If its in our contracts then I cant see any way we can ask not to pay it. Our solicitors must have been happy with that clause in our contracts or surely they would have asked to have it removed. I also think it might be the norm in any develoment in Egypt, plus it might be Orascoms way of makeing sure every one pays, so there we will be money in the kitty for when things do start to need maintaning, and its only a one off payment after all. Bit of advise. I would look in your contract to see what would happen if you did refuse to pay, you could land up loseing your apartment. As far as I can see Orascom are keeping their side of the bargain so I think we should keep ours.
Sorry.
maggie.
You guys all make me laugh out loud. Instead of clubbing together and making a buyers association, 500+ investers in the same project comparing contracts, solicitors advice and notes, you all logged on here essentially to see if it was going wrong for anyone else. The number of people who have commented that their solicitors never pointed out problems with the contracts - WHY THE HELL SHOULD THEY! Legally it is sound..it is just heavily biased in Orascoms favour. If you do something they are not happy with, they get the property back; you get nothing. There are no clauses that say if they dont deliver, you get a refund, or if they miss their deadline there is some form of compensation - you signed into this accepting this entirely. I raised lots of issues with the agent I bought through, and after looks of tooing and froing it came down to this: 1. Orascom arent going to change the contracts 2. Orascom have a good track record so thats where your confidence should come from.
Seriously though, 500+ investors, all using their own solicitors (who are laughing all the way to the bank having done the same job multiple times, simply substituting one name for another) , all shielding their contracts from the 'prying' eyes of other investors...it really is laughable. I can guarantee you not one person here has a personalised contract and of the 20% or so who queried aspects of their contracts, they were all individually fed the same #### that it was standard for buying in Egypt to have all these clauses in favour of the developer. I posted, after my own initial investment, that UK buyers in particular should form buyers associations so that they able to make community decisions on maintenance issues, contract variations and a host of other things. Why wait until a project is circling the drain before people lose their inhibitions and seek to cooperate with one another and unite together, pooling their buying power. Its seems people forget that the buyer is always right, but only when they have some leverage behind them. 500 individual requests for change will produce absolutely nothing, that is a certainty, however a buyers association that is well represented can influence change.
All that having been said, i invested here myself. Primarily because it was affordable (read cheap) and because I decided that Orascom was a lower risk than other off plan developers. It is really too late to start querying your contract, especialy on an individual basis. Hope, pray even it continues going well - or take my humble advice and group together to have a louder voice on what you would like to see in your future property investment. (BTW this applies to finishing the properties furnishing as well, there are gonna be about 500+ requests for aircon units and shower rails etc over the coming months - a little group buying power people??:tomato: I'll take some criticism now :wink: