The Villa. The Victims.

where to begin?

This is a tough one to write.

It was such an absolute disaster, that we couldn’t even enjoy it once we got in it. After reaching in to our own pockets to fix and finish it, we decided to sell it within the first month of being in it. It became our full time jobs, fixing, protecting, managing this villa, until it was in shape to sell. Basically the villas were/are just a ticking time bomb made of shitty parts that have the lifespan of a nat. For those villa owners who were on the ground here, were able to fix and replace the crap products & do the work that the developer was never going to finish, to save their investment.

The developer, Ravi (Floton Africa), basically stopped showing up, he knew all of us villa owners were beyond furious, one even went to the press & an article was published in 'The Citizen'. Ravi would surprisingly reply to emails and whatsapp messages, I'm assuming to protect himself in the chance that the owners decided to file a Class Action against him (which we did). He asked us all to write "snag lists" of things that were broken, damaged, etc. with a promise in writing he would repair all of this. The items ranged from missing front doors, leaking pools, broken pool pumps, to appliances and furniture packages not ever being delivered.

We had a legal binding contract with the developer, which was also backed by the government department called ZIPA: Who basically oversees international investor builds/investments, which gives the investors "a piece of mind", like a safety net: "this development was approved by the government and you are protected". Along with this, you are supposed to be granted your “golden visa”. But just like everything else in Zanzibar, they get too greedy and change the laws, leaving you with no protection whatsoever. They caught all of us big investors to purchase into this, with the promise of “lower taxes for investors investing over 100k on the island”…. Sounds great. But then they add new laws where you weren’t allowed to run your own air bnb, you must involve a local, you must have it registered thru a legal business.  And you must pay tax on top of all of this. So, there goes over 50% of your profits (55% to be exact). Forget the 7 yr ROI that was pitched to you. And if you decide to sell, you will pay 20% capital gains tax if you are not a resident. Which is impossible to get. Forget the golden visa they promised you, that is not happening.

We were fortunate to get our residency, but it took us going to war. Taken advantage of by our own lawyer for over 10k. Flights and fights and fears of deportation. But we didn’t give up the fight and got our residency permit (AKA the golden visa). They like to make things impossible for you, after raping your wallet; All just in hopes you will just give up. (and This applies to everything)

The developer began to fall behind on the deliver date. We showed up to the island and the villa was still just at block work. FAR from completed. He promised end of September, October, November, December, January, Feb… In our contracts it states the developer would pay 1% for each month it went over, but us as a community (20 villa owners) felt demanding this from all of us would make him go belly up. We made Ravi (the developer) pay our rent, which was a fraction of the 1% promised in the contract.

The Developer (India)  V the Sales rep (England)

The developer Ravi and the sales rep Richard, ended up in a legal battle. Richard was selling the units for Ravi. But Ravi was under delivering on timelines and on quality. This turned into a war. We decided to try to stay on Ravis good side, just trying to encourage him to finish… at first. But then realized we were getting nowhere with Ravi.

Numerous times (maybe 4x?) Ravi would call us to tell us the villa complete and we could move in. We were walking distance from the villa, so we would walk over to find our villa without doors, windows,  toilets, you name it. By the 4th time, we had enough of his bullshit and began to lose patience.

At one point, the sales rep Richard told us he was going to take over the project and finish it. And he planned to RIP DOWN ALL OF THE VILLAS and move us all up to Nungwi. Told us to come back in 2 years. (This is NOT an exaggeration, infact, these are just the cliffnotes).

Finally, we moved in March, 2024. Far from completed, but at least we could begin to settle in while they finished up. We lived on a generator since power was not hooked up yet. The parking lot and the entire development looked like a scene from the news of the Gaza Strip. We were very lucky that ours was first in line, the first completed, which they used as a model for quite some time to try to attract new buyers for "Emerald 2". (The expansion of the development).

