He sill laments that decision.

“A financial adviser encouraged me to remortgage my home and use the equity to buy an off-plan property,” he says. “Like an eejit, I bought two.”

The Reel brothers, from Silverbridge, Armagh, chose a development called Estepona Beach and Country Club. Nothing was ever built on the site of the development and 395 people lost their deposits.

However, being UK residents, Oliver and his brothers were luckier than most Irish investors and succeeded in getting €70,000 of their deposit back through Britain’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

“My UK claim was based on me having received poor financial advice from a financial adviser,” says Oliver.

Unfortunately, there is no such government scheme in the south of Ireland to claim in this way.

Getting the rest back was a more tortuous process until they secured the services of Spanish lawyer Martin de la Herran of Abolex lawyers in Benidorm. Working in tandem with the Claims Bureau, a British claims handling agency, he helped secure the rest of their deposit.

It was a life-changing moment for Oliver.

“I left my teaching job of 24 years to help others throughout Ireland and the UK to try to reclaim their deposits.”

He and his brother John now act as consultants for Reclaim In Spain, a claims agency based in Dundalk.

“We started work in late 2016 and, to date, we now have over 700 cases for victims of Spanish property losses at various stages of the process in the recovery of their money,” says Oliver. “That is almost one a day since we started helping people.

“We also have helped over 150 people from Norway, Sweden, Germany, and Dubai who have been caught up in the same developments as Irish people and we’ve flown over to Norway twice this year to meet some of those victims in Stavanger and Trondheim.

“It has been a fantastic feeling helping people to finally have light at the end of the tunnel and, having lost out myself and gone through a lot of hardship because of it, I know that the recovery of this money will be life-changing for many.

“We have had some brilliant testimonials from some overjoyed clients who have been sharing their stories and are just so relieved to be able to get on with their lives.”

Among Reclaim In Spain’s happy clients are Nick and Nalina Jones, from Killiney, Co Dublin. They could hardly believe it when, after 12 months of court hearings, they finally got their deposit back in full.

“It was like winning the Lotto,” says Nick, a car dealer.

Overall, though, they had a 14-year wait. They invested in a Spanish development in 2004, after a presentation they attended in the Merrion Hotel in Dublin.

“It wasn’t too long before we realised that the development was in trouble — even though not a sod had been turned,” says Nick.

A group of investors started a ‘recovery initiative’ but that fizzled out and it looked like there was no hope of anyone getting their money back.

“At this stage most people felt dejected, hurt, and ultimately embarrassed,” says Nick.

A chance interview heard on the radio led him to contact Oliver and John in Dundalk.

“My initial impressions were that these guys did not carry on in a highbrow way,” says Nick.

We set up a meeting in Dundalk with Martin and, once I told them my story they got straight to work in establishing the validity of a potential claim. It was done on a no-win, no-fee basis.

“Incredibly after a process that took some 12 months, we have received our money back in full and we are eternally grateful to all involved. It’s a process that does take some patience but is now a proven one, in fact, my wife and I are so grateful we have been happy to assist others in our development to realise their money back too.

“We plan now to put the money into our children’s education fund, and nothing else.”

Things haven’t been quite so straightforward for retired garda detective inspector Pauline McDonagh from Sligo. In 2005, she and her husband Pat Forde decided to buy a retirement home in Spain.

Pauline contacted an agent for Spanish property based in Westport whom she knew from a previous posting there.

“We looked at the glossy brochures, met the agent, and heard how beautiful the place was so we bought into the dream like so many others,” she says.

She and her husband were persuaded to put a substantial deposit on two apartments off-plan in Almeria, near Malaga.

“Things began to go pear-shaped very quickly,” she says. “I got suspicious when I began to get emails and letters telling me that the development would not be finished on time.

Soon the emails I sent back were not even being replied to and I began hearing that the developers had gone bankrupt.

Like most investors, Pauline engaged the services of a Spanish law firm that pursue cases on a no-win, no-fee basis. They do not charge commission but keep the 4.5% interest per year that investors are entitled to under the new ruling.

“Unfortunately, my claim has not been settled as yet,” she says.

“My lawyers have received confirmation of our payment from the bankruptcy administration and they have presented our case in court. I’m hoping that we’ll get good news in 2019. It’s an extremely slow process and even slower than I had anticipated.”