Unfair distribution of charges

I don't think the issue really is about how much penthouses are paying as opposed to others....the issue is that similar properties (ie a 2 bed apartment in Jardin 7 and 2 bed apartment in Jardin 12) are the same size but pay substantially different proportionate charges....  I haven't looked to closely but it would be similar if a penthouse in one block was charged 33% more than one in another.....to my mind every garden has one pool, one play area, and some grass.....if, in Jardin 7 we are paying more because the jardin has a bigger area I presume I can fence off an extra bit of front garden for my troubles......no, thought not!!

My proposal (and I am only interested in fairness within Jardines) would be to keep the whole allocation of budget between Jardines and Naranjos as it is (not sure if it is fair but that has been split probably on total area so would be justifiable).    Then work out how many bedrooms are in Jardines - and divide total Jardines budget by bedrooms....a 2 bed then gets 2 shares, and a 3 bed gets 3 shares.....this would mean all 2 beds had equal charges and all 3 beds would have equal charges....and I would imagine (I haven't got the sheet with me to work it out) that some will be 10 euro's a month worse off and some 10 euro's a month better.....and for that we all get satisfaction that by the whim of someone 4 years ago, the Jardines is fair to all owners....

Hi PGM,

I have no idea why there are differances in Communidad between individual Jardines or individual Penthouses.  That seems strange to me too.  I have tried to understand the logic, & thought it was based on the number of actual dwellings in a a particular Jardine etc?   But the Penthouses are all have 32 dwellings so that does not explain that one?? I understand your point - & it's a good one.    My last post was to explain the differance between the Jardine & Penthouse cost to George.  Which is very clear to understand I think (based on size of dwelling).  However the last thing we need is an internal dog fight on whose paying more than others - The focus should be on lowering everybody'd based on a further re-assessment of the budget - if we think it is un-reasonable.

To be hionest, until we have been running for a year or 2, I do not yet know if it is unreasonable or not? I am not experienced enough to make such a wild assumption.  Maybe there are others who are - if so that is good, but I am yet be convinced. 

Why not give RPM a chance - for 1 year, then re-assess.  If are massivley under budget - then we have the answer (as long as services do not diminish)

Regards

Nick

I am not sure, but I think the problem may be, by excepting this budget structure now we would be accepting the way the budget is structured and apportioned so would be agreeing to the unfair way it has been done and making those that are paying a disproportionate amount pay this for ever as once it has been accepted in principal it will be imposable to change in the future without 100% agreement which will never happen, wear as now we can argue that as a new proposed budget structure is unfair and should be rectified now.

Phil

Phil,

A good point and it sounds like the most valuable thing we could do with now is legal advice on what the law is and what the process to determine the budgets and fees has been. I don't know where we could get this independant advice though. However, we will never get full agreement on a budget which is why I think it should be approved and then adjusted as necessary. If we do not approve this budget then how long will it take to agree another one ? Time when the resort will just stagnate waiting for us to stop arguing...

I don't know but intuitively feel we need to try to move forward somehow !

I think the situation is that "we" all own the management company and RPM are our manageing agents managing our management company.

Therefore if we all deem a change in charges necessary, then we could rewrite the terms of the service charge allocation which will be in the management company's articles of association (or Spanish equivalent thereof).

If this is such a big issue for everyone I will be expecting all 13 Jardin community presidents to get together to agree it. 

I await the reasoning by anyone in a Jardin apartment for not doing this...

Hi All,

There are two quotas ( well actually three ) that effect your fees.

1.  Your Apartment quota.  ( lets call it level 3 ) This is your share of the garden/block costs and is calculated on the SqrM of living space NOT including terraces.  Looking at the figures I would say that these are all correct. A three bed in the Jardines pays slightly more than a two bed, but as not all apartments are the same, there are Types A,B,C,D which are different sizes so not all 2 / 3 bedsrooms will pay the same even in the same garden.  

i.e N217 is slightly bigger than N219 so will pay a slightly higher % of the garden lost

All penthouses have the same quota as they are all the same size and all blocks have 32 apartments. So each apartment pays 1/32 of the block costs.

