MRI Overseas Property Wound Up

Hi Folks!

Apologies for our lack of posting of late, however albeit a little slow, we bring the news that our old chums MRI Overseas Property Limited in the UK would have appeared to call it a day!

Yup, closed the doors. (Oh no, hold on a minute, the offices they were using are now mysteriously being used by DCC International Property, another property company that happens to have some former MRI directors involved)

Announced it would seem by the infamous Dominic Pickering on the 12/10/2009, a copy of the announcement can be seen on this link here from the London Gazette quoting Pickering as the Chairman of the voluntary wind up of MRI Overseas Property Limited.

Other related company statuses are rumoured to be as followed,

MRI TV Limited – in liquidation
MRI Media Limited – in liquidation - wind up date 19/03/2009
MRI TV Limited – in liquidation - wind up date 19/03/2009
Overseas Property Channel Limited -Dissolved
Overseas Property Media Limited 05892062 - Dissolved
Overseas Property Radio Limited 05892065 – Dissolved 19/05/2009
Overseas Property TV Limited 05891996 – Dissolved 19/05/09
Overseas Property TV Magazine Limited 05892016 - Dissolved

To many this news will likely come as no real surprise however, where does this leave all those clients? As in those that got pulled in by the Great Bait and Switch? Those that bought furniture in Bulgaria amongst other places? Who actually did the switching? MRI Construction, or MRI Overseas? Who sold the furniture? There was a time when there still was an MRI website when it stated they didn't actually sell furniture any more and kindly suggested that you contact an "independant company" Solutions Overseas

It would seem it is a little early to tell yet. To even find the notice declaring the winding up statement took a little while, no-one else appears to be publishing the fact clearly on the web. Our tip off came from one of the many help forums for clients of MRI, all of which have their content hidden from the search engines with secure forums these days, most likely for fear of threats of legal action.

No doubt more information will arise very soon, as we have it and can verify it, rest assured, we will bring it to you. If you would like any Investment Property Rumours as they are published, just sign up free using the e-mail subscription tool on the right hand side of the page. (Don't forget to confirm your subscrition!)

If you feel you have affected by any the business antics performed by MRI Overseas Property, feel free to comment in the comments section, although please keep it clean, and don't leave any personal details, we cannot publish posts that contain either.

MRI - Strange New Marketing Tactics

Well folks, after a long break we are back!

The summer tends to be a fairly quite period in the investment property game with many companies either taking time off, or spending some time finding new products or, dreaming up some elaborate new marketing ideas.

Whilst browsing around the search engines, we came across a very strange marketing tactic indeed, especially as far as the web is concerned. As a rule, if you have a web site, all of your content and articles really should be relevant to what you do. For instance, if you have a site that sells cars, linking to or having articles and blogs about funeral services is a waste of time, and will likely have a negative effect on your site.

It would seem though (and you can see for yourself) that MRI Overseas Property seem to be doing just that.

After only about 20 minutes of browsing, we found sites from MRI Overseas that would teach us about minimizing stress, stop the extinction of life, teach us about self improvement, recycling and even educate us about public speaking!

Now one has to wonder what exactly the relevance of those subjects has to do with overseas property? The reality is, nothing at all.

So, why do it? Has MRI begun to diversify into "stress free eco friendly self improved shouting on stage?" We doubt that.

A educated guess here is to battle the constant heat surrounding them in the search engines. Almost any term or phrase surrounding MRI pulls up complaints and heat of some description in the search engines which of course is not good for them. By publishing so much irrelevant drivel is purely a ploy to clog up the search engines with their brand name using blogs.

In fairness, had they done it with slightly different blog platforms, they might have succeded, but the way it is at present, it really is doing them no favours.

Having said that, we could of course be completely wrong! Perhaps we are all soon to be invited to fancy exhibitions about how we can reduce the stres induced by buying an overseas investment property that is now apparently worthless and won't be completed, so we really should forget about it and buy another one on the other side of the continent! Wouldn't that be nice!

You can see the the blogs in question by copying and pasting the links below. (Our legal begal suggested we shouldn't link directly for copyright reasons)

http://mrioverseas.org/
http://mri-overseasproperty.net/
http://mri-overseasproperty.com/
http://mri-overseasproperty.info/
http://mrioverseas.us/
http://mrioverseasproperty.us/

If follow this link though, you can see who all the sites are registered to for yourself http://www.who.is/whois/mrioverseasproperty.us/

Surely the time, effort and money would be slightly better spent on dealing with the client issues and complaints themselves rather than publishing entirely unrelated waffle? Just our 2 cents.

