008, a witness, former secretary of the Compensation Board, has recognized that this entity knew about these procedures since 2004. "The legal advisor of the Board was Ignacio Díaz de Aguilar. He informed about the problems that the plan had," he declared.
Another witness, a technician from the Cabildo of Lanzarote, has assured that the Compensation Board was aware of these procedures since 2003. "I don't know if all the members of the Board knew about this legal situation, but I suppose they should have known about it since 2003," this witness stated.
This Cabildo worker has also spoken about whether there is a possibility of legalizing this partial plan. "The promoters have it complicated because there are already firm rulings with annulled licenses. The partial plan is extinguished, so I understand that it cannot be legalized," he insisted, while saying that "the demolition" of the homes could be carried out, since that is precisely what the latest ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) proposes, dated July 27, in which it is confirmed that all the licenses of the partial plan are null and the door is opened to demolition.
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