Alicante Social Housing Scandal Escalates: Developer Accused of Fabricating Million-Euro Sales Contract for Self-Enrichment
The Les Naus social housing project in Alicante, Spain, already under investigation for several municipal officials allegedly obtaining properties improperly, is now facing a new storm. The latest judicial documents reveal that the project’s developer is accused of creating a ‘sales contract’ worth €1.15 million with a company that he himself controls, a move suspected to be a scheme to empty the funds of the homebuyers’ cooperative.
A Self-Dealing Million-Euro Contract
At the center of the events is developer Francisco Ordiñana. Through his company Fraorgi, he managed the development for the Les Naus social housing cooperative. The investigation shows that Fraorgi signed a commercial services contract with another company called Iuvenale Somnia.
The contract commissioned Iuvenale Somnia to handle ‘client acquisition and market sales’ for the project’s 140 social housing units. However, the sole administrator of Iuvenale Somnia is also Ordiñana himself. The details of this ‘self-directed’ contract are as follows:
- December 11, 2021: The initial agreement was signed, setting the sales commission at €1.05 million, plus VAT (IVA).
- July 11, 2023: The contract amount was amended and increased to €1.15 million (plus IVA), with an additional potential bonus of €25,000.
This huge fee, nominally for marketing, actually flowed into the developer’s own pocket.
Why ‘Market’ a Project When Demand Exceeds Supply?
The most absurd aspect of the contract is that the Les Naus project, as official social housing, has been in a state of extreme demand from the very beginning. Developer Ordiñana himself had previously admitted to the media that the project was incredibly popular.
According to him, as early as 2018, when news of the land bid broke, they had already received a large number of purchase applications, with a waiting list of 2,000 interested clients—enough to fill ten similarly sized developments. For this reason, the project never placed a single advertisement on any major real estate portals like Idealista. All units were quickly reserved through internal emails and ‘word-of-mouth’ referrals.
Given that the project had no sales issues and even had a waiting list, where did this ‘sales fee’ of over a million euros actually go? Investigators believe this fee was likely a fictitious expense created by the developer to legally transfer the cooperative’s public funds to his own private company.
The Cooperative Executives’ ‘Coincidence’ and Reward
The signing of this suspicious contract also exposed more issues. On the developer’s side, the signatory was Ordiñana himself. On the cooperative’s side, representing the interests of all homebuyers, it was signed and approved by three key executives: President Luis Alberto Meler, Vice President Vanesa Quero, and Secretary Trinidad Box.
As the representatives who should have been supervising the developer and protecting the members’ interests, why would they agree to sign such a clearly illogical contract?
The judicial investigation revealed a stunning ‘coincidence’: these three cooperative executives, without exception, just like developer Ordiñana, were all allocated the scarce, best-located top-floor duplex apartments (áticos) in the development. This fact has led to serious suspicion that there may have been a quid pro quo and collusion behind the million-euro contract.
The Tip of the Iceberg in a System of Siphoned Funds
The exposed sales contract scandal is just one part of many doubts surrounding the Les Naus project. Prior to this, developer Ordiñana’s company, Fraorgi, was already revealed to have charged the cooperative a management fee of €3.4 million (excluding tax), and he had also reserved a top-floor penthouse for himself.
From huge management fees and personal appropriation of scarce units to the recent fabrication of a million-euro sales contract, a series of actions point to a systemic chain of siphoned benefits. The developer is accused of using his power in managing the cooperative to embezzle funds and assets belonging to all homebuyers under various pretexts, step by step turning them into personal wealth. The relevant judicial investigation is currently ongoing.
