Construction Company Irregularities Denounced in Urbanization Near Medellin

Food and property prices have been significantly affected due to the complex years that covid-19 left the country's economy. Due to the lockdowns that lasted for several months, the productive sectors received great damages that are being seen to this day.

In the municipality of Bello, department of Antioquia, more than 300 people reported that in 2018, they bought an apartment in the sales room of the Tierra Linda project, on the road to Machado, for an average value of 109 million pesos, but that now the construction company changed the rules and they don't know how to recover their investment.

According to Blu Radio, the problem is that they increased the cost of the apartments and the construction company will not enforce or respect the agreements signed in previous years. According to Giovanny Peláez, one of those affected by the Colombian radio station, is that the news was given to them by video call and that the construction company's approach did not give them much choice.

“That the value of the apartment is no longer going to be fixed, but they are not going to convert it to current legal minimum wages, what we deduce is that as the minimum wage rises in Colombia every year, they are going to make an increase in the apartment,” said Peláez. If a change is made according to the new conditions that the owners of the project put in place, people today would have to pay between 40 and 50 million pesos more.

What buyers are most concerned about is, on the one hand, that they have to make a large amount of money if they want to continue their purchase, but on the other, if they do not want to accept the construction company's impositions, they have to sue because they did not give them any refund solution. In addition, the latter is accompanied by the denunciation of people who for some time now gave up the idea of acquiring the house, due to the delay in construction, so they asked for the reimbursement of the initial payment and have not received a single peso to this day.

They fined the builders of the most luxurious building in Bogotá

The Peñas Blancas residential building is one of the most exclusive in Bogotá and is located in the Rosales sector, in the northeast of the city. It consists of three 12-story towers in which there are 66 apartments, six of them duplex penthouses valued at more than $8 billion pesos and, since its construction in 2007, it has been considered a great luxury in the architecture of the city by the real estate company Escalar Gestión Inmobiliaria, which belongs to architects Juan Rodriguez and Hector Uribe.

The problem, which was reported in November 2021, is that the white slabs that make up the exclusive façade of the place have been falling down, which poses a danger to the inhabitants; and this situation has triggered a legal problem between the builders and the owners, since the settlement is around $10 billion pesos and neither the builders, nor the owners, are willing to bear the cost. While the former point out that the fall of the tiles is due to the carelessness of the inhabitants, these latter say that it is the responsibility of the construction company.

However, the Secretariat of Habitat in Bogotá determined that those who have to answer for the damage are precisely those responsible for the construction, that is, the construction company Escalar. In addition, the entity issued a resolution not only holding the company liable for damages and settlements, but also imposed a financial penalty of $61,164,783 pesos.

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