Back in mid to end of 2005 I was searching for a some nice beachfront property to have as an investment and occasional vacation spot. I came upon http://www.beachfrontbrazil.net/
The prices seems very nice so I decided to do some research. I contacted them and spoke to a Jon Chilian. I also contacted a global real estate company and whatever other sources I could find to try and verify this company was legitamate. After speaking with Jon C many times over the phone and asking many many questions via phone and email I decided to purchase a unit.
Jon seemed like a honest guy but in the end hes the type of person who will tell you want you want to hear to make a sale. Jon assured me of many things via phone conversation and email.in the end he didnt deliver on most of these. Below is a summary of my experiences
Payment Debacle:
The project was slated to be completed in December of 05. It ran late which wasn't a problem. My original agreement with Jon was I was to pay 50% down and the balance over 24 months at no interest. I spoke to him on the phone about this multiple times and on more than one occasion I asked about the 24 monthly payments and he assured me the remaining 50% would just be equally divided in 24 payments and there would be no interest or fees. So that is the option I went with.
I sent my 50% down on 10/06/05. It's important to note that at this point the conversion rate from US to Brazil was very good i.E.US favor. I waited to hear about my remaining payments but I wasn't concerned as the project was late and figured they would start up when the project was completed. Around April of 06 the project was supposedly complete Also around this time I received an email from the lawyer I'd been dealing with in the project indicating I needed to send payments and they were late? I was confused. I then got a statement from the developer stating what my balance was and it was $4,261.22 more than it should have been.
I immediately contacted Jon C who said there must be a mistake and he would look into it. Over the next 2 months there were a few notes back and forth but nothing was done. Jon C did nothing to help figure out the problem. Finally I got details of exactly when Mamucaba received payments so that I could figure things out. I created a spreadsheet detailing this all out.
During this time realizing that in fact the developer was not only charging me interest but had tacked on a ton of late fees I started wiring money to them to get current.
Again Jon C did nothing here to help determine where these discrepancies where so I spent hours putting together a spreadsheet to detail out what happened.
It turned out that Jon C never sent enough funds on to the devloper from the money I had sent him. Furthermore he didn't even send any funds to the developer until 4 months after I had sent it to him. As a result they charged me a lot of late fees pain and frustration.
After I showed Jon the spreadsheet he couldn't deny that he hadn't sent enough funds on.
Jon C tried to get me to take a piece of land he was selling in Fortaleza in exchange. I disagreed and asked him to send on the funds he should have sent about 6 months earlier.
Finally he sent some additional funds however he never paid for the late fees which were due to him not sending the money to begin with and also he sent funds based on the conversion rate from that time which was much worse than when I sent him the money. So not only did he screw me on holding my money for 4 months but he used the value of my own currency against me.
In the end this cost me an additional $3000 extra in fees, fines and insufficient funds forwarded on.
Project Incomplete
As If the payment discrpancies weren't bad enough I then found out the project was not complete. Speciific things that were either directly advertised on the website for the project or promised by Jon that were incomplete were the following:
O No Pool deck: Images advertised showed a nice pool with a deck and shaded covers etc yet there was no deck on the pool.
O Laundry Room: Advertised as such yet we had only a room. No equiipment
o BBQ Grills: Again advertised but not provided.
O Completed to American Standards: This was far far from the truth. Wires out of the ceiling no showers, drainage problems etc.
O Kitchen and Bathroom cabinets: I asked Jon specifically about this. I have an email from him where I asked if cabinets would be included/installed and he said yes yet there were none.
O No Phone lines: The building isn't even wired for phones.
O Property and Rental Management Services:
This is the most important one of all. Jon nor the developer did anything to get condo management in place much less rental services. I had spoken to Jon's lawyer and him about this many times while the project was being done and they'd occassionally give me phone number to a company that was going to be doing it but no one ever picked up the line.in the end we were forced to find one on our own. One of the other owners came upon a real estate consultant who was willing to do the job. We had no other choice so we went with him. It was the end of 2006 at this point. Our project had been sitting for over 6 months with no one maintaining it. For the first half of 2007 this individual seemed to be doing a decent job. He was completing all the things that were left undone, with the owners paying extra money to get it done. Toward the end of 2007 it became apparent that this guy was also not being honest with us. He had done some good but he was also screwing individual owners out of things they'd paid him for to help with their units. Meanwhile all of us owners have been sitting with units for 1.5 years now that we still couldn't rent.
If you talk to Jon he'll tell you none of this is his fault or responsibility. Essentially at some point he had disagreements with the developer and the developer became angry at Jon because Jon was charging ridiculously high commissions of 20% to 30% and essentially making more on the units than the developer. So these two fought and left us the buyers in the middle to suffer. Each claim the other is responsible. Very convenient. I'm not sure that Jon even has a grasp of what responsibility even is. He gladly took the 12k commissions from all of the sales yet somehow he considers any responsibility for delivering a completed project not to be his.
Other Shaky things I'm also aware that Jon C had many people send parts of their payments i.E. Jon C's commission directly to Panama instead of Brazil. One can only assume he did this to evade Brazillian taxes.
I've asked Jon to merely reimburse me for a some of my losses throughout this whole very painful process but he refusese to even acknowledge any responsibility for even providing a complete project.
Contact Information and Advertising The following are contact information for Jon C as well as websites he advertises under
Jon Chilian
License: CRECI 707-J
Brazil Phone: 55-21-3521-6450
UK Phone: 44 (0) 207 193 1472
US Phone: 1-561-459-1178
Email: [email protected]
Http://www.beachfrontbrazil.net/
http://brazilproperty.Biz/
Company Aliases:
Beachfront Brazil
Tropical Beachfront Ltda in Panama
Beach Land Development
Other References:
http://www.rodthomasblog.com/12/31/buying-property-in-brazil
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