COMING SOON

We will be delving into the last years worth of data to see which articles have been the most read, and how people have found us. A first glance there are some fairly obvious ones, but there are one or two pleasent surprises!

Riding The MRI Construction Farcical - Bait and Switch Part 3

Hi Folks,

Hopefully (although unlikely) this will be the final episode in the Bait and Switch series. We say unlikely on the account that there appears to be no limit as to what gets said or done by the "Leading Overseas Property Company"

We have our Legal Beagle at the ready as you can see to carefully look at what we write and make sure we are being good.

Last week CaboVerde24 had a letter issued to its hosts by MRI's lawyers, demanding that they take down/remove content about them, not unusal one might think, being as almost everyone on the planet has been warned or threatened at some point for even mentioning their name.

It would appear the forum owner has had no choice but to move the content to a secure section of his site, and does express concern at free speech and the like.

One might presume that "that's the end of that" but no, just 3 days later, a new thread has come about regarding an "Urgent MRI Meeting" to save you racking your brains as to what the devil that could be all about, it is an invitiation to an "Absolutely must attend Director level meeting"

Hmm Director level eh? Could that be that all the other staff now work for Solutions Overseas, or DCC International Property, those companies that aren't related, in any way, shape or form, other than by address, offices, staff, directors and managers. Not to mention the pay per click campaign? (For those that aren't aware, when running a PPC campaign, you are not allowed to pay for trademark keywords that you do not own. For example, If we were to go and purchase the word "Microsoft" for a campaign, Mr Gates would be well within his rights to sue us to the grave. Type in certain MRI phrases and see what comes up on the sponsored ads, chances are though it will be disabled after a couple of days)

The basic premise seems to be, "Threaten everyone you can, and then start the switch program all over again" The same story seems to be the case over on the Tierra Del Sol Owners Forum who kindly posted some links to their plights, the main ones being,

Meeting with MRI thread, and,

MRI are threatening legal action against TDSO

MRI also amusingly threatened the owner of the domain investmentpropertyrumours.com who submitted the correspondance to us through the comments section which can be seen in the We Get Heat article in which we suggested that Mr Bulow and/or the MRI lawyers contact us. So far, not a peep out of them.

The latest correspondance we have had submitted from domain owner Mr Stevenson we can't directly publish, but our legal beagle says we can say that it wasn't very nice, but nevertheless amusing on the account of barking up the wrong tree, and that the letter repeatedly stated that the they (the lawyers) had been instructed that everything on the blog was untrue.

The letter itself reads as though it has personally been shouted at a secretary whilst her only copy of "Hello Magazine" is dangled over the shredder.

Mr Bulow cannot claim that he cannot contact us, he in fact runs a rather interesting blogspot blog himself, rather offensively titled "Letters From The Septic Land"

The first post on it back in march 2008 also has a very odd twist to it, the url for it is http://cjbulow.blogspot.com/2008/03/land-of-merkins-and-septics.html

On the post itself he suggests we use google to look up the title if one is not English. To save you the bother, a "Septic" is cockney rhyming slang for Yank, or American. (Septic tank = Yank)

Very nice Mr Bulow! Rather you than me writing things like that whilst living and working in the US.

As for the rarely used word "Merkin" in the url, here is a definition according to Answers.com

Noun. A pubic wig for women. [Alteration of obsolete malkin, lower-class woman, mop, from Middle English, from Malkin, diminutive of the personal name Matilda.]

Would you buy an investment from a man who talks about things like this?

The thing is though, as this new round of "Top Secret" meetings goes on, one has to question the validity of many of the "investment properties" that were offerred in the first place.

A certain Malcolm J Wright is/was on the books for American Leisure. Now that Tierra del Sol has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, a few things need to be asked.

Mr Wright had rather a lot of fingers in a very large number of pies, a full list of which can be seen here. Nothing really untoward about that one could say, (Apart from the Allen Stanford $8 Billion fraud case!) however.

A little more googling later and we come accross an excerpt of an SEC filing. (Securities and Exchange Commission) which is basically discovery litigation regarding securities fraud, violation of Florida Securities and Investor Protection Act, breach of their employment contracts, and claims for fraudulent inducement, against Malcolm J Wright.

