'I won't allow those people who swindled my parents 50 years ago to do the same to me'

"I am fighting for my parents. If they were here now, seeing everything that is happening, they would be devastated. The same people who swindled them and left them owing money fifty years ago, wanting to do the same thing now, saying that all this is theirs, I can't allow it", says Mara Pérez. She owns a flat in Iris and another in Águila, two of the four blocks affected by the legal battle over the ownership of the land, brought by the successors of the former developer Sofico.

Their case is now heading for the Supreme Court after Sofico won at first and second instance and could mean the loss for the residents of two hectares of land, valued at twelve million euros, and where the swimming pools, gardens and car parks of 1,750 properties are currently located.

Mara's parents bought a flat in Iris fifty years ago and did so "with all the sweat of their brow". According to her, she was just a child at the time, but she remembers how workers from the developer came to her house with "magazines with spectacular photos" to encourage the purchase with "misleading advertising" because "what they showed, above all, was the gardens and swimming pools of the buildings, they were selling the whole complex". In those years, says Mara, the community fees were already 25,000 pesetas, "which at that time was the salary of many people", but investors were promised a 12 per cent profit through rents.

In the end, the story was not as pretty as it seemed, and according to Mara, her parents ended up being swindled and were never paid what Sofico owed them.

Ana Eva bought her flat herself 33 years ago, "as a young girl". She is emotional when she speaks because she says that "this is not only a loss of property, it is also a loss of memories". She recalls that Sofico was declared bankrupt in 1974 and "did not compensate any of the people it ruined and now they want to bring us back to ruin".

"There are many residents who are taking tranquilisers, they are having a very bad time. At one time we paid for gardens, swimming pools and parking areas and now they tell us that this is not ours. Where is the justice in Spain?" asks this neighbour.

"We are not going to pay twice for the same thing. I'm not a judge, but for me it's a scam," sums up Abdelkrim Mghoghi, a Belgian of Spanish descent, who inherited the flat from his mother, who bought it in 1987.

Anabel Merkel is also a homeowner in Iris. She bought in 2019 from Argentina and came to live in the flat three years ago. "We bought precisely because of the amount of green areas and swimming pools they had," she explains, pointing out that the real estate agency that sold it to her advertised based precisely on that. "The problem came when Sofico came and said it wasn't ours."

Anabel also complains that they pay a very high community fee (70 euros for a studio) and that the building is in very poor condition. All of them complain about the difficulties in renewing the presidents of the communities. "We want democracy in our buildings, some have been in office for decades," she complains.

Lisardo, who agrees along the same line, criticises the fact that the buildings are getting worse and worse due to the impossibility of renewing the positions, as the owners' meeting is not even convened. This also affects them fully in the legal case against Sofico, as there is a large group of residents who want to change lawyers, as they believe that those who have defended the owners until now, elected by the governing board of the communities, have not represented them correctly. "Everything that is happening is causing us great economic damage, we are workers, and it is costing many of us our money and our lives," he says.