{"id":1191,"date":"2014-01-21T15:10:43","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T14:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2014-05-05T19:06:02","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T18:06:02","slug":"day-in-court-for-expat-who-lost-e1m-to-thieving-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/day-in-court-for-expat-who-lost-e1m-to-thieving-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Day in court for expat who lost \u20ac1m to ‘thieving’ bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

AN expatriate who lost \u20ac1million to a \u2018thieving bank\u2019 has taken it to court.<\/p>\n

Euan Armstrong, 75, says he has lost his life savings after being sold an \u2018illegal\u2019 equity release scheme that was supposed to protect his estate from inheritance tax.
\nDanske bank \u2018mortgaged his house\u2019 then invested the cash in its own financial products. Not only did Danske not deliver on the promised \u20ac35,000 of annual investment income but they then began charging him tens of thousands in commissions and \u2018charges\u2019 – \u20ac18,000 the first year, even more the next, up to an average of \u20ac55,000 per year – before \u00a0trying to re-possess his home near Coin.<\/p>\n

That has left Euan, and he says, hundreds of others out of pocket to the tune of possibly hundreds of million of euros.<\/p>\n

Armstrong told EuroWeekly that \u201cmy \u20ac1 million investment was spiraling downward to where by 2010, I\u2019d lost \u20ac850,000 of it,\u201d with Danske after him to pay what they had lost. Left destitute, he says, \u201cI had to put my own house up for rental in order to live and eat.\u201d He has since been forced out of retirement and back to work as a yacht captain.<\/p>\n

\"\"

NOT GIVING UP: Euan Armstrong says he is one of hundreds<\/p><\/div>\n

Giving up the fight against Danske is impossible for Armstrong because, according to him, \u201cI\u2019m only one of hundreds.\u201d In response, he linked up with fellow \u2018equity release\u2019 fraud victim Ian Sherdley to form the Equity Release Victims Association (ERVA, www.erva.es<\/a>) which empowers similar victims to speak out with ERVA\u2019s support. Antonio Flores<\/strong> of Lawbird Legal Services<\/strong> confirms that 500-600 people have fallen prey to illegal mortgages schemes totaling \u20ac175 million along the Costa.<\/p>\n

Armstrong accuses multiple banks\u2014\u201cThey\u2019re all doing it,\u201d he says\u2014of targeting the elderly, retired demographic, those without mortgages, so as \u201cto get their money off them.\u201d In the meantime, Armstrong claims innocent people are dying from corollary effects like alcoholism. He says the stress has brought on an irregular heart beat while his brother John has since passed away. \u201cThe banks are waiting for people to die,\u201d he states, explaining that if banks wait it out long enough, they win. Law firms fighting these cases have made little progress because the banks \u201cjust don\u2019t answer.\u201d Armstrong sentiments were unequivocal: \u201cThey\u2019re thieving, robbing *****.\u201d<\/p>\n

Armed with 1,030 pages of evidence on Armstrong\u2019s case, a Malaga court has overturned a previous Danske appeal by declaring the case is indeed criminal, not merely civil. Now Henrik Hjerrild and Morten Runo, two top executives from Danske Bank International S.A.\u2019s Luxembourg office, have been summoned by a Fuengirola court for suspected criminal financial dealings.<\/p>\n

What is next for Armstrong? \u201cWait and hope the bank will cancel the mortgage. Then I\u2019ll sue for damages. The situation has brought financial ruin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AN expatriate who lost \u20ac1million to a \u2018thieving bank\u2019 has taken it to court. Euan Armstrong, 75, says he has lost his life savings after being sold an \u2018illegal\u2019 equity release scheme that was supposed to protect his estate from inheritance tax. Danske bank \u2018mortgaged his house\u2019 then invested the cash in its own financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[58,59],"class_list":["post-1191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawbird-in-the-media","tag-antonio-flores","tag-lawbird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1191"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1193,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions\/1193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lawbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}