A company in Gondomar has reached the end of its tether over a €2,500 invoice to Faro council that after 4 years remained unpaid.
One of the council’s bank accounts has been frozen and municipal property, an apartment, was seized by order of the court until the debt is settled.
The council's BPI bank account was frozen on November 12th and the property, an apartment in Urbanização Santo António do Alto, Atalaia, was seized in January this year, according to Nuno Cerejeira Namora, attorney of the creditor, Gondomar.
According to the lawyer, the money has been due for four years and Faro council simply has not responded requests for payment.
"Four years after the debt was due for payment the council told us that it would be paid in the summer of 2013," said the lawyer. Even this deadline came and went and the money remained due.
The law firm appealed to the courts but the debt remained. The lawyer for the creditors asked an 'executive action' which resulted in the "attachment of a municipal property and bank accounts of the city council."
The money owed has not been disputed and was for garden maintenance products and equipment for firefighters. "It is unfortunate that it is necessary to get to this point with Faro council over such a small debt," said Nuno Cerejeira Namora.
Rogério Bacalhau, the new mayor of Faro, said today that the debt would be paid in 2014, "I think in the first quarter of 2014 these debt problems can be resolved," he said today, with little conviction.
