When Mr Whickman lost his job, he and his wife decided to look around for a suitable place to invest his redundancy pay – somewhere that would provide a steady growth and an income in their retirement. That’s when Instant Access Properties (IAP) caught their eye.

Having decided to attend a seminar in Gatwick, Mr & Mrs Whickman listened to IAP describe the opportunities for investing Mr & Mrs Whickman in off-plan property overseas – buy it cheap and at a discount, wait until it’s built and enjoy the increased value and ongoing rental income. It was just what they were looking for and along with thousands of others they chose to invest.

However, it soon became apparent that their Spanish property (El Pinet, built by San Jose inversiones) was subject to serious delays and after a number of increasingly worrying conversations, IAP began to make promises that they would refund Mr & Mrs Whickman their money. Needless to say, that refund also began to be subject to some serious delays. IAP then offered Mr & Mrs Whickman the opportunity to forget their Spanish home and reinvest their deposit with them somewhere else – an offer the couple declined. Eventually the company confessed that they would need more money to complete their Spanish build, money that Mr & Mrs Whickman did not have and so they were faced with little choice other than to walk away and call it all a loss.

“We were devastated. The whole experience was soul destroying and we wished we’d never been involved.”

Over the years Mr & Mrs Whickman received numerous offers of help, many of which asked for money upfront to take on their case. But Mr & Mrs Whickman no longer had the funds to gamble anything in an attempt to claim their money back, and besides, they were naturally reluctant to throw more good money after bad.

Eventually, 11 years after they first attended the seminar with IAP, Mr & Mrs Whickman were contacted by the Claims Bureau, who work together with Abolex. “We were very sceptical,” said Mrs Whickman, “We had accepted the fact that we’d made a huge mistake and we’d never see the money again. We hadn’t even mentioned the loss to our two grown-up daughters as we didn’t want to cause worry or rake over the whole experience and most of all we really didn’t want to build up our hopes for them all to be dashed again. But the Claims Bureau and Abolex were very calm and told us that they would never make any promises they couldn’t keep and besides, we wouldn’t have to pay a penny until such a time as our claim was successful.”

“The solicitor in Spain was amazing. He was so confident and both Abolex and the Claims Bureau were always approachable and reassuring.”

“Then we received the phone call and I’m still in shock mode!

The Spanish Court had awarded us all our money back plus an amount of interest to be paid on top! It was at long last an end to all those years of stress and a huge weight from our shoulders.”

“The whole process was much quicker than we’d ever imagined and we still can’t believe we have money back that we never thought we’d see again. More than that, we’re no longer living with any bitter feelings of being ripped off. My husband has early stage Alzheimer’s and so we’re going to take a nice holiday, something we can appreciate and enjoy together and hopefully create some strong memories that can be clung to in the future.”

“I have to say that we think you are the people. If anybody still has a little doubt, believe me, you can’t be anymore doubtful than we were but Abolex & The Claims Bureau made it all so easy and now we have our self-esteem and our money back. Thank you Abolex & The Claims Bureau.”