The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice carries out a review of a ruling issued by the Civil Chamber that in turn obliges the Provincial Bank to finish building 32 apartments, as well as their respective urban planning works of the San Juan Bautista III Complex (second stage) , located in San Cristóbal (Táchira).
The review request was filed before the Constitutional Chamber by the representatives of the Provincial Bank, according to file AA50T2023000059 published in the accounts.
The sentence under review was issued by the Civil Chamber on December 12, 2022, signed with the number 000745, written by Judge José Luis Gutiérrez Parra and received the support of his colleagues Henry Timaure and Carmen Eneida Alves.
This ruling from the Civil Chamber favors the 32 families who canceled their apartment, but did not finalize it. By virtue of this, NYC Construcciones demanded compliance with the contract that obligated the Provincial to finance the urban planning. The aforementioned construction company alleged that it was impossible for it to complete the works because the Provincial Bank blocked its accounts “violating the private property that the company had over them.” To this he adds that “to prevent the works from being completed, (the Bank) intervened in the company’s accounting and assumed direct administration of it; prevented him from processing loans with other banks and deliberately delayed the payment of the valuations for up to two years,’” according to the file.
In response to the claim, the Civil Chamber intervened and took up the investigation of the file, as reflected in the ruling that declared the appeal admissible.
Given this decision of the Civil Chamber, the representatives of the Provincial went to the Constitutional Chamber to review what was agreed by judges Gutiérrez, Timaure and Alves.
Initially, the Constitutional Chamber appointed Judge Gladys Gutiérrez to prepare a draft sentence. Gutiérrez was retired and the mission was reassigned to Judge Tania D’Amelio, current president of the Constitutional Chamber, the only body empowered to review the sentences of the other chambers of the highest court in Venezuela.
Experts explain that the business of loans granted by private banks for housing stopped being profitable for these financial entities when the Government determined that the prices of said properties could not be subject to indexation (updating) because they are works that benefit the community.