First: breach or fraud
The difference matters in practice.
Breach is where the other side intended to perform and failed. The route here is civil: performance, rescission, recovery of what was paid, contractual penalties.
Fraud is where there was never any intention to perform. Here, alongside the civil route, there is a criminal one.
The two are not mutually exclusive and often run together. Do not rush to call one the other before it has been established, because it determines what you do.
Act before there is nobody left to act against
That is the most important sentence here.
Companies that fail to perform are often emptied: assets are transferred, the business moves into a new entity, and the old one is left as a shell holding your contract.
So once it is clear performance will not happen, time is against you. What gets checked is what assets exist now and whether there is a basis to secure them before they disappear.
If the building is unfinished
What also gets checked is the stage of construction, what rights have been created, whether your contract is registered, and where you stand relative to other buyers and to the bank if there is a loan over the property.
In these cases the buyers are often many. A coordinated approach usually works better than scattered individual attempts.
If you bought from abroad
This is a classic situation with holiday complexes. You do not need to come for the work to start, but you do need to send everything signed and paid, bank transfers included.
The transfers matter. They prove what was actually paid, whatever the contract says.
When I will tell you plainly that it is not worth it
If the company has no assets at all and there is no trace of a transfer, I will say so. Proceedings against an empty shell produce costs and paper.
The criminal route may remain, where there is a basis for it, but that too has limits.
What I will need
The contract and all annexes. Every payment document and bank statement. The correspondence, messages included. The listings and promises you relied on. Details of the company and the people behind it.
This page provides general information and does not constitute legal advice on any specific case. Rights and deadlines depend on the facts and the applicable law.