Now bearing in mind that the excerpt is from 2007, and it really wasn't the hardest article in the world to find, one has to ask why anyone would do business with someone under that kind of investigation? Granted MRI were not the only people to be promoting TDS, a now defunct Platinum Properties was also involved.

Given this track record though, it does beg the question of how much due diligence was actually done in the first place? The Stanford Group of companies seems to be turning into an ever expanding nightmare which will run for years, but at least the main crux of that has been frozen and closed down to prevent more cons and scams.

Was the "Due Diligence" in the form of large commissions? We don't know. What we do know though is that commissions received will have to be paid back under the chapter 11 proceedings. That should be an interesting one!

As for libel and more threats? There is a fantastic article written by Diarmaid Condon published on OverseasCafe.com which highlights exactly what goes on in this very corrupt industry.

We have invited MRI Construction (Or whatever they are called this week) to contact us, and we invite them again. Tell us exactly which bits you perceive as libel and why, and we and our legal beagle will go through each and every one.

We have not broken any laws in the way we write or report. Google quite clearly states its position on the use of its blog platform in the following quote from its help section,

"Please note that Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we don't make any claims about the content of these pages. We strongly believe in freedom of expression, even if a blog contains unappealing or distasteful content or presents unpopular viewpoints. We realize this may be frustrating, and we regret any inconvenience this may cause you. In cases where contact information for the author is listed on the page, we recommend that you work directly with this person to have the content in question removed or changed."

COMING SOON!

We take a look at more mysterious goings on in the Investment Property World after a tip-off from an anonymous poster, this time eminating from the investment advisory hotbed that is the Isle of Wight!

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Vila Verde - The Great Bait and Switch - Part 1

Well folks, at last we are able to deliver the first in probably what will be a multi part installment of the "Great Bait and Switch" being carried out by one of the most infamous overseas property promoters in recent times. You guessed it, MRI.

Now to be honest, we are a little tired of writing about them, a serious change of record is required, but whilst they will insist upon arguably questionable marketing to the public, strong-arming the industry and generally stirring up all kinds of stink, we hope this will be the last articles we need to write about them. Unfortunately, given the size of info out there on this particular subject, it will be broken down into a few parts, so please be patient with us.

The topic for this post is the Cape Verdean development Vila Verde, built by Tecnicil. Under the old guise of MRI Overseas and/or Macanthony Realty International, a substantial number units were sold to the general public via exhibitions and the telephone.

All seemed well to begin with, especially with the likes of Amanda Lamb waffling on about it at every opportunity, and the alleged promise of direct flights from every conceivable airport according to MRI, and the "tying up of rental agreements", (which of course could only be fulfilled if you took their furniture packages, and their lifetime after sales package) most of which clients were reasonably OK with spending the money on.

All of a sudden though, things seem to have got a little sour. It all started around the beginning of this year, we began to receive the odd e-mail and comment about meetings being arranged by MRI to discuss the future of their off plan properties.

Of course, these meetings were not publicized to the general public, unlike the overseas property expos of old, one has to wonder what's going on there?

Well, judging by the barrage of activity on the few forums that haven't banned the use of MRI, Macanthony Realty, or any of the other variations on names the company seems to have (that aren't connected in any way at all of course!) it would seem the following is happening from what we can gather.

Basically, MRI have been suggesting that Vila Verde will not be completed, even at best, complete with substantial delays, and that developer Tecnicil is in financial trouble and about to go bankrupt, as a result they have been suggesting to clients that they should forget the Vila Verde investment, and conveniently switch to a project on the Silver Coast in Portugal, or perhaps consider something in Bansko, Bulgaria, of course, offering a "substantial discount" in the process, as an apparent "goodwill gesture" BUT (and here is the real sting) it just happens that you need to add more money to the deal!

Hmmm, so lets get this right, My deposit of 30%, (or whatever I might have paid in installments) is gone? Well according to MRI, yes.

And this new investment, it's a better deal? Well of course, flip now and we'll do you a huge discount, and no-one needs to say anymore about it!

Now it is unclear as to whether it has actually been stated beyond doubt by MRI that Tecnicil are filing for bankruptcy in a bid to get clients to conveniently forget about their investment with them, but according to the forums, it would suggest it is being heavily implied.

