Holiday apartment rental quandary

Chong

All I need advice badly :


I was due book a villa in Spain for the week I am here , but the guy could not provide me with appropriate payment methods it ended with me not following through on the 28th of March . Now I did not officially cancel which is wrong I know but he followed up 3 days later with a rental agreement which was not signed or no deposit paid. On Monday he phoned me said he was expecting my arrival and I owe him 280 euro . He has just emailed me the following :

am writing to remind you that we have a legally binding commercial contract and that as a result of that you owe me €280.
 
I have written to you asking you to contact me with regard to making payment and you have not replied.
 
So here is how the process works
:
1  I notify you of the debt - which I have done
2  If not paid I pass the matter to the solicitor that the Holiday Rental Association retains
3  He goes to the police station here in Spain and takes out a Denouncia against you - that is like a County Court Summons in the UK. It registers my claim against you and requires you to appear in court to answer the claim
4  Your failure to pay or respond means that he will then pass on the details of your bad debt to Experian and Equifax (the two largest credit scoring companies in the world and used bu all major financial institutions in Ireland, UK, Spain and Holland).
5  He will also request that the Spanish police put your name on the watch list as by not responding to the Denouncia you are in contempt of court - this hopefully means that you can be detained at any Spanish airport/border control
6  I will also hope that details of your fraudulent action will appear on all the appropriate Social and Business internet sites - eg your Twitter a/c, business sites covering your sports interests and that your friends, girlfriend, brother and family all see the type of person you are.  Needless to say your name will be circulated as widely as possible to warn other owners, hotels etc of your fraudulent nature.
 
Why you think you can get away from robbing a pensioner of their due income I do not know.


To which I replied:

Thank you for your email Stewart and please excuse my delay.

Here is my reply I tried to pay the money in to
your account on the 28th of March with no
success I felt on your behalf this was grossly 
unhelpful. I did not further the booking as per my
last email on the 28th of March. 

Further more you have no signed Rental Agreement with me 
or a deposit securing your property. Despite the fact an email is a legally binding
contract of which is commonly understood ,I did not follow up on any email post the 28th of March, with regard to your email detailing the Rental Agreement. You failed to provide
me with an appropriate method aswell , I tried to pay 3 times to no avail.

I would request that you cease your harassment of me as well
using threatening text below. 

If such harassment continues I will seek legal representation for
both harassment aswell defamation as per your text below regarding blacklisting my name.

Rgds

Lads can ye advise what to do here as I am not sure sorry about the huge message and if it looks weird I am posting from my iphone

MagicSean

Did you actually tell them you would be renting it and did you subsequently change your mind and not tell him?

Chong

MagicSean wrote: »

Did you actually tell them you would be renting it and did you subsequently change your mind and not tell him?

I said would rent and happily pay the money but the iban transfer codes would Not work and he couldn't give me an explaination and unfortunately I never cancelled which I understand was bad form of myself I know but I did not return or sign the rental agreement which he sent on

MagicSean

Seems quite simple. You made an agreement and don't want to stick to it. if you want to fight it I suggest you consult a solicitor.

Chong

MagicSean wrote: »

Seems quite simple. You made an agreement and don't want to stick to it. if you want to fight it I suggest you consult a solicitor.

You believe I have no leg to stand on no?

Kristopherus

You signed no agreement & paid no deposit. Tell him take a cold shower to cool off. He has nothing on you and for sure has a waiting list on his books, so no need to worry.

BornToKill

I don't quite see how having not signed an agreement is relevant. They could easily still have a contract without it being signed, though it is not possible to say whether they do or not without going through the exchange of emails and telephone calls.

The OP could do with getting proper advice from someone who is fully briefed. It isn't possible to be definitive on the basis of seeing only the last two emails exchanged.

Chong

BornToKill wrote: »

I don't quite see how having not signed an agreement is relevant. They could easily still have a contract without it being signed, though it is not possible to say whether they do or not without going through the exchange of emails and telephone calls.

The OP could do with getting proper advice from someone who is fully briefed. It isn't possible to be definitive on the basis of seeing only the last two emails exchanged.

I agreed to rent based on the assumption payment my last mail was requesting to use PayPal or on arrival to which he replied a few days later with a rental agreement

nuac

As Born to Kill said you need to set out the full story here from A to Z with all relevant documents in order of date.

If the rental agreement provides for Spanish jurisdiction you need to be both prompt and careful as they may get judgement against you there quickly.

If you know anybody in the area try to find out if the place was later let for the time you were corresponding about.

You need to talk to a solicitor, It will not be just a matter of €280 if they get a court order against you - there will be interest and other legal costs