The bank will not pay Community fees it owes on apartments it owns

 The banco popular repossessed 15 apartments on our urbanisation a few years ago and therefore are liable for the payment of all the community fees associated with these properties. However, the problem we have is that they are doing all they can to avoid paying the community fees and have amasses a very large debt which is preventing us from completing some major projects. Is there anything we can do force the banco popular to pay what they owe. 

 Of course there is. The Community of owner needs to decide by majority to take action against them.

You can call an extraordinary meeting to this effect ( by the 25% of owners) and the legal action can be decided by majority of attendants ( no matter how many) in second call.

 Thank you for you reply, if a meeting of owners can be arrange what  steps can we take? There is no doubt that the majority of owners will want to take action. We just need to be directed in the right direction. This issue has been going on for about 2 years. 

The bank also do not have any voting rights at EGM's AGM's as they are debtors

That's a worrying thought.  If the banks aren't paying their fees then a huge number of communities are going to suffer.

This is, however, the first case I've heard of this happening.

The only problem you'll have is once the community decides to take legal action against the bank, the process can take some time.  Our community has cases which are now three years old!

Best of luck with it.

Justin

Justin is right.

I would suggest you speak to the bank manager and see what they intend doing with these units becuase not paying will not help them to sell - shooting themselves in the foot.

But otherwise you will need to engage a lawyer and make sure procedure is followed if you intend going the legal route.

For taking the decission according to the rules established by the Horizontal Property Act:

The 25% of owners of owners which represent 25% of the shares can legally call for an extraordinary meeting. Once the data arrive you would need majority of owners but, in second call ( which you can held just hald an hour later), you just need majority ( 50% +1) of attendants ( if their shares represent also majority of shares of attendants)

 Hi Maria, I read in an earlier thread of yours that if you have problems with a bank over charges etc you can complain in this first place to the Ombudsman and if they don't address the problem you can go to the Bank of Spain. Is this an option we can take with our problem or is it simple a case of going through the courts to embargo the apartments the banco popular own for the fees they owe the community.

I think the banks like others think they are above the law.

We have started court proceedings against one bank (Bancaja) who owe 20,000e and I got our administrator to write a complaint to "the bank of spain" . This is all fairly recent.

Initially our administrator was sure they would pay after taking in 2 repossessions but I insisted we take action.

As previously mentioned the banks feel they can get away with this in the short term but it makes life so hard for everyone else.

My next thought was to put a big poster on the banks window in sabbi (nearest branch)saying that the bank had no money! just a thought.

Nick