What is clear when you actually look around, is that Tecnicil are alive and well, keeping the public informed as best they can with a blog, http://vilaverde-resort.blogspot.com/ and have publicly stated a couple of interesting things;

"Mark Twain once had to write: "Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated" or even "This report of my death was an exaggeration" depending on who we believe had the original quoted properly.Whichever is true it must have been quite a shock for Mark Twain to have heard that he had been reported dead! Here at Tecnicil we were equally surprised to hear last weekend that we were going into liquidation, or was it that we had gone into liquidation...?Whichever of the rumours you have heard, we can assure you that Tecnicil is financially sound and Vila Verde Santa Maria will be finished."

followed by;

"With the disappearance of the larger real estate agents in the overseas property industry, we at Tecnicil have had to pick up the task of client communication. No small feat when you think that MRI alone had had dozens of customer service people to deal with the workload. Sadly these are no longer interfacing for us so we have to do it."

Good for Tecnicil, considering they are a fairly hefty developer to say the least, and are involved in infrastructure construction, hospital building and the like, as well as having various connections to the government through board members, on top of having connections with the national bank, are they really that likely to be going under? Slow, maybe, the next Bradford and Bingly they are not.

So where does all this leave everyone with deposits on Vila Verde?

Well, the suggestion that you should write off your deposit as a loss and wander into another development at a "discount" might sound attractive to start with. However, a few things to consider.

1. How real is that actual discount?
2. Is there any reason why the next development might not run into problems? After all, Vila Verde was the best thing since sliced bread!
3. Is there any chance of the Vila Verde contract coming back to bite me in the proverbial?

Well according to the forums, the properties in Portugal are being displayed as P.O.A. (we would link directly to them on the various MRI/DCC sites, but that isn't allowed!) to see what we mean, the thread in question can be seen on Caboverde24 (see the first post on the link)

The question has to be, how should a discount on something that has no price be perceived?

As for the new development being on offer running into problems, well there is absolutely no reason at all that they won't, or, that this same farce will re-emerge again in a few years time.

Lastly, the knock on effect of walking away from a contract? Well, lets take a logical approach to this one.

Lets say I am a developer that is well connected to the government, and you have entered into a a contract with me. I have sold something to you at a reduced price because you have shown faith in the project at a very early stage, and the contract you have signed states that I will pay you penalties if I am late finishing, and also, in that small print somewhere in return, you the buyer are obliged to complete the final payments to me when I deliver the finished project.

Granted, we have not seen one of these contracts from the developer, but we are going to hazard a guess that there is not a clause stating that the buyer can walk away and forget it all mid way through the build. It's a contract. There are sections that have to be appeased by both parties.

There are already a few cases of people walking away from off plan deals, thinking "that's the end of it", only to find they end up being chased by developers, and potentially having embargoes issued against their home residences for property they don't even own yet!

It goes without saying that MRI have been known to blackmail clients into paying fees for things they thought they had already paid for as we covered in our furniture scam article a while back. Macanthony are well known in the industry for demanding their commissions at the point of deposit by the client, so they lose nothing by spreading rumours of developer bankruptcies, only to gain on the other side by flogging some heavily overpriced "bargain".

Oh, and guess who builds these overpriced bargains? MRI Construction.

Now who would have thought that?

For the regular readers you will notice we haven't bothered with the usual disclaimer, readers should make of this as they will, and base their judgement on actual facts, and the risk they are prepared to endure. (as opposed to go to a dog and pony show seminar and be pressured into spending more money)

As for rumours and libel? Well, We are not suggesting that any developer is in financial trouble, nor are we trying to manipulate the forums we can't control, or threatening people that say nasty things with huge lawsuits.

If you have an opinion about this situation, or any other that we write about, please feel free to comment on the relevant post. We do read them all, but please do not post personal details or insults, we cannot publish them.

COMING SOON!

More of the same, Bulgaria this time, apparently again, another string of clients has been told their constructor has gone under, and that investing in a shiner yet strangely more expensive property on the other side of the country is a far better bargain.

If you are reading this though a feed reader or on another site and would like regular updates as they happen, click here to get to our Investment Property Rumour home page, look for the feedburner box on the right hand side of the page, enter your e-mail and confirm and then with the appliance of science you will receive updates by e-mail as we publish!

To see a very active forum about Vila Verde and other developments in the region, go to CaboVerde24.com

To see info about Tecnicil, pop along to their blog, Vilaverde-Resort

Andalucian or Abandoned Dream Homes?

