PUNTA PACIFICA REALTY.
BEWARE!
I am a retired single mother living who was invested in 2007. I worked over 35 years and saved money as a bank teller to get a chance to put money into this project and bought a 2bedroom - 1 bath condo unit. Also a Panamanian friend from church told me how wonderful Panama was and that I should see the wonderful natural beauty. Even though I worked in a bank I know little about investment as I spent my life raising my children. I was referred by a family friend to the people at ISg that told me that this would be a great investment for my grandchildren's future - they said the trump name alone is enough to invest in and trust.
I bought as I was told that there would be a beautiful view of the ocean, island club and marina along with lots of amenities. - lots of nature too that would be healthy for my grandchildren to visit. I was sold by ISG on the image of paradise with my children and grandchildren on nice vacations while at peace with making a good investment in trump who I saw weekly on TV - seemed like buying into a condo that he built would be a great investment since he owned such amazing towers all over the world. I was told by Jeff Barton who works ISg that my property had gone up and that I had made money (each time it was going up by 10% or more) and I would be able to cash out by reselling it once it hit 80% in sales so I can finance my grandchildren's eduction.
Jeff also promised that since i don't have all the money I could finance it. They would guarantee the financing or that Newland would and that the mortgage issued by HSBC would be no problem as they had special relationship with them as the trump name would guarantee it. I trusted Jeff as seemed honest and reminded me of my own son. Anyway after some serious health issues occured I wanted to sell my investment in 2010 in hopes of covering my medical bills. I was told that I could not sell it because Newland didn't approve it even though they claim that 90% of it had been sold to other poeple I knew. Also there were some 8% fees that I'd have to pay, so I decided to keep it and hopefully sell it after it was built. What is so disrespectful is that a kind lady named Marie Williams emailed me and told me that my investment was good, reassuring me that the building looked fantastic, sending me nice pictures and saying that it would recover in price and I'd be able to sell it at a profit once newland approved of the resale - all the pictures had great ocean views. When it was built there was no marina, no real island club, and two huge buildings, one of which is directly in front of my unit which (where a clear view of the construction workers are) even though I was told nothing would be build by Jeff himself as he promised Trump would never buy a place unless it secured property rights on neighboring lots.
Since that time I have been in the hospital recovering from a mild stroke and had not followed up on this and had my son take care of the closing (as they sent numerous letters) even though he was too busy with his work as a construction foreman. Unforutnately as we found out that the prices dropped we couldn't get the mortgage they promised that would come from HSBC and that Newland and this special relationship failed to help us. In a panic to help me (I didn't have the money to close) my son obtained a 2nd mortage on his home (which is now being foreclosed on) to pay the balance which included some extra closing fees for a size increase and a contract to sign for a future beach club. I also paid an extra 6% (which we did not expect) which my son had to pay by borrowing from his wife's family. My son used a company called Panama Property for closing that was recommended by Marie. My son spoke to duncan who spoke english (he said he was canadian) and told us not to trust panamanians as many are not good at property management and can't get high prices like he could since he knows all the big companies. He told my son that we needed to use his closing package because many dishonest lawyers are in Panama and they won't do the architectural check properly. We paid $1500 to use his closing services and thought he would help us. When we closed Duncan had an inspection performed by their architect who was supposed to inspect my unit properly so I get what I paid for according to Duncan. Duncan sent us some pictures saying it was OK and they would start to close as it was in near perfect condition. The small problems they saw they would take care. Later when my son went to Panama and saw the unit there were many problems with uneven drywall and broken marble and very badly scratched patio doors along with broken fixtures. We later found somebody in the building a kind gentlemen from Columbia who said the work would cost $5000 more to fix and they didn't do the check properly as Panama Property is a greedy company. When we asked Panama property to represent us and fix these problems their lawyer told us that since we signed they can't do anything.
Also my son was sold by Duncan on a $30000+ furniture package which was sold to him because he said that nobody was able to get furniture in the building due to restrictions by trump management. WE believed him and found out later from another owner that what we got consisted of low quality oversized furniture pieces and sloppy painting that at most cost $5000 in total to put together! We got the furniture with damages too that Duncan said were due to transportation issues from costa rica (where they got the furniture as it was hand-made he claimed). Duncan later told us he can rent out our unit for $3500-4000 per month, so far nobody is renting it and we are paying fees to Newland of about $400 per month and we find out that it doesn't even cover electricity or anything more than basic cable which they encouraged us to upgrade. So we are on the hook for $500 in fees on top of payments with no rentor because duncan cannot find the best deal for me he says. To make matters worse we were told by our neighbor that this custom made furniture was delivered by a local department store that was not a high end place and is not custom made!
JUST READ FROM ANOTHER WEBSITE THAT JACK STUDNICKY AND PARTNERS JEFF BARTON AND MARIE WILLIAMS WERE FIRED FROM TRUMP OCEAN CLUB PANAMA AFTER DISCOVERING FRAUDULENT TRANSACTIONS AND KICKBACKS WITH PANAMA PROPERTY CONNECTION, AND THEY ARE BEING SUED BY THE BROKER COMPANY.
