French Investor’s Marrakech Dream Turns to Nightmare: Riad Owner Left Homeless

The French national had invested all his savings in a riad acquired for 1.8 million dirhams and fitted out at a cost of 3.2 million dirhams. This luxury guest house was intended for tourists of various nationalities.

The business was going well, until he decided to entrust the management of the place to a specialist in the field. A 3-year contract was then signed between the parties.

When it came time to renew the agreement, three years later, the investor was denied access to his riad by the new operator who refused to renew the management contract, reports Hibapress.

A complaint was then filed with the help of four lawyers to defend his cause against the dishonest tenant. But in the end, he did not benefit from a fair trial by the courts, nor from the support of his lawyers who preferred to abandon him midway, he denounced.

A real battle had then begun for the investor in the maze of Moroccan courts, without him gaining his case. Even the French consulate, he claims, refused to assist him.

Losing all hope of recovering his property in Morocco, and while wandering the streets of Marrakech, he would have been the victim of a snatch theft. His briefcase containing all his personal documents disappeared. He never managed to recover it, despite the complaints filed at the police station.

Lost in Marrakech, without money or papers, and stripped of his property, Dominique lived for a long time as a homeless person, before meeting a young man from the Souss, who helped him to renew his papers at the French consulate in Agadir and to return to his country of origin.