A fair start
FROM FLOWERS TO FOOD
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Estepona is flourishing and the tourists are flocking to the Garden City
Estepona
Feria season has kicked off and we delve into the very best of them
See page 13
guide An independent 16-page the Town Hall NOT sponsored by May 2024
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d new pedestrianise GREEN LUNG: The beach paseo boulevard is a shady
GARDENOPOLIS
into d over the last decade Estepona has morphe of the Costa del Sol… the veritable Garden more to come, writes and there’s resident Walter Finch
UST when it seemed Estepona had reached tion, its final transforma developments even more grand . car parks, have been announced half a dozen new skyscraper, now Not content with stadium and park and mega-park.notary an art gallery, athletics a brand new retail since a former the town is to get decade of change It has been a genuine on the west2011. relaxed backwater became mayor in metropolis, one been a sleepy, What had then has now turned into a genuine Sol del ern Costa was the Marbella. almost rivalling for themselves: Last year, Estepona The facts speak on next page
Photo credit: Walter
Finch
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Vol. 18 Issue 443 www.theolivepress.es May 1st - May 14th 2024
TRICKED OUT
A BUSINESSMAN has been accused of duping an expat grandmother with Alzheimer’s into practically giving up her €400,000 home on the Costa del Sol. Dagmar Neveling, 78, and her husband Rudiger, 81, claim they are homeless after their prized property was ‘taken’ from them by Taha al Amine Benmahjouba. The family had sold the three-bed-
room penthouse, in Benahavis, to a friendly third party in December 2022, with the right to re-buy it in 12 months. It’s something Taha entirely denies, insisting the couple have forged the documents that are now being investigated by Estepona Court. The deal was effectively a short term loan that would free up some cash and allow the couple to buy back their property after a year. However their daughter, Isabel Neveling, 50, alleges that Taha ‘tricked’ Dagmar into selling him the right to buy the property for a small fee of just €1,000. He then purchased the home for €250,000, almost half its value. The family now claim he has since sold it on to new owners, making a hefty profit.
Decline
TRICKED: Dagmar signed away the right to buy back her home
Dagmar suffers from cognitive decline after being diagnosed with the most severe form of Alzheimer’s, something Taha was well aware of. The family have known Taha for a while and he has helped them with property deals in the past. “She signed lots of papers in German and Spanish without reading them, and even if she had read the contracts, she would not have understood
Businessman ‘dupes’ German gran with Alzheimer’s into signing over rights to her Benahavis home
LOCKED OUT: Dagmar and Rudiger came home to find their keys did not fit in the lock
EXCLUSIVE By Walter Finch
them,” Isabel told the Olive Press. “She also handed him a key to the apartment, which he said was just for security purposes. That same evening, Taha changed the locks and installed an alarm system.” For the last four months, Dagmar and Rudiger have been staying with Isabel, unable to access their own home. They cannot even get in to retrieve their belongings, which include not just their clothes and personal items, but also their medication, personal documents and even their passports and identification cards. “The complete lives of my parents are in that apartment,” Isabel continued. “My mother has a collection of porcelain which she started to collect when she was just a little girl - she would never leave that stuff behind. “My own daughter, who’s just five years old, has her toys in that apartment. She keeps asking me when she can play with them again.”
She slammed Taha for his ‘cruel trick’, adding: “You do these things through lawyers, not a few days before Christmas Eve at a late hour in the living room of a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s.” Dagmar and Rudiger, retired aluminium magnates from Dort-
mund, Germany, had made the threebed Benahavis apartment overlooking the Atalaya golf course their home since they moved south in 1994. But they came home from dinner at Isabel’s house just days before Christmas Eve - the most important day in the German festive season - to find their keys no longer fitted in their front door. “Almost straight away I knew he had changed the locks on us and locked us out of our own house,” Rudiger said.
Stolen
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“I was so shocked - I couldn’t believe it. It was 10.30pm at night. There was no one we could call, no one who could come and help us get into our own home. “We were tired, we just wanted to get inside and go to bed. But our apartment had been stolen from us.” Just hours earlier, real estate agent Taha had turned up at the door while Dagmar was home alone. With good German manners, she naively invited the real esPENTHOUSE: The luxury property in Benahavis tate agent into the living room, having little reason to suspect ill intentions. However, Taha was aware of the deadline to repurchase the property, which See page 21
Tel: 952 147 834 TM
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Opinion Page 6