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Hi Max,
As instructed I have "read closely" (speech marks as always indicate a direct quote and are not disrespectful to anyone). You wrote:
"Unfortunately almost all of the residents decided on the last evening before the meeting to boycott it."
Given that a number of residents were at the meeting and others were represented by proxy please clarify exactly how many decided to boycott the meeting.
_______________________
David
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Hi David,
I don't know. I didn't count them. I would say the majority but you have access to the voters and proxy lists so you can tell us how many residents actually voted. At the meeting I just saw a few residents. One comittee member, a new neighbour and Hernan our fomer president who stood up to defend me against all the accusations by our new president. On my proxy list there were two other residents. As far as I know all the other ones boycotted the meeting while I pleaded them to attend in some way.
You have access to the exact list so please enlighten me.
When will we get a full report on EOS about the meeting? I refrained from doing that as I think that is the privilege of the comittee.
Max.
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Hi Max,
So initially "almost all residents boycotted the meeting". Now "I don't know...I would say the majority". You don't know why they didn't attend or how many participated by proxy but you have decided to declare they all decided to boycott the meeting on the last evening as if some collective decision was made. Utter rubbish!
People may not have been prepared to tell you they no longer supported you but it is a tad presuptious of you to interpret this as "boycotting the meeting" and you will have to wait for the minutes to see how the former "Worried Neighbours" voted.
_______________________
David
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Hi David,
I can assure you that I know almost all of the owners here and all of the residents. I know why they didn't particpate and I'm pretty sure they didn't change their mind to give a proxy to the comittee on such short notice. If you want to prove me wrong do so: you have access to the voting and proxy lists.
They decided to boycott the meeting and that's bad news for all of us. We need broad support for all decisons to avoid erosion of the community. I can't help that. I actually went overboard to get them to either attend or give someone a proxy. I feel miserable that I failed in realizing that.
When will you enlighten the readers about the outcome of the meeting? Is it okay if I do so?
Max.
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Please David, don't continue the embarrassing scenes from the meeting. Saturday made more clear than ever that the current comittee wants to jump on everything Max says and tries to discredit him in every way possible. When Max even raised his hand to ask a question the president already started shouting he should shut up.
The translator came to us after the meeting to apologise. She was really embarrassed by the things she had to say, and wanted to stress the point that she was just translating and that she felt really bad about having to say those horrible things.
The accusations of Pepe and other comittee members on Max' address were really disgusting, trying to blame all current and past problems on Max personally, even while Hernan-the former president- pointed out that Max was not the only one in the comittee last year, and that most of the current comittee members were active in the former comittee. You denied that earlier, but in the minutes of the november 2008 meeting Javier, Pepe and yourself are specifically thanked for the work carried out (childishly omitting Max, Hernan and Tonia)
About the residents, there is a group of residents who have always felt very involved in community business, who know most of the people here and play a big social role in Don Juan. In the last year a few long term renters have been added to this group, who have the permission of their landlords to vote on their behalf. We meet up with these people regurlarly -when we are walking our dogs, when we are strolling around, when we are collecting our children from each others apartment or driving each others children to school, etc- and we did talk about the meeting. Based on the experience of the last two meetings and the efforts of the comittee to slander and discredit everybody who played an active role in the call for the May EGM they decided they don't want to have anything to do anymore with the comittee and don't want to waste their time on meetings where they will be denied the right to speak or where they are just being slandered. Most of them don't think that the threat of the comittee that every neighbour who criticizes them in the future will be legally prosecuted will hold up in court, but they don't want to invest time in legal procedures, would the comittee sue them so they chose the easy way out: live life like they want it in Don Juan, and ignore the comittee.
This message was last edited by Saskia on 01/09/2009.
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We are still waiting for a comittee report on the meeting. It's clear that our vice-president is reading and posting on this forum so I would expect him to do so. It's after all more or less a privilige of the comittee to post about the proceedings. However I do get a lot of questions in person and by e-mail about what transpired so to avoid a waste of my time I suggest that David posts his report or I have to do it to save some time.
It's a bit strange that four/five days after an important meeting there still is no proper account of it on this forum.
Max.
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The comittee has declared not to post on EOS (it's complicated but although David and Rene post here sometimes I was informed this is no longer a medium they want to use) which leaves a lot of people without information. Its a bit confusing that some people still do get information by e-mails while others are left out. There are reports about the meetings but the they only reach a selected audience.
I have asked again today if there would be some form of report about the meeting on EOS and the answer is no so I will give my impressions about the meeting.
First of all there were not a lot of people which is always a disappointment. It was a lovely hotel where the meeting was held. Thanks to our president we didn't have to pay full price we were told.
The agenda:
- minutes of the last meeting. I protested against them (as I had done by e-mail to the administrator and posted on EOS). The president objected to the objections and declared the issue settled without a vote.
- the so called rules of Don Juan were the next agenda point but the community lawyer interfered before it was raised. He stated that the legal implications and validity of the proposed documents were unclear but he would judge it afterwards. Then he left the meeting.
- The rules / statutes were then voted for one at a time. Most were done by 'no objection' raise your hand if otherwise. A few were specifically voted for by voting forms. Presumably there were issues which tried to overrule the statutes and title deeds already in place.
- I was told by the president that I had allowed phase II to steal our water and electricity which was remarkable. It's not only not true, but I have a court case with Arrohabitatge, our developer, that she threatened to kill me because I objected to stealing our electricity.
Most of the points in the document called rules (but which were statutes) got many votes against them from the people attending, but the comittee had so many proxy votes that there always was a majority.
We postponed the agenda point about the budgets at my request. There was no written information from the comittee while they promised to do so at the last meeting so I thougtit woulde be a waste of time.
We are now waiting for legal opinions if we even had a proper meeting. As the rules/statutes were handed out at the meeting itself it is not clear if the proxies could vote for them. For the people attending it was very frustrating as there was no time to study the document and they were hardly allowed to speak.
So to summarize we had a meeting, but the outcome is complety unclear. Statutes can only be approved by unanimity so we'l have to wait for the lawyers. The few real offenders in our community will have a field day if they are challenged in court.
Personally I'm very disappointed that after almost a year we were presented with a statute instead of a basic sound set of rules.
Max.
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Max, the committee have decided to keep this information off this forum. They must have good reasons to do so, I do not know what those are but personally speaking I think it would be wise to keep information which is confidential to owners at DJ off a public forum such as EOS.
As I have stated before, this forum should be used for general help and constructive ideas not for personal vendettas or to create disharmony in the community and in case you haven't noticed with the odd exception recently not many people are paying attention nor responding on this forum. Get the message?
This message was last edited by RG on 04/09/2009.
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I agree with RJ in that we should not be posting or discussing sensitive information about our community business on this forum. However , I also think that we should be able to talk, debate and share information about whats going on at Don Juan and things in general, we have been doing this for the the last 6 years and I believe that this is one our strengths and we should not lose it. Justin said that we'd won a prize and that we would have our own "DJ" website, for some reason this has not come to fruition. I also think that this eye on spain forum has now reached over saturation with advertising and is now becoming annoying to use. I therefore propose that we invest a relatively small amount of money to get our own Don Juan phase 1 Spanish/English lanuage web site, sensitive information can still be communicated by email but we would still have a non public place to talk and share documents and information.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Regards Andy
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I agree with the both of you that this is not the place for sensitive information. However I'm always very careful to leave these parts out. I know a lot more than I post. As a former vice-president I know