Fraud investigators are looking at a suspected international property scam that has left investors more than £40 million out-of-pocket.

Ocean View Properties, based in Staffordshire, has gone in to administration claiming overseas developers forced the company to stop trading after failing to repay millions of Euros handed over as deposits on behalf of investors.

A notice to investors on the company website claims: “Adverse press reports have undoubtedly contributed to the company’s demise though we have communicated and continue to communicate with the relevant media personnel to correct the inaccuracies that they appear to have been fed.

“It is worth noting here that there are clearly a number of people who have appeared in these articles who have subsequently confirmed that they were never personally approached or that they have been misquoted.

“With regards to the allegations surrounding Sean Woodall we can confirm that he acted as a ‘land finding’ agent for us for a period of around 4 years. It subsequently transpired that, not only was he creating problems with the developers that we were working with but he also had a ‘history’. Accordingly links between us and he were severed in 2005.”

This statement refers to articles in the Sunday Express that alleged hundreds of investors have been left at least £80,000 each out of pocket after major off-plan property deals in Spain’s Costa del Sol never materialised.

Customers were told their cash was being held in legal escrow accounts, said the newspaper, but when they asked for refunds, the money had disappeared.

Sean Woodhall set up his own company, Worldwide Destinations after falling out with Ocean View, copying the Ocean View business model in Egypt, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

In May last year, a light aircraft said to be carrying Woodhall was reported to have crashed over Brazil.

His body has never been recovered, but he was declared dead last autumn.

Fraud officers from Staffordshire Police, City of London Police and the Serious Fraud Office are currently investigating Ocean View to see if any evidence exists to support criminal allegations.

Ocean View was set up in 2001 by buy-to-let millionaire Colin Thomas, other businessmen and Sean Woodhall, a convicted fraudster.

Investors were persuaded to buy off-plan apartments in southern Spain.

Several celebrities were involved in the marketing - but there are no suggestions of wrongdoing against any of them. They include Martin Roberts,  presenter of the BBC’s Homes Under the Hammer property programme.

He claims the company owes him and his partner about £200,000.

England international footballers Gareth Barry and Alan Smith also bought—properties successfully from Ocean View.

There were first talks of plans to demolish thousands of illegal Spanish properties by the Spanish government, that scared off home owners all across the Costa Del Sol; but now,it appears the government is reversing its decision. The Spanish government is hoping to boost its dismal property market by holding off the demolition of the properties.

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The much discussed and opposed “Ley de Costas” (the Coast Law) of Spain will soon expire, leaving thousands of coastal home owners of Spain in fear of having their properties demolished by the state.

In short, the Ley de Costas created in 1988 forbids the construction of privately owned property within 100 meters of the sea. The soon to expire law has created quite a spark in Spain as locals accuse the government of favouring developers who keep building their new projects at will - too close to the coastline for comfort.

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The full scale of alleged buy-to-let scams is starting to emerge with the collapse of mortgage lending and house prices, according to the Serious Fraud Office.

Detectives are looking at cases involving thousands of investors losing millions of pounds in alleged property frauds in the UK and overseas.

Many investigations are examining off-plan buy-to-let frauds involving hundreds of properties in Leeds, Cardiff, Nottingham, Derby, Liverpool, Hull and London.

Already this month five directors of Gateshead based PPP Ltd (Practical Property Portfolios Ltd) and sister company Napeer (Holdings) Ltd have pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading charges.

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If you thought the Canary Islands (especially Tenerife) were home to drunken British tourists and tacky resorts, think again. In fact this beautiful island has so much more to offer than cheap tourism than is initially believed.

Aside from the fact that Tenerife sports an all year round excellent climate at around 22 degrees Celsius, you can also eat your heart out at the many new, hip restaurants and cafes as well as explore the many breathtaking scenic aspects of the island.

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In a bid to revive Spain’s lagging real estate market and to also protect property investors’, the Spanish government has recently drafted a new law that permits property developers convert to regulated Real Estate Investment Trust companies (REITs).

The REITs company establishments are supposed to help revive Spain’s real estate industry governed by strong rules to keep control.

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The Spanish property market seems to have gone from bad to worse. According to the latest news, more than 900,000 new homes are still unsold this year. This is a very large figure, too worrying to ignore and even Spain’s prime minister Zapatero warned that the nation’s banks will not escape this situation unscathed.

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Amidst the gloomy conditions and depressing headlines surrounding the Spanish housing market, a recent FT report shows that high end real estate still appears to be holding strong. In the last six months, Savills’ Costa del Sol office have had two €7m sales, one to an Englishman and one to a Gibraltarian, a €5.5m sale to an Englishman and a €5m one to a Russian.

While the mass market is suffering from a glut of new properties, the high-end Spanish property sector is characterised by well-heeled, cash paying high net worth individuals unaffected by high interest rates and mortgage restrictions.

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British and other overseas expats who have lost their Spanish homes to a notorious and ridiculous ‘land grab’ law now have some hope in retrieving their properties. The European commission has now taken Madrid to the European Court of Justice over alleged infringements of European competition regulations governing the public works contracts in Spain.

The law allowed Spain’s developers to expropriate rural land from property owners if the developers’ could persuade local authorities that the rural land acquired were suitable for “urban development”.

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Spain has taken on a new meaning for the one million British investors who settled in the country over the last ten years. What was once a property investors dream has today become a nightmare for many. So what has happened in the land of tapas, afternoon siestas and endless sunshine? What could have possibly gone wrong to Brit expatriates in such big financial trouble they lose hundreds of thousands of pounds on their once rosy investments?

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