Having just returned from a recent jolly to the Costa del Sol to catch up with some old friends, we were very surprised to see one of Spain's property behemoths with empty offices. The very hefty presence of Andalucian Dream Homes on the Fuengirola Paseo is no more!

Obviously some googling was required and it would seem that this news seems to have got lost in the obsession for recession and other gloommongery type news at the moment, but that have been a couple of interesting points made out there.

Craig at Marbella guide seems to have been the first to notice what was going on after some contact from the public, and according to his posting on MarbellaGuide.com it would appear that he has not been able to reach them either at the ADH numbers, or the international arm, Dream Homes Worldwide.

After some further looking around, it would seem OPP did release an article about one of the former members of Andalucian Dream Homes, David Honeyman. Honeyman is apparently still a "non active partner" in ADH but now involved as a consultant to newly formed Property Revolution.

The article itself can be seen reproduced on Kyero (OPP unfortunately needs membership to read) and as an outsider, the article itself does read rather tongue in cheek, featuring some interesting excerpts of a conversation with Mike Liggan of DCC International Property.

Both Honeyman and Liggan appear very adamant and quick to point out that the new ventures "are not an offshoot" of their former companies and are "something new and fresh"

Honeyman with Property Revolution to a degree can be forgiven to an extent, Property Revolution is selling fractional ownership in Spain. One has to wonder a little at some of the claims they make in places on their site such as "zero risk property abroad" (We're sorry, but there is no such thing as "zero risk") and more importantly the claim that mortgages are available, yet when you go to the Fractional Ownership Consultancy finance page that they recommend, you come up against the following quote,

"An exclusive FOC finance package for shared freehold/fractional buyers. The Fractional Ownership Consultancy and an English bank are currently collaborating to provide regulated mortgages for fractional buyers. This means that when buying a second home, mortgages could be available using, as security, the buyers fractional certificate only.
The Fractional Ownership Consultancy anticipates that this scheme will be rolled out into the US and other markets in due course."

Hmm, So, maybe, one day, possibly, I could get a mortgage on a fractional? If it is in the USA? Or possibly in the UK? Come on guys, tie it up a bit more than that! We have commented on fractional ownership before, and once again, nice idea, makes sense on paper if you read it all quick enough, but when it comes down to it not quite enough homework as been done.

To be honest, in our personal opinion whilst it is possible that fractional ownership may well be regulated at some point in Europe and the UK, at the moment it isn't, and until it is, it's basically an extended and even more expensive timeshare. Make no mistake, when something needs to be sold from the angle that it saves you money so therefore it must be an investment, (which is a ploy that most fractional agents will use) alarm bells should be clanging. Saving is what banks are for. Investment is where risk takes place. So when someone gets a chance, I am sure the world would love to know about "zero risk property abroad".

As for DCC International Property, Liggan harps on about "completely separate company" etc etc in the article, but also states they "occasionally sell MRI property in Portugal, DCC is mainly focusing on Spain."

Hmm, so what is Aspen Valley doing on the site then? Is that not an MRI Construction development anymore? We would link to it to show you, but for some reason the completely unrelated entities that are MRI and DCC really don't like that apparently.

Anyhoo, whilst the property industry news specialists OPP continue to announce that all is well in the overseas property world, and that there is no smoke or mirrors or anything like that, and act as a very efficient announcement platform to say your old companies are not related to any "new and fresh ones", and whilst the British media still can't decide if house prices are rising or dropping, we are off to see what else lurks in the dingy realms of the investment property world.

We will return soon, with so much gossip out there at the moment, there is a lot to investigate. Tales from the public about offers to switch from one development to another are rife at the moment, some feasible, many not. We are trying to get to the bottom of it all, and rest assured, the moment we do, good or bad, it will be here!

VAT is going on in the Bulgarian furniture world?

Well folks, pending the consolidation and final draft of our story on "Strange Bulgaria Seminars" we thought we would wrestle with the very confusing situation regarding VAT on furniture in Bulgaria.

So far (that we know of) we can only find a couple of companies that appears to be the cause, and you guessed it, it's MRI, and loosely mentioned are Bulgarian Dreams.

Now, as per usual, we need to insert a disclaimer here. Apologies for any boredom it might cause, but it has to be.

Investment Property Rumours is purely relaying and consolidating information that is freely available on the internet, which is linked to and/or displayed within the blog. We are not responsible for your opinion on what you read or think, nor any conclusion that you might come to as a result (be that positive or negative). This blog is here to inform. It is not an instruction or a religion and should not be treated as such.

