WHEN the small group of mourners gathered in Faro on March 5, it was appropriately one of the worst spells of weather on record.
A bleak day on the Algarve, they had come to mourn the passing of a once jolly, larger-than-life expat, Stephen Nelson, who had run one of the costas’ best-known foreign businesses.
While only four people made the low-key service, the real tragedy was soon to become apparent: Nelson’s company, Iberian Funeral Plans, was collapsing with likely thousands of victims now facing losing their investments of at least €4,000 each.
As a lawsuit is launched to help them get their money back, questions of where the estimated millions have gone are seemingly buried with Nelson.
It is a mighty fall for a company that at its peak had nine offices around the Iberian Peninsula and dozens of employees.
Initially launched as SPN funeral plans in 2006, it advertised on radio stations and almost every expat publication in Spain.
Selling funeral plans that wouldn’t leave loved ones with costly burial services, thousands took up the offer, often paying monthly or annually.
But what they couldn’t know was the company had never been officially regulated and their funds were in no way protected from mismanagement, or worse.
As the Olive Press has now established in a hard-hitting investigation spanning three countries, the firm and its subsidiaries had been in free fall for years and was extremely badly run.
What is also now certain, since Nelson died in February, funerals around Spain and in the UK have stopped getting paid, causing untold anguish at a time of major grief.
Despite the website still working, selling the ‘Oak plan’ for €7,250 and additional ‘mortuary days’ at €185, nobody has confirmed the collapse of Iberian or what is going on.
As Myra Azzopardi, at Spain’s Citizens Advice Bureau, explained this week this is ‘extremely unusual’ and completely ‘heartless’.
A lawyer, Carlos Haering, who we reveal on our front page is launching a legal claim, added: “It’s clear the company doesn’t intend to provide any services or reimburse the money taken.”
Downfall
It appears the downturn for Iberian began when Nelson moved from Alhaurin el Grande, in Malaga, to the Algarve just under a decade ago.
Facing various legal issues with rival funeral companies, he decided it would be easier to base himself there, while leaving a team to run the main office in Alhaurin.
Unfortunately though, his health took a turn for the worse and a serious battle with chronic diabetes left him without a leg and with other side effects.
The Olive Press has established that he died in Lagos after being admitted to hospital from his home in the village of Altura, in February.
Living alone, since his partner Karen Krejzl left him to return to Spain, he rarely socialised and only saw his daughter Emma on occasional visits from the UK.
Emma and her husband made up half the mourners at his funeral last month and, so far, she has refused to open up about his death.
“He died a sad and lonely man,” an expat friend, based on the Algarve, told the Olive Press this week. “And he certainly didn’t live a ‘jet set’ or affluent lifestyle.
“Every morning he would have two coffees and a cheese and ham sandwich at his local cafe. That was it.”
But Nelson certainly wasn’t living on the bread line.
He had a small boat, appropriately named Heaven Can Wait, plus a five-bedroom home currently for sale at just under one million euros.
The amazing villa with a giant swimming pool, gym and two jacuzzis sat atop its own hill overlooking the sea.
“But just because he had this big house doesn’t mean he had a lot of money,” continued the friend, who had known him for years.
“He had taken a backseat from the business for a long time because he was ill and Iberian certainly wasn’t just him,” he added pointedly.
So who was running the business?
While there is, as yet, no cast iron proof of wrongdoing or even an intent to mislead, Iberian’s agents have been jumping ship for some years and all the offices began to shut one by one until the service was run solely online.
Iberian’s main office in Alhaurin closed just a year ago, we have established, and is now rented out to a real estate company.
One agent, Roger Brierley, who claims he left Iberian’s Costa Blanca office in 2022, told the Olive Press the company was ‘running fine’ back then.
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He insisted he was shocked at its recent closure and he had been attempting to contact ‘others involved’ over recent weeks, with ‘no luck’. He refused to hand over any names or numbers.
As the Olive Press understands it, the company is now in the hands of Nelson’s children and, possibly, his ex-partner Karen Krejzl, while a long-time employee, Jose Luis Rios, was working for Iberian, in Malaga, as recently as February.
Nelson’s sister, Fiona Webb – who was involved with the UK arm of the business registered under the name IFP – Iberian Ltd, until 2024 – has not responded.
Webb, based in Stockport, was appointed company director from May 2012 until her resignation in 2023 and the business was dissolved voluntarily last year.
On paper, English expat Krejzl, whose parents live in Manilva, was the director of the Spanish subsidiary, Iberian Servicios Funerarios SL, from 2016 to 2023.
While she officially resigned as administrator in September 2023, she is said to have been running the Alhaurin-based company from the sidelines, in particular looking after the Spanish-based clients, while Nelson looked after the Portuguese ones.
While we were unable to locate Krejzl during a visit to the former headquarters in Alhaurin, we did talk to her son Thomas, who lives nearby.
While admitting he had been an employee ‘a long time ago’ (we have correspondence of Thomas representing Iberian in May 2023) he insisted Nelson was the ‘boss’ and he was still owed money.
“I was one of the many not paid,” he said, but then began to clam up. “I’ve got nothing further to add.” When asked if his mother Karen would talk to us he insisted she had ‘nothing to say’.
More telling is a series of recent messages, seen by the Olive Press, purportedly sent from Nelson’s daughter Emma to Krejzl over the last couple of weeks.
As the true extent of the collapse began to become known, she wrote that Krejzl was ‘fully accountable for its (Iberian’s) actions’ and threatened legal moves.
In the Whats Apps addressed to Krejzl and seen by this paper, she wrote: “You were involved in that company as was your son, Thomas. I was never part of it and have no knowledge of its operations beyond the fact that it deals with funerals.
“You, Thomas and Jose Luis continued to run the company for years after my father stepped back due to ill health.
“You are fully accountable for its actions, and your names will be provided to my lawyer… and I am deeply upset that it’s come to this.
“I am not being left in the shit when I wasn’t even involved!”
We were unable to contact Jose Luis Rios as we went to press.
Going under
Things were clearly not well with the authorities in the UK dissolving a sister company IFP – Iberian Ltd, in January last year.
The writing was on the wall when the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) started to regulate pre-paid funeral plans in 2022.
Iberian did not apply for authorisation, meaning the Financial Services Compensation Scheme could not protect its clients if it went bankrupt.
The FCA went on to advise people not to buy a plan from the firm if they wanted their funeral in the UK.
In Spain, the industry has never been regulated and it is unclear of Iberian’s two linked companies status.
Iberian Funeral Plans SL is still listed as trading here, having set up in 2011, to take over from the sister company SPN Funeral Plans. Nelson is listed as the owner and administrator.
A separate company Iberian Servicios Funerarios SL was up in 2016 with a start-up capital of €12,000.
Click here to read more Spain News from The Olive Press.
We are one of the many with two funeral plans and would appreciate being kept up to date
We will keep monitoring the story and trying to get to the bottom of it…
You can also contact Myra at Spain’s Citizens Advice Bureau who are coordinating a joint action v Iberian
I have also lost my plan with Iberian, I have no savings to join the joint action and at 77 on a very basic pension,cannot afford another plan! I so hope someone is brought to task over this fraud.