Gecko Towers – 13th October 2020
Client loyalty is a two way street.
The Spanish Abogado that you have chosen to represent you in one of the most important transactions of your life, owes you a loyalty based, initially, on a professional services contract. Invariably a strong personal relationship develops based on face to face dealings – including by Skype or Zoom – and the lawyer should primarily care about your transaction and, going forward, the ancillary elements of your enjoyment of a life that involves Spain.
A client’s loyalty stems from, initially, a trust that the Abogado has your best interest at heart and that they will represent those interests with vigor and a deal of passion. In the same style of ‘the Family Doctor’, the relationship that is created with your Abogado should be based on reliability. It may evolve in the medium term to encompass a variety of issues that you may encounter in your Spanish journey, including taxes, wills and even the chance that you may downsize from the bigger to a smaller property as your needs change.
Once you have purchased your property and paid your selected Abogados their fees incurred in that transaction, just imagine a client’s disappointment when their they arrive at their newly acquired property, halfway through a Friday evening to find that their Abogado simply didn’t quite measure up to their expectations.
You recall that during the final stages of your purchase your Abogados had said that they would contact the utility companies to ensure that the electricity, water and WiFi accounts were all transferred into your name and that they would ensure that you would be given the correct billing information to bring any costs up to date.
You have the keys and you enter the ground floor of the building after a short flight from your home in another part of Northern Europe. Heading to your new property on the second floor, you are early looking forward to a relaxing long weekend – its a Bank Holiday in Spain on 12th October – of some sun and perhaps a game of golf. You from the recently refurbished lift and put your key in you new front door, which opens with comforting and solid click. You fish your hand inside for the light switch. Once reached you flip it expecting to see your new property brightly illuminated, but nothing. No lights in the kitchen, no glowing LEDs on the cooker, no fridge light, nada!
Having been welcomed by a uniformed security guard so you ask them to assist. He does his best but all the trip switches are up and you try to switching them on and off – no joy. A call goes out to the maintenance team who send a helpful bi-lingual guy who reports they can find no connection faults.
The exceptionally patient and industrious Community Manager is called and agrees to visit. After further attempts to localize the problem the conclusion is reached that there must be some billing issue. Sure enough the provider is called and credit card details are taken to settle the currently three outstanding electricity accounts. In their dark apartment, the new owner has to wait for another three hours waiting for the electricity to be finally reinstated.
The client, by this point, is hungry, tired and furious. It is clear that the accounts have been received by their lawyers – as there’s was the current address for their delivery – but they have neither been communicated to nor forwarded to the buyer for their attention. As a result, the owner had not been apprised that there were outstanding bills. Perhaps more troublingly the funds that their client had lodged with the lawyers for such eventualities had not been used to settle the accounts, any required, prior to their first visit.
Simply in default of their standing instructions, the lawyer’s had failed to forward to the electricity company sufficient funds – or any at all – that they held on account to settle the outstanding accounts.
The legacy of this failure would need to be addressed with the lawyers after the Bank Holiday but suffice it to say that the clients would be seeking fresh representation after the lawyers had fallen at this most basic hurdle. Once trust is lost it is virtually impossible to regain. It also has another collateral tendency and that is to cause the client to question much of the advice that they have received during the purchase transaction. If the small things can be go so wrong what about the larger issues?
As the old marketing adage says, do a good job and the client will tell one person, do a bad job and the client will tell ten people!
Should you be interested in discussing the legal process involved in buying a property in the Marbella region, we would be delighted to assist you. Our team of bi-lingual, highly experienced and wholly independent team of Abogados are ready to help you.
Please call me, Mark FR Wilkins, during usual business hours on +34 600 343 917 or, if you prefer, please e-mail me at mark@roslegal.es
Please note that our posts are for general interest. They are no substitute for proper legal advice tailored to your specific circumstances as provided by a qualified Abogado who is experienced in the application of the Spanish Law.
© Mark FR Wilkins 2020 All rights reserved.