Knowing Ravi was paying the fuel for the generator (not cheap), we felt bad, so we told him and his team to focus on trying to finish the parking lot and the other villas and come back to us to repair broken tiles and such. This was one of the worse decisions we made. We kept walking the site and noticing each villa had different tiles. When we asked about it, of course the developer lied to us, told us these were requests... Odd. But we let it go. By the end of it all, they did not have the tiles to repair our floors. After months and months and months of asking, being told lie after lie, we dug around to find the name of the tiles used and went to the tile shop only to find out that they had been discontinued for a long time.

We needed tiles replaced in our shower. (The entire slope of the shower floor was backwards, so the water would rush out into the bathroom and bedroom). They told us they didn’t have the tiles in stock. The workers on site were on strike for not being paid for 4 months, the workers really liked us, so they told us, “They have the tiles, they just don’t want to pay us to do the work.” So, we told the tilers, “get the tiles, bring them to us and we will pay you ourselves directly to do the work". This is how we got the villa completed.

We paid the workers directly ourselves to get the work in the shower (and multiple other projects) done. Their boss became furious with them (because he looked like a liar), and we stepped in and told him to back off. What is the most infuriating part is that these guys work so hard, for about $6 a day. We told the managers to fuck off, and the workers continue to finish our villa, since they knew we would pay them directly.

We had a major leak in our downstairs bathroom. Water coming up from the ground, thru the grout. We called the fearless leader, Muthu to come have a look. Muthu, who is the developers right hand man, a self proclaimed engineer, came over and saw all the water, how it was coming up from below the tile floor, and he says (and I kid you not) “not to worry, we’ll just put a more tiles on top of these ones.”

We had to explain to him that this would not solve the problem, that the floor would need to be broken to access it to resolve the leak. In order to do this, they needed to remove the vanity. They broke the vanity in half. Ravi the developer tried to tell us we would have to wait for emerald 2 for the new vanity.  We raised all hell about this, because Emerald 2 was NEVER going to be completed. From the broken tiles throughout to now this broken vanity, we were at the end of our rope of patience. Ravi did eventually order us a new vanity top, which didn’t match. And then they broke that one too.

Our backsplash melted. (Yes,you read that correctly) . Basically when you go into a model home of a development, they often have much cheaper materials and furnishings in there to save on cost, since the home is not going to be lived in. Well, those materials are exactly what the developer put into our villas. We had to pay over and over again to repair and replace finishes.

Then came our roof. This "leak proof roof" that I never heard the end of in the sales pitch, was crippling to us. We had a major rainstorm come thru and we decided in the middle of the night to go check downstairs. The skylights in our bedrooms were leaking, so we went downstairs, to basically find it raining inside. Our camera gear, our laptops, all sitting in water.

This time, the developer no where to be found.

When we finally got ahold of him and showed him footage, he tried telling us it was condensation from our AC unit.

We took matters into our own hands, Ryan demanded the manager muthu to put staging up on both sides of the villa to access the roof and demanded them to add additional shingles to certain areas and to reseal all of the glass. They quickly put the staging up and then it sit there for 3 weeks. Then one random day, they came in and random new workers I had never seen before, began taking the staging down. I ran out and told them to stop. Their fearless leader Muthu comes in and tries to tell me “yes yes mam they already did the work, it is completed.” ….. Ryan: “unless these workers who completed the work were invisible, no one has been in here in 3 weeks.” Lots of arguing back and forth, Ryan had to climb up on the roof with a hose to prove nothing was done.

When we asked the workers, they said “they cannot afford the caulking. So we cannot do the work.” Muthu tried lying to us, saying the island was "out of caulking". We went to town and bought the caulking, but now workers are gone, on strike again. We were able to track down some and again, paid them ourselves to finish this work.

one of the many leaks inside. developer says "its just condensation."

The villa and its repairs became a fulltime job for us. Wether it was us fixing items or having to oversee the workers.

• The sliding doors had no lock. Ever.

• Shower floors had the wrong pitch, so the water would just flood the bathroom and whatever room it was adjacent to.

• The accordion doors broke. handle, track, all of it. We were too terrified to use them.

• The island was completely stained and damaged. promised a new was coming. it never came.

• Cracked tiles throughout (approximately 76 in total)

• Missing outlets, just loose live wires hanging out of the hole.

