Green Park… the truth uncovered!

On the 12^th of June, we published an article about how 50 families were being threatened in a rent scam in the Green Park complex in Golf Del Sur in the south of Tenerife. Following the volume of feedback, messages and emails we received, we decided to follow up the article as things weren’t adding up from the information we were being given.

We went down to the complex ourselves, spoke to some residents that live there, talked with the security guards employed by the community who were very helpful, and contacted the community itself to find out as much as we could.

Green Park is made up of 350 studio apartments which were constructed as a holiday complex on the circular road of the Golf Del Sur, which to be fair, has had its share of problems since day one when the promoters left the site with large debts to social security, wages owed to employees, and sold a large proportion of the apartments back to the bank when they couldn’t sell them.

At first, the complex was a thriving resort with some English and Spanish private owners living there, some English and German tourists, and some empty apartments due to the bank repossession, but all was well with a strong community run by GAE Communities Sur SL, who are the administrators for over 80 complexes on the island, and are still the administrators at Green Park today.

Over the next few years, GAE sorted out the problems of the complex with only 80 properties paying community fees, because by this time 240 apartments were held by banks for non-payment of mortgages, and only 80 owners paid their fees. But they managed to turn the complex around after the mess the constructors left it in, got proper water and electric supplies, renovated some of the apartments, and others were bought from the bank by new owners and started to contribute as well.

At this point, each of the owners contributed 6,600 euros to the community to be able to pay the bills and take over the exploitation licence of the complex (as the community) and reap the benefits for rentals to benefit the long term of the complex.

After a few good years of tourism, and the recession having an effect on holidays, the complex turned to long lets in approximately 50 apartments to try and recoup some income, but this had an adverse effect on the complex, especially at a time when there was an economic struggle.

However, as we have discovered the main problems started with lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, and this is where the messages we received have come in to play, and led us to investigate the original content of the article printed in the first place, which was also in many of the Spanish press.

As of now, there are 104 apartments on the complex owned by Deutsche Bank, 80 of which are empty, have alarms on them, and have had the water and electricity to them cut off because they are empty. 24 of them now have squatters in them, who have water and electricity, even though they don’t pay for it.

The rest are privately owned with either the owners living in them, legal tenants in them with contracts through the exploitation company, the rest are empty, or have squatters in them. Lockdown has led to two problems, one is the issue of squatters, and the other is legal tenants who have stopped paying their rent and bills during the pandemic.

When we spoke to the exploitation company they were very open about the fact that they have started proceedings against 28 tenants that have not paid their rent or bills during the pandemic. Of these, 5 cases have been suspended as they are classed as being ‘vulnerable’ and the others are being served eviction notices because they have jobs, have income, but still refuse to pay their bills.

At no time has anyone’s locks been changed by the complex security or has anyone’s possessions been moved out of their apartments, as it turns out this was a story fabricated by the squatters who have grouped together to try and ‘protect’ their situation as they are living there illegally.

Alongside this is the claim of the water and electricity being cut off by the ‘vigilante’ security which also turns out to be untrue, as one owner told us, yes the water was off for 2 days to the whole complex, cut off by Entemanser, but the community had it reconnected. The claim refers to the empty apartments as previously stated that have had it disconnected because they are empty and to discourage more squatters, although as eviction orders are being carried out those apartments too have had utilities disconnected at the owners' request.

Ultimately there are a group of people at Green Park who are the real victims; they are the owners and residents that live there. Some have dealt with these problems since day one, others have bought their apartments along the way and inherited some of the problems, but they are not the group that filed the original article, that group are living there illegally and are making the lives of the others hell.

The community, its administrators (GAE), and the complex security, are doing their utmost to maintain the complex to the best they can, but the owners and the banks will have to go to court to get the illegal residents out through judicial channels and aim to have the complex back to normal by next year.