Website Warns About Real Estate Frauds Affecting Puerto Penasco

By Alberte Aldrete Valdez and Ivan Bravo
Issue #455

A scandal of unsuspected level that will affect Puerto Peñasco is currently being broadcasted through the Internet, warning possible buyers of real estate to be careful when closing a deal since there are many unresolved legal problems that are not yet been solved and have deceived investors with non fulfilled sales - especially of condominiums.

Manuel "Manny" Cisneros, one of the affected individuals, came to our Editorial Office to complain that 11 years ago he bought a property of 20x30 meters at Playa Dorada to people he referred as "Los Grijalva", but since that day he has been denied the chance to build a house. Even worse, the municipal authorities denied him the license to build a house, and from that day on he has hired 5 lawyers and none have solved his problem. To this day, he says, the only ones that made money are the lawyers.

Mr. Cisneros claims that Teoforo Benitez has for several years tried to stop the construction on his property, blocking the access to his house and obstructing the transit of the dump trucks that carry construction materials, and in several occasions has hired people that tried to intimidate the workers building his house.

He said that his problems started when a group of investors arrived at that sector and 'baptized' the place as Playa Norte (North Beach), something that has only worsened the problems because they have been selling properties but they never deliver. Moreover, it is said that they take payments in advance, saying that everything is well, but it is not, because they announce things that not exist, such as saying they even have golf courses and that is a lie, he says.

He accused the government, at State and Municipal level, for allowing the announcement and sale deals of properties that do not provide what is advertised. At least purchasers should be warned about the real condition of each development, he says, because all claim that everything is just fine and it is all lies, making the problem bigger and bigger.

Cisneros revealed that there are lots of people affected by the situation, and millions of dollars lost in this dance, but worst of all nobody seems to care enough to stop it.

Cisneros said that to deal exclusively with the problems in Puerto Peñasco, the governments of Arizona and Sonora will hold a meeting in Phoenix, coming March 5, with representatives of both State governments and from people affected by those problems.

He warned that this kind of problems do much damage to Puerto Penasco, because in the United States there is a negative campaign about the problems in real estate business - even a lawsuit against a specially developed web page that denounces these cases. The website is called www.rockypointexposed.com/blog and there it detailes the problems in every development, with pictures of what they are selling and what they really have constructed. "There is a lot of deceiving", he said.

Other complains arise

On March 20, 2000, a public notary that works in this harbor traveled to the city of Lincoln, Nebraska, with German and Estela Palacio, where they put 60 thousand dollars as a down payment on the purchase of a parcel of land at the development Playa Norte for the US citizens Lowell and Kathy Provancha, where they were assured that this company were still going with the construction works, something that according to the Provancha's was not true.

The public notary said to the U.S. citizens that in case the construction works could not proceed because of lack of more funding the 60 thousand dollars will be refunded to the couple.

Lowell and Kathy Provancha said that according to an investigation from the U.S. newspaper Arizona Republic and the ABC news network, Playa Norte has performed a fraud of up to $50 million dollars, and that is without counting other developers that still have properties under legal disputes, like Playa Azul, Inmobiliaria Barlovento and Playa Dorada.

The Provancha couple said that they were scammed by those people, because they gave them their word that this development at playa Norte will have Golf Courses, Lakes and other infrastructure - something that never existed.

That's why they were forced to hire the services of international-level lawyers, which, according to their research, said the terrain deals are illegal.

The Provancha couple consider that the State Government must do something about this situation to stop the scams from this so-called "developers" which operate on the whole coast from the State of Sonora, even in Guaymas and San Carlos, because the image and reputation of Puerto Peñasco on the State of Arizona is already badly damaged, and every day there are less investors willing to invest on Puerto Peñasco, they said.

The blog many US citizens are using to make their comments about is www.rockypointexposed.com/blog and the vast majority of its users were already scammed by those "developers" which operate in the illegal field.

Click here for Part 2 of 'Scandal Hits Internet About Real Estate Frauds Affecting Puerto Penasco'

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