Former Marbella Town Planning Advisor’s Assets for Sale for 75 Million Euros
The investment portfolio of former Marbella town planning adviser Juan Antonio Roca included firearms, a carriage once used by Napoleon Bonaparte, expensive wines and estates worth millions of Euros. In total, assets amounting to 75 million have been placed on the Internet for sale by authorities eager to recoup monies in order to pay off Roca’s civil liability bonds and fines. While a rather unusual source for house hunters looking for luxury holiday homes at the Costa del Sol, it is nonetheless a quality resource. Here at least foreign buyers can be sure that ALL relevant legal documentation will be just as it should be!
Amassing Marbella Dream Homes, Carriages and Race Horses
Among the assets amassed by Roca during the years he was involved in planning corruption in Marbella Town Hall was even a Samurai suit. Pictures of these items are now online for all to see, listed on a website set up by the Court that tried the “Malaya case”. Roca’s assets had been seized during the Malaya investigation a decade ago, during which Juan Antonio Roca had been arrested and jailed.
The sale of his assets is a pioneering initiative that has already been welcomed by the general public. More than 536,000 website hits were recorded in the first month alone.
The web pages have been “live” for a few weeks, but were officially inaugurated at a recent press conference by José Godino, who was the judge presiding over the provincial court in charge of the “Malaya case”. Website www.ventadebienesmalaya-roca.com lists Roca-owned assets like a berth in Puerto Banus, a house in Madrid worth 550,000 Euros, plots of land and commercial premises, hotels and large rural estates.
The highlight among Roca’s investment portfolio is the “La Loma” estate, valued at 27.5 million Euros. Properties amounting to 71.2 million Euros in total are listed on the website, together with “sundry” belongings worth almost 4 million Euros, such as a collection of carriages and firearms, works of art and horses.
At the press conference Judge Godino said that so far around 15 million Euros of Roca’s debts have been paid off.
Setting a Precedent for future Corruption Cases
It is widely believed that among those who have taken an early interest in the website are High Court Judges who may wish to follow on from this example when they come to sit in judgment in similar corruption cases in the future. If the sale of Roca assets is successful, they may well set up similar websites to recoup costs of civic liability bonds and fines from convicted criminals like Roca.
Since the wide-spread corruption in Town Halls across Spain was made public just over a decade ago, much has been done to reassure foreign investors that nothing like this will ever happen again.
However, many British expats are still awaiting compensation and judgment on “land-grab” issues, having bought plots of land in good faith on which they built their dream villas that have been threatened with demolition ever since. As a consequence, recovery in the Spanish housing market has been slow.
This hasn’t stopped wealthy buyers from Ireland, Germany, Russia, China, USA, Switzerland, Britain and Scandinavia from making a dash for luxury holiday apartments and villas in Marbella though. The city is now second only to Barcelona in terms of luxury residential property sales.