2. Your Garden quota. ( lets call this level 2 )  This is the individual gardens  (and penthouse blocks ) share of the cost of the community calculated using some magic formula based on the size of the plot and number of apartments.  Taking Jardines 1 as an example, this is made up of Jardines 1 to 5, the larger plot pay a higher %.  I have asked RPM and PW how these are calculated as they don't seem quite right to me.  If they were based purely on the number of dwellings i could understand it, but they are not.

3. Your Community quota ( lets call this level 1 )   The is the % of the entire CdA resorts budget that each community pays and is again calculated using some magic formula based on the size of the plot and number of apartments in relation to the entire resort. 

 The level 3 and level 2 quotas are in your deeds and should be fixed as the size and number of apartments within your community should not change, although this leads to the question of what will happen when remaining planned Villa Janas are built.  Will they be merged into the Naranjos 1&2 communities or form a new one?  If the former then the community quota will need to be recalculated and the figure in the deeds at the land registry corrected?

So the major thing to sort out is are the level 1 quotas correct and how are they recalculated as new communites are completed? And 2). are the level 2 quotas correct?  This is why I asked if anyone in the penthouses has thier deeds so I can check.  The quota being used for my garden is not the same as that in my deeds, but without having the fugures from the deeds from an owner in each garden it's hard to check.  As i have said above the level 3 quotas seem to all be correct and fair, it's the level 2&1 that need understanding.

So.  It's nowhere near as simple as saying all 2 beds should pay the same, as not all 2 beds are equal. 

But after Saturday, when the presidents are in place we should get access to the calculations from Polaris world and will be in a better position to go about correcting any errors etc

Phil

Hi Phil (ptan)

I completely agree with most of what you say although not all penthouses are the same size ground level ones have a bigger area and also have small gardens that have to be tended but like you I don’t know what there quotas are?

I don’t know if it’s my post that you think I was saying that all properties of the same size should pay the same amount, if so that was not my point. I was saying that individual property quotas are similar, so at “level 3” as you put it, the differential between properties would be similar. And that it’s the costs applied at again as you put it at “level 1&2” that are the problem. Like you I have not been able to obtain a clear response from RPM about how these amount are arrived at other than them saying they don’t understand it either and think it is a mistake by the architect when they decided the quotas at these levels, Victoria tells me she has contacted PW about this but has not been able to get a response from them on this issue.

Phil (PGM)

Phil (PTAN), thanks for this...and you get my vote...not sure what for but you've got it :)

Phil (PGM) - it was my post that suggested all similar apartments should pay the same (so all 2 bed apartments in Jardines, etc)

I agree with both that it is Level 1 & 2 that are the issue.

For completeness can you just explain why there is a difference in a 2 bed property ....is a 2 bed apartment in Jardin 7 a different size to one in Jardin 13 or even different to another 2 bed in Jardin 7? (if the difference is 24 cents a month, I'll accept that,!!)

For those of you, who like me thought that only the penthouses were paying for their stair cleaning and lift maintenence, we were wrong. I spoke to the community yesterday and the cost are spread amongst the whole community, so to add insult to injury, I have to clean my own stairs but pay for someone else to have theirs cleaned.

Mel

...maybe. However, the penthouse owners are paying for your lovely big garden, pool and play area to be tended. So don't feel fo put upon ! Perhaps we should scrap the whole thing and mow our own lawns, clean our own pools, etc. We'd save some money but also time in discussing this b****y budget !

Hi Phil(PGM),

All penthouses are the same size, as I've said below the garden/terrance is not included in the calculation only the living area.

Agree with the rest, as it agrees with me , the issue is in the calculation of the level 1/2 quotas.

Phil

im not sure which cake i must eat but i would be interested to know why someone on jardines 1 would pay 24% more for the community charge than somebody on jardines 10 on a similar size property.yet we have more properties and are further away from the amenities.

This will also of course also affect the resale value which is a bit strange if the original purchase price was the same.polaris definitely didnt make this point when they were offering the properties so its definitely a wrong that should be corrected.

And the 3 bedroom houses on jardines 1  pay 88% more than someone on penthouse bloque 3 and the 2 bed properties pay 55% more.

now that is one rich fruit cake.

A fairer way that has been suggested by most owners i have spoken to on jardines is for all 2 bed owners to pay one price and all 3 bed owners to pay one price.This only needs to be done by having a window on the property sizes as there is probably no more than 1 square metre difference on all 2 bed and all 3 bed.