• Cracked tub.

• Leaking roof, EVERYWHERE. not just a small leak. it rained inside.

• Wood split 3" wide cracks on all furnishings, not kiln dried.

• developer runs out of tiles for replacement.

• developer is blacklisted from most of the shops here on island, so we could not mention the developement name in any shop, even just for light bulbs.

• Pool pump broke

• Leaking pool

• Broken vanity, twice.

• Had to replace water heater.

• Melted backsplash... yes you read that correctly.

• single pane, loose glass panels.... It was like a flimsy greenhouse inside.

• Broken pipes / leaks in walls and floor

• other villa owners still left with unfinished works and no furniture ever ever delivered. (that they paid 25k for)

The list goes on and on. We felt like we were living in a glass house (which technically we were). Afraid to touch anything, fearing it would break.

the leak that the manager said he would just put more tile on top of the tile to stop the leak. 😵😵‍💫

Luckily we got in early and got close with a lot of the workers, who helped us where to find a lot of these items on the island or mainland. And they would always say “just don’t mention Flotons name (Ravis company, Floton is the company who built our villas) because they owe them too much money so just don’t mention where you live or they won’t sell to you.”

And SADLY, Our villa was one of the BEST. The other villas were so much worse with problems. When they would fix problems in one villa, they would just pick off the dead carcass of the other villas for parts. Even worse, the developer is trying to sell "emerald 2", which is an extension of emerald 1…. Has already collected 1.2 million in sales and it was supposed to be completed march 1. Block work isn’t even laid yet. I feel terrible for these buyers.

(This is a very common thing you see here. Projects that begin, then fall flat.) I consider us very very fortunate to have made it out, on top.

Once the majority of the basic works were completed for the villas, we asked for our titles. Legally, at this point (august) NONE of us legally owned the villas. They were all still in Ravi’s name. Terrifying. We got ZIPA involved at this point and had to wait for Ravi to pay 35k to the government before they released our titles. Eventually he did, but it was terrifying for all of us.

Its like as if you ordered a brand new BMW and went to go pick it up and it was all fucked up. Scratches, dents, etc. and then they just turn to you and say “that’s just condensation. and we're gonna keep the BMW in the dealerships name for now"

Rental: We decided to rent it out while we traveled. Why not? They were renting out for about $400 a night. We come back to find enough fake eye lashes all over the villa to give the impression there were 50 people staying inside. Nope, just one extremely fake person.

renters.

And lets not forget the time that we had renters lie about how many people would be staying in the villa.. We came back to find about 20 asians inside, the place an absolute disaster. The villa only had 2 beds? Where were they all sleeping?! It couldnt help but think of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer had the asians sleeping in dresser drawers. This is what the place looked like, and we had a showing in 20 minutes! They were supposed to be out at 10 am, but here they were, chilling in our villa at 2 pm, smoking and eating in what looked like a bomb went off. My heart truly goes out to to those people who run Air BnB's. It is a LOT of work and people have no respect for your property.

To live in this villa became a full time job for us, having to manage the crews, workers, etc. We are qualified Construction Site Managers at this point. It became a complete burden, days where we could not leave.

After so much hard work, headaches, pain, frustration, stress, we decided to sell. In all honesty, I don’t think we ever fully let ourselves settle in there. We spent most of our time outside working the garden which is what we loved most, ironically. I think deciding to sell was the best decision we made. When we were discussing wether we should or not, I remember Ryan saying to me "Right now, this is the best this place is ever going to be." He was 100% right. It went on the market the following week.

While we were trying to sell the villa, our friend Richard actually found a scammer using footage of our villa. This guy actually pretended to be a potential buyer, came over, took videos and photos of our villa and was trying to advertise it as his own for sale. ........ You couldn't make this shit up.

The real estate agent we hired to sell the villa was probably the biggest scumbag we had met on the island. But ill save that for another entry.

Our hard work.

Oddly enough, when we sold, we felt no sense of sadness. It was like quitting a toxic job. Nothing but relief to hand the keys over.