Investment Property Rumours is not linked to any company, nor does it solicit or sell advertising (other than automatic web generated search engine ads for which we are not responsible).

Ok, down to the nitty gritty!

As members of various forums and subscribers to a large number of blogs about the overseas property business, we obviously see a lot of conversations amongst owners and prospective owners of property overseas. A large number of them can't be taken seriously, but every so often we see the odd thread that warrants looking into.

There seems to be substantial concern about furniture prices, where it is, how much it costs, and whether that cost is what it says it is, or subject to change later on.

The overseas furniture business has been very competitive from day one, with everyone jostling in the search engines for position due to the substantial profits to be made out of it, not only as the sale of the products themselves, but also the fitting and so on. Some companies have manipulated the situation further by insisting that certain packages and specifications be installed to comply with rental agreements (which may or may not exist of course!) basically holding buyers over a barrel, having been sold more than they could afford in the first place by offering rental programs which many seem to be failing to profit from despite assurances and promises from salesmen.

The subject of VAT in any country is a complex one to say the least. We are not accountants, and make no claims to be either. However, VAT has long been used for scams in the past and no doubt will continue to be in the future.

It would seem in the forums that people who have paid in full for a furniture package in Bulgaria (In some cases as long ago as 2006) are now being sent a bill for an additional 20% VAT!

Now the 20% part is correct. The current rate of VAT in Bulgaria is 20%. No qualms there.

Charging the VAT after the fact? Well that's a different story.

Due to the rather heated affair with MRI "restructuring" which we uncovered at the end of last year, many of the original web pages about LIFEtime aftersales and furniture have disappeared from the usual search engines and general public view. On a mission as ever though, we found a very handy tool that appears to archive all sorts of things that were thought to be neatly hidden under the carpet, doused with "Shake 'n' Vac" and never to be seen again.

With the tool in question, we stumbled across this, (Click the image to enlarge, or, if you would like to see the archived Furniture Packages page click here.)

Now providing my eyes aren't deceiving me, it says on there that "The emphasis is on creating packs that include absolutely everything from cleaning to VAT to give you an apartment you can walk straight into - with NO hidden charges. We strongly recommend organising a furniture package well in advance of completion."

Hmmm. Now this page was last archived according to waybackmachine on February 14th 2008 (you can see other pages from the same site there too)

Now as we have said, accountants we are not. Let alone Bulgarian accountants. But, if someone tells me the price is fully inclusive "from cleaning to VAT", and tells me there are "NO hidden charges" how the hell can they present a VAT invoice years later?

After asking a few book keepers and accountants on the subject and subsequently being baffled into a corner with a pencil and a calculator, the general gist of what we could make of it in layman's terms is as follows.

There are occasions and situations for VAT disbursement to occur. These would normally be in the case of accountants providing services via a third party. Certainly as a rule only within the service industry and not in the case of products.

It has also been known if a company has made errors in it VAT charging or reclamation, they are advised (usually after inspection) that they politely ask their clients to pay VAT on previous bills. Having said that though, said clients are within their right to tell the company in error where to put their VAT bill. If it isn't settled, the company in error is responsible, not the end user.

On the face of it, this all seems to be a case of moved goal posts, possibly a misinterpretation somewhere, maybe even a mistake, but after looking deeper, it all seems to get a little more sinister....

It would seem as some clients have found, that if you try to take the latter path of suggesting that MRI put their VAT bill where the sun doesn't shine, clients are being told that not only will they not get their furniture (which they have paid for "in full, with no hidden charges") but they will lose what they have already paid! No refund offered, partial or otherwise.

Again, we are not accountants, forensic or otherwise, neither are we high court judges, but this is tantamount to extortion is it not??

To see specific details on this area of the discussion, simply take a look at the VAT on Furniture thread here from EyeonWorldwide.com. Someone has amusingly posted in an excerpt of a letter from MRI staff stating that all their furniture packages are inclusive of VAT.

The apparently now defunct Bulgarian Dreams is also implied on some threads as well, but after the high profile heat on the TV, one would suspect they have had the sense to go to ground!

One would hope that MRI Property (Which now seems to only consist of MRI Construction on their website) will sort this out in a civilised manner. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time they issued press releases cover things up, or taking stabs in the dark at innocent companies. We wouldn't be surprised that all hands are washed, and the buck gets passed to the "non-related company" Solutions Overseas who appear to be recommended by MRI on their FAQ page, being as MRI apparently don't supply furniture?!