Remember Penthouse owners that you can use all the lawns and all the pools on condado.The pools belong as much to someone on a naranjos or a jardines as they do to a penthouse owner.there is no discrimination.So we are all paying for the same services.And all owners  pay towards penthouse  stair cleaning and lift costs which anyone not in a penthouse wouldnt ever use.Mind you i am tempted to take my bbq up there one evening for a change of view!

This message was last edited by georgeh on 12/05/2009.

Exactly George.........you help pay for the staircases to be cleaned & we will pay for your gardens & pools to be mown

Simples!!

The point is the information provided in the budget is so unclear that no one knows for sure who is paying for what. Except for the area within you own property boundary all other areas are usable by all (all gardens, pools and facilities) and are supposed to be being paid for by all, with the significant differential in the amounts being paid by us, it is clear that this hasn’t been done in a faire and reasonable way. As far as I am concerned we should not be approving a budget that is so blatantly unfair and unclear. It is correct to say we need to start paying our fees ASAP but if we approve this budget the way it has been structured it will never be changed, as once we have an approved budget it will be imposable to gain the 100% agreement required to change its structure in the future. In my opinion if this budget as structured with such significant differences in the amounts we are paying is approved, it will cause division and bickering forever. We MUST make sure PW & RPM produce a budget that is fair and clearly understandable for all.

So to put it into "simples" terms,  we don't accept the budget with our vote,   BUT WE DO PAY our community fees

Hi Phil,

A couple of questions.......

How do you know that the budget is unreasonable until it has been running for at least a year?    Obvously there are some clear errors of allocation within the differant Jardines (& indeed Penthouses for that matter) that require resoloution - but are those discrepencies really that big - impact wise?  My worry is that without a budget our resort will quickly become a 1* if that.  They will be no comittment from RPM to maintain anything and we will be left with a souless site devoid of facitlties.  I also believe that the Presidents will have the power to correct these minor allocations issues later.

I personally think we should vote the budget IN.......Give RPM 12 months to prove their competanace........In this period sort ourselves out regarding Level 1 Presidencies  etc (eg the completions are still so low on Penthouses that nobody is standing - too soon for us I guess) & prepare ourselves for the challenge oust RPM in 12 months - if that is at all necessary. 

Only an opinion, but I for one am prepared to give RPM 12 months chance & support the revised budget proposal. 

Nick

Hi Nick

I know because I have had a number of meeting and exchanges of emails with RPM

I know because I can see the differentials in the budget as it is now are clearly not fair, that is unless I was to pay 69e

If the budget is agreed and accepted it can only be changed in the future if 100% agree to change and some how I don’t think people paying 69e or less are ALL going to vote for change. If I was to pay this amount I hope I wouldn’t vote selfishly.

(none of the above targeted at you personally)

Phil

Nick,

My understanding is that once a budget (and particularly the allocation method) is voted in then you need a 100% vote to change it - therefore it is important to get this right from the start.  I think we are better off to vote in the Presidents, but not the budget, although we should agree for initial charging to residents on the current figures - with any refunds to be paid/extras to be collected once a full budget is agreed.  We should then set the Presidents a task of producing a budget/allocation method within 3 months and have that put before an EGM.

Looking on the La Torre site they have formulated a very clear allocation method, I am not saying that is necessarily correct for us, but at least it is very clear on how it operates, so everyone understands why they are paying the amount stated.

Ted

I cannot believe some of the comments on this page regarding stair cleaning and lawn mowing etc etc etc. I have a Penthouse and as much as the Jardines owners have to input into the cleaning of the stairwells, so do we have to pay costs for pools located in Jardines half an hours walk away form our Penthouses to which we never see and will never use. As far as i can see the costs have been significantly reduced, but it seems paople are never going to be happy. I agree with other comments if we are not careful we will end up with no maintenence and a grotty resort, then people relly will have something to complain about

We have been reading posts for a couple of months now, but all they ever seem to say is negative things it would be nice to here some more positive comments as well.

yes my costs have significantly reduced from €118 p/m down to €112 p/m, so now i can go to the cinema once a year but i will have to leave the missus at home