Investors keep up legal fight over failed golf club scheme

INVESTORS from Yorkshire who were among a group that ploughed nearly $5m into a luxury property scheme at a US golf resort that was never built are pressing ahead with legal action against developers.
By The Newsroom
Published 7th Nov 2013, 08:59 BST

The Little River Victims group is suing Algarve-based golf course operator Oceânico, the host of the Portugal Masters tournament, for an alleged breach of contract over a fractional ownership scheme at its Little River resort in North Carolina after months of negotiations hit the buffers.

Its 35 members, many of whom are from Ilkley, Leeds and East Yorkshire, made 19 investments between them worth £75,000 each in 2008 and claim they were promised a return of $240,000 –worth more than £150,000 at the current exchange rate – when the investment matured in 2011.

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They had been hoping to reach a settlement with the company when one of the investors, Gerard Purdy, of Brough, East Yorkshire, travelled to the Portugese capital of Lisbon in August to represent the group at a meeting with Oceânico’s directors and lawyers.

A spokesman for the claimaints said they had put forward “highly conciliatory and variable settlement offers” to the company but it had rejected each of them without offering any alternatives.

Exact details of the offer and negotiations cannot be reported due to a non-disclosure agreement but the group said it had been willing to accept a siginficantly reduced sum with phased payments or a property settlement in lieu of cash.

“The simple fact remains that our group invested, in good faith, their life savings with Oceânico in this scheme,” the spokesman said.

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“Some of the group are elderly and infirm and they desperately need their monies returned and their contracts honoured.”

The group said it would pursue the matter with “determination and vigour” through the Portugese courts. The matter has also been referred to Portugese police as well as the country’s financial regulator CMVN.

“If the Oceânico Group board believes that we intend to go quietly into the night then they will be extremely disappointed,” the spokesman said.

Oceanico, which has previously blamed the 2008 property downturn for the stalled development, said it had no further comments.

Related topics:InvestorsEast Yorkshire