What can you do about it?

Well there is a small thing called "Distance Selling Regulations" that have to be complied with that catagorically state a few simple things according to The Office of Fair Trading;

Cancellation periods
"The regulations give consumers an unconditional right to cancel an order. This is to allow the consumer the opportunity to examine the goods or consider the nature of a service.

If a consumer cancels an order, written notice must be given to you by:

goods – seven working days from the day after that on which the goods are received by the consumer;
services – seven working days from the day after that on which the consumer agrees to go ahead with the contract.

If you fail to provide consumers with written confirmation of all the required information, then the cancellation periods can be extended up to a maximum of three months and seven working days. If the missing information is provided during this time, then the cancellation period ends seven working days beginning with the day after the full written confirmation is received by the consumer.

Where a contract is cancelled, the consumer must ensure that reasonable care is taken of any goods received and 'restore' them to you. This does not mean that they have to return them - unless you stipulate this in the contract - only that they make them available for you to collect.

You must refund the consumer's money as soon as possible and, at the latest, within 30 days of receiving the written notice of cancellation. The consumer may, at your discretion, be charged the direct cost of returning the goods, but you must tell them about this in the written information you give them.

If payment for the goods or services is under a related credit agreement, the consumer's cancellation notice also has the effect of cancelling the credit agreement."

If you feel we are being unfair in anything we cover, feel free to comment. We do read all comments, and have published 99% of those posted. If you wish to post, be sensible and do not put personal information in. We cannot edit it out.

We will leave you here with this article, make of it as you wish. We are now going to have a chat with yet more lawyers about some seminars to see how we can publish the next article, covering the very complex issue that appears to run along the lines of "I sold you something in good faith, have taken your money and spent it on fast cars, now because I have no cash, I'm going to blag you into another development and claim the original developer that I haven't paid has gone bankrupt, and charge you several arms and legs for the pleasure"

Until next time, invest wisely. If you have already invested, keep an eye out!

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New Property Portal - But Not For Some

Well after a quite couple of weeks, we return with some relatively positive news for the overseas investment property business, at least for buyers anyway.

The NFOPP is extending its free to list portal to overseas agents. For those that aren't aware, the NFOPP (National Federation of Property Professionals) are about as close as it gets to some kind of regulatory body for the property industry. Individuals have to qualify to become members, and adhere to codes of practice. They can be investigated to a degree and so on and so on.

Spending some £400k on the venture, (which can be seen at PropertyLive.co.uk) this will no doubt be an attractive business tool for the industry, providing relatively cost free marketing in what is currently a very tough market place. The requirement to adhere to ever tightening rules and regulations regarding the sale of properties, as well as the management and safe keeping of deposits is welcomed by the consumer and investor also.

Whilst the NFOPP maintain the portal will always be free to members, the main commercial benefit to them will be members, in turn hopefully tightening up on the scam merchants and general con artists out there.

Sadly though, the portal will not be all encompassing on a global scale. The NFOPP have placed a few restrictions here and there. Although members of the NAR in the USA will be able to list, as will members of the CEI (Confédération Européenne de l'Immobilier: European Confederation of Real Estate Agents), much of the former communist block will not, and neither will much of Africa and Asia. Hopefully this will change as time goes by. The most noteable restriction though according to trade source Globaledge.co.uk is our friends at MRI. The NFOPP have apparently said "There will also be no place for MRI Overseas Property who recently “left” NFOPP after it accused the association of “being used as a platform for libelous comments against it”"

Now one has to wonder whether Macanthony Realty has wheeled the lawyers out over that one, or proceeded to grill everyone they know in a vain attempt to have the comment removed from the search engines by threatening all and sundry with law suits in the hope of striking lucky, as they did with us a few weeks back. We also have to ask the question, (despite not being connected at all, being completely independent etc etc) whether DCC International Property or Solutions Overseas will have the same "restricted from listing" applied to them?

We would like to thank everyone for there comments and emails of support after the removal of our postings in recent weeks. We would also like to apologise to those who were contacted with very heavy handed e-mails by a certain company. After much discussion, we should be in a position soon with some friendly lawyers who are happy to check our articles prior to publication, to establish if we can be sued or not. Rest assured, the moment we have a new platform in place, we will let you know.

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