Long Stop Date Reached looking for advice

eddddy

TwinB1005 said:

I posted a couple of weeks ago regarding a property I invested in in November 2022.

You use the word "invested" - did the marketing material describe this as an investment?

In simple terms...

• 1) Are you buying a property and you've paid a £34k deposit on exchange of contracts? Or...

• 2) Have you paid £34k into an unregulated investment scheme which is 'intended' to give you a property?

If the marketing material described it as an investment, it's likely to be option 2. And the contracts you signed would have confirmed this.

Some of these unregulated investment schemes can be very, very dodgy.


If, for example, it's an investment scheme (option 2), the plan could have been something like this...

• find 50 people to each invest £34k (total £1.7m) and use that money to buy the land and start building.
• each of the 50 people invest further installments to fund each stage of the build

And being an investment scheme, if it fails, investors often won't get any of their investment money back.


(And I've come across at least one scheme where over 50% of investment money is paid as commission to the people who sold you the investment and the people higher up the chain. So that money is immediately lost from the scheme.)


The bottom line is that you need to read the contracts you signed, to see what the options are for getting your money back.

Did you instruct your own solicitor to check the contracts?

sheramber

the solicitor is saying if I want them to start proceedings it's £650  plus VAT. 

Sio the £650 + VAT is to pay the solicitor to pursue getting your deposit back.

eddddy

sheramber said:

the solicitor is saying if I want them to start proceedings it's £650  plus VAT. 

Sio the £650 + VAT is to pay the solicitor to pursue getting your deposit back.

Has the solicitor actually read the contract and said you have a weak / medium / strong case for getting your money back?

Or is the solicitor saying something like... If you pay me £650, I'll read through the contract and report back to you on whether you have a case for getting your money back?

Or something else?



And... assuming you do have a good case for getting your money back, and you go to court and win, does the company have any funds to pay you.

(Or has all your £34k been spent on paying commission, paying fees (to associates), etc - so there is nothing left?)