PART 1

Dear users of the Britsincrete.com forum,

I was not planning on coming back into this forum, but under the circumstances I have to.

Only, I’m afraid it will take more than just a couple of sentences to clarify a few things and hope that I won’t tire you too much.

Like I’ve already explained, I don’t join forums. I also don’t talk to people on the phone a lot. I prefer to meet people and talk to them face to face. You can understand and realize many things about someone, if you look at his face. Like for example you can tell if he is lying.

This is why I can’t understand this anonymity in forums, like this one, which starts from the very owners of the website “BritsinCrete.com”, where no address or contact phone number is mentioned and continues to its members and users.

Please, everybody, don’t misunderstand my words.

I do not criticize BritsinCrete.com nor its users for this anonymity. I do understand the  purpose and the good intentions of this forum to protect and advise their fellow countrymen, who wish to buy property in Greece.

But why can’t this be done by people who use their real names and addresses?

I believe that everyone will benefit from it, because people who identify themselves will be even more cautious of what they write, therefore the shared information will be more reliable and consequently the forum itself will be more authentic and reliable.

But that’s just me.

Coming back to YoMo2, I see that he continues to hide behind his pseudonym and denies to reveal his name for “no sinister” reasons. Well, I think he has serious reasons to hide as I will explain below.

He stated that “he is not going to sit here and refute my nonsense, point by point”.
Yet, he comes back to give more information, to prove his case.
Only this information is partial - not complete - and it is used in such a way as to deceit and make an impression and not serve the truth.

So let’s take a closer look at this information.

There is a financial dispute between my company and three English couples. I will not get into much detail of that now, but I will give all relevant information to anyone who asks for it, anytime.
I was appointed to design and build them their houses in Crete. These people, making use of an article in our Agreement Contract, have requested additional works and more expensive fittings than the ones initially agreed.
I have agreed to that, did everything they asked, but when I went back to ask for the additional amounts, I was rejected, with silly excuses. Their houses were still being constructed at the time.
Even though there was still financial abeyance, amongst us, G.D.P did not stop building, but completed their houses, and delivered them to their owners.
I did get paid the agreed amounts of the initial agreements, but I got never paid for the extra works and more expensive fittings I installed.
In an effort to conclude this, I have left out of the bill, a significant number of their houses’ “add-ons” and offered them to my clients free of charge. Still, the remaining amounts had to be paid. Again, regardless of my efforts, I have not succeeded to get paid. And let me add, that I’m not talking about additional amounts of just a couple of thousand Euros. In one of these cases this disputed amount is about 50000Euros.

This is why I had to search for a resolution in the Greek court.

Following my legal counselors’ advice, and as a means of pressure, in order to force them pay their debt, I have not paid small part of their house IKA, (an amount which was significantly smaller than the amounts owed to G.D.P) and refused to hand over all relevant invoices to them, even though I was obliged to, based on our Agreement.

But on the other hand, why, should I have done it, if my work and additional expenses have not been paid in full, by them, in the first place?????

Moreover, they all came at me as a group and not individually, in order to make ends meet, which signified an organized plan against me, as well as their bad intentions, not to resolve this peacefully, but to try and present themselves as victims and at the end skip payment.

I’m sorry, but no matter how hard I try to see this differently, I can’t.

So their lawyer, who obviously knows the Greek Law, has sued me for not having paid IKA and at the same time made an application, (the exact legal term is “Asfalistika Metra”) to retrieve the invoices.

“Asfalistika metra” are dealt with sooner than financial disputes, by the Greek courts, because they concern documents only.
So I was asked to present myself to court, which I did of course to defend myself, eventhough I knew from the beginning that regardless of any financial dispute, the invoices must be handed over.

PART 3

He tried to take advantage of my issues with these clients of mine, and retrieved valuable information about other G.D.P clients, by them, such as names, addresses, contact numbers, type of houses and amounts agreed with G.D.P to build those houses in the near future  and approached them, trying to convince them to cancel their contracts with G.D.P and do business with him. He has used exactly the same tactic, he uses in this forum: slander and minced words.

I got this information by my clients themselves, who got alarmed and very annoyed. Some of them even said to me “George, please do something about this bur (Andrew)”, because no matter what they told him, he was persistent and kept coming back. Where he himself could not have results, he put the other ex-clients of mine to continue applying pressure, of course all for a reward, I assume, as soon as the objective has been reached.

Andrew’s intentions are quite obvious to me.

I will not refer to this man further on. Besides, he is too small for me to be bothered. My lawyers will deal with him.

However, I will address the users of this forum, as well as everyone else, who has read or will read this tread in the future.

G.D.P has built and is still building some of Crete’s most beautiful houses. Recently our activities expanded to Peloponese and specifically in Killini (North Peloponese).

We are not perfect. We cannot keep everyone happy. We also have our problems. Sometimes small, sometimes big.

But we don’t cheat our clients. Until today we have never left a client’s house unfinished.
These people, who G.D.P has the dispute with, live in their G.D.P Homes and today they have the luxury to prepare, whichever complaints and demands against G.D.P in the living room of the very homes, which G.D.P crews built for them.

We could have turned this whole thing into a nightmare for them, block the construction and leave them with unfinished homes, until this whole thing is cleared.

But we didn’t.

I dare anyone to get into any G.D.P Home to realize the very high quality standards of our work. You can even go to the houses of these people, who we have this dispute. I will give names and addresses to anyone who will ask me.

Go there, close your ears and look at the houses themselves. If you have a house already, you will recognize the advantages of G.D.P Homes immediately.

