Community Charge

Hi Irene and everyone else,      The only quotations l have seen are the ones that were attached to my community charge bill after the contracts were approved.  So the answer to your question is no l didn't have a say, these were all done through the administrator. l'm in the process at this moment in time trying to get signatures to get permission to look at other administrators (and hopefully find one that we can communicate with). The present administrators contract is up in February 2009. The only way that l've been able to get anything done is to keep going to his office everytime l'm over as he never replies to my e-mails and l find it difficult to understand him on the phone.

                                                                                                                    Regards Jim

Hi Jim

As you may know Block 1 have recently changed administrators. Our president, Walter has chosen an administrator in Orihuela. We have received a complete breakdown of the community expenses and he has pointed out that the previous admin.(GWS) had been charging a fee for the block and also an extra fee for the swimming pool!! I think that there are many things that he is looking into. A lot of problems have been sorted since the change over so most of us are pleased with the result. He writes well in English but we haven't had occasion to contact him by telephone so we have no idea if he speaks good English!

We or Walter could provide his details if you are interested.

Gloria and Mike

Hi Jim

All I have had from the administrators by way of a request for payment was a spreadsheet and it simply had the dates the charges were due and the amounts, but certainly no breakdown.

Have you paid any of your charges? Way back you advised me to hold fire which I have (especially as I hadn't received a request for payment) but does this advice still stand? I wouldn't want to put the community or us in any sort of adverse situation by not paying and the money's there, but Alan and I both feel that we should know what the money's being spent on.

Rgards
Irene & Alan

It is essential to get some money into the community coffers otherwise important things don't get paid for.  When we had our first AGM in block 1 the (then) Administrator made a great play of the costs to date and we each were required to pay an upfront sum top cover those, including for the first year buildings and public liability insurance. Clearly we were not impreseed by the diligence (lack of) by our original administrator and made a change, only to find that the buildings insurance (among other things) had never been paid and we were therefore at risk!  This has now been rectified and we are fully covered.

Apparently non-payment of community charges is very common, not to say endemic, particularly amongst non-residents, even more among buy-to-let owners who may be getting little of the returns they were over optimistically led to expect.  In another block (same administrator) the good payers have apparently been requested to pay an additional 20e each to fund a lawyer to sue the non-payers as they have no money to continue operating the community.  Also, if you have empty apartments, still owned by the developer (we have 3) they must pay their dues as well.  Palaciosmar have apparently, so far not paid and run up a considerable bill, just for our block.  The original administrators did sweet FA about that, but the new people are at least chasing them hard.  Apparently there is no local action you can take against defaulters, so law is the only recourse. 

At least if you pay your Community Fees, they will not be building up and hanging over your head and hopefully the more important bills might get paid.

Mike & Gloria

Hi

I have no objection to paying bills owed. I can promise you we won't be defaulting. But we were not in the loop at all and as previously said, all we got from the administrators about two weeks ago was an excel spreadsheet with numbers on it and absolutely no explanation. I am sure you must have had more than this!

I have today received some further explanations from our administrators and although I still have queries, I will be paying some (if not all) of the bills. We had been expedient and put by more than sufficient funds to pay the bills, but you've got to admit that it's all a bit of a fiasco - meetings called at the drop of a hat so that we can't arrange to be there, no proper contact - I have e-mailed the administrators previously and got absolutely no response. To our way of thinking the 1,920 euros 'honorarium' to the administrator is pretty steep considering what they are not doing. Is this for ALL blocks or EACH block? Who agreed this sum, 'cos we certainly weren't consulted! What are block 1 now paying their administrators?

Do we know how many apartments remain unsold and are therefore still the responsibility of Palacios?
Irene & Alan

I think you will find that they are charging that amount for each block plus the same for the pool shared between blocks 1 & 2 and the Bungalows, truly a nice little earner, are they charging another fee for your pool?.  I was not suggesting for a moment that you might not pay and I fully sympathise with your approach, but I just wanted to show that even with sufficient funds they pay themselves first and the essentials only f there is enough left!  I have to say that I find pretty much the whole of officialdom in Spain that I have so far experienced is a fiasco.  

The thought that many won't bother to pay, knowing there is little can be done about it really gets to me.  They will simply leave it up to the rest of us to cough up sufficient money to pay for the essentials and then let the place deteriorate because there will be insufficient funds to cover things like maintenance and the reserve fund.  I do try not to let my general irritation show through and do not start to write with the intention of having a gripe, but they really do exasperate me.

Regards Mike (& Gloria)

I'm the president of the block over the super valu supermarket. When we had a meeting with our administrator in April 2008 we all voted on who should be president vice president etc etc. We then discussed the break down of funds and who was going to be paid what and when. I  then completed the community snag and this was given to the adminitrator and some of that has been completed but still working on the rest. For each apartment we have a community charge of around Euros 409.00 or there abouts. We have a complete break down of where the money is going etc. I have kept everybody in my community who has bothered to give me their e-mails and telephone numbers up to date with whats going on with certain aspects in our community.

As with all things some people dont like to pull their weight and pay their community charge. I know who these people are from the administrator and have put their details in the hall way of the block to remind them that they need to pay the charge. Not liked by some ,but tough .Why should I pay for them to enjoy the pool etc without paying for it. The builders were the main ones who moaned about this course of action . I was realy bothered by that.

This course of action did stir some people to pay the charge but some others it appears have thrown caution to the wind. I dont like that attitude and I intend to chase these people until I get them to pay this charge. Some may not like the way I do things but eh in April 2009 they can vote me out of the position of president and I can just relax by the pool and let someone else sort it out. The vice president has sorted things out while I'm not there and keeps a lid on things.

We have an administrator who speaks english who I communicate with on a regular basis and I would say have a good working relationship with. She smiles at my head on approach but it has its place in the scheme of things. The last time I saw her was on the 15th Oct 2008 with the vice president in order to sign contracts.

I know that some people in my community dont like me and others do. I know that the position of president is one that is not popular and I'm not in it to be liked but to get things done to the best of my ability. It seems that we dont have a bad set up after reading the other replies.

Loz Elliott


This message was last edited by loz elliott on 10/21/2008.

This message was last edited by loz elliott on 10/21/2008.

Hi All
If anyone is interested in reading the English version of the Horizontal Property Act, which covers the rules to be followed, when  owning a community property, can find it on the following link:

 http://www.infotorremolinos.com/horizontal-laws.pdf

Nick and Linda

I have paid my community fees up to February but I have received no acknowledgement. I paid into the bank account details supplied. Who can I email to confirm that they are in receipt of payment? 

We have found that you don't get any acknowledgement after paying your community fees but if it's any comfort our transfers have always arrived in the correct bank account!

You need to email your administrator, but good luck with that. Most of us have found that they do not answer emails!

If you are in Block 2-5 your administrator is probable GEAN WORLD  email address is spaingws@yahoo.es or at least it was earlier this year (As we are in block 1 we have a  new administrator)

Hope this helps,

Gloria and Mike