Even at difficult times such as these we are living today, G.D.P has a vivid construction activity, because we offer a safe environment for our clients.

We build first and then get paid and all under the umbrella of a Bank product, tailored specifically for G.D.P , which provides safety to both client and builder.

I only have one last request and with this I will close my post:

To all of you , who intend to have a house built in Greece, regardless of what you think about what’s been written in this tread, give us the chance to show you G.D.P Homes and present our services.

And don’t be afraid.

GREECE has problems but is safe.

If you have a dream of a house here, there are people who have the power to make it real. It only needs persistence and patience.

HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYONE!

With kind regards
George Petridis
Manager-Owner
G.D.P Property Developers – Contractors

Topdriller

I built my house the same way as you.  I'm not one of the three couples involved.  There are others, by the way.  I'm just angry for my friends.  I have never pestered his clients for business, I am retired, I'm not interested.

Funny, isn't it, that in his gargantuan post, nowhere does Mr P concede that in fact my original post was quite true not "completely untrue" as he labelled it.  There have been problems, and he does have judgments against him.  And guess what, we still don't know his home address so the arrest warrants can be executed.

I may respond later to the rest of the nonsense, but to be honest,since I never started out to have a public debate on this, it does seem a bit tedious.

Andrew

Andrew,

With all due respect, your previous comments seem a little  personal for someone who now admits they've had no business dealings with Mr Petridis re their own house build.

"What I will say is that you cannot believe a single word he says.  He lives in his own little world where white is black and vice versa.  For all I know he is schizophrenic..."

"I have personal experience of many lies by this man; this is why I would like to know where he lives..."

"He has the ability to tell a total untruth as though it is gospel truth.  In fact it is because his lies are so outrageous that people believe him..."

I applaud you for using your given name but do wonder why one of the three couples directly affected by this developer's alleged actions could not have posted their own thread.

Nor do I see the problem re knowing his place of residence i.e. presumably Mr Petridis runs his business out of an office so surely the court officers can find him there and serve the appropriate papers?

Jon

What is this particular heading about? I thought it was to discuss and give feedback on builders/developers for the good of people who may be considering a move or purchase here.  What happens?  as soon as somebody tells us everybody is up in arms and accusing people of saying inappropriate things about a builder and there's talk of wiping out all the negative things.  Surely newcomers to the site want to see what people have to say about the bad experiences as well as the good isn't that the spirit of this heading? so that they have the opportunity to make a choice about whether they use certain builders/developers.  I am actually aware of this builder and have been told the same story - come on guys, if it was a one off I could understand it but there's at least 5 that I know of that have had dealings with this company - sorry he may have made a mistake once but not numerous ones all by the sounds of it the same.  Why is that people immediately side with the builder/developer and shout down the poor bloody victims!  Makes my blood boil.

Hi Topdriller,

I am one of the three English Crooks Mr. Petridis kindly calls me!

Thank you for post, perhaps we may be different to others, but our heart does not rule our head, we have set our budgets and we stick to those figures.
Yes there are always extras; we did not have any extras unless we had an estimate for the costs from GDP, if we could not afford the extra we would not have it.

The total of all the estimated extras came to 7.300 euro’s a little different to the 54,000 + euro’s for which we were billed for by Mr. Petridis.

We have actually paid the full contract price + 10,000 euro’s. Why Pay over what we owe? we had 20,000 balance to pay at completion. Mr. Petridis asked for a personal loan of 30,000 euro’s which should have been repaid in 30 days (Jan 2007) that was the last we saw of that money.

So you can see what nasty crooks we are! We have also had to pay tradesmen to get our house finished.
We have also had to pay many, many thousands to IKA and Lawyers.

I am glad Mr. Petridis is letting the world know “that he is blackmailing us” and will not give us our invoices for all the money we have paid! Even after the court has told him he must give them to us. That’s why he has a outstanding 3 month prison sentence to serve and fines to pay.

Believe me there many more people throughout Crete with far bigger problems with GDP than us.
     
Terry

Topdriller, Fred & Ginger

The business about private address is certainly not a red herring.  Now that an arrest warrant must be executed, we are told that the police have to be with the bailiff.  Seems reasonable as a bailiff cannot make an arrest I guess.

The police apparently need 24 hours notice of an appointment to arrest.  Yeah, I know it seems a bit mad, but this is what the lawyer is telling my friends.  If you think about it, it would probably be a similar situation in the UK for a not massively major offence.  That's why they are apparently not keen to turn up at an office and find the target has popped out.

And, no it is not the company, it's the person.  You cannot imprison a company can you?

I have absolutely nothing to gain in all this.  I have been a witness in court for my friends and I've listened to hours of souls-searching and agonising.  Which is why it suddenly struck me to ask on Brits in Crete if Mr Petridis was known.  Until one or two recent posts, I was beginning to wish I had not bothered.

Andrew,

I have heard of an old law on Crete which would substantiate what your lawyer has told you, Terry and the other Brits caught up in this.

Apparently, when a Cretan court issues a warrant for arrest the police have 24 hours to execute it.  At least in the not too distant past, criminals who learned that a warrant had been issued would leave their house and disappear into the hills, some even hiding in caves, until the 24 hours was up.  They would then return home to their house, safe in the knowledge that they could not be arrested until the courts issued another warrant.  Owing to the time it takes to get anything through the Greek courts it could be months before another warrant is issued.

I'm not sure if this peculiar law is still in operation but it might explain why the police / bailiffs etc. have to get their ducks all lined up in a row before executing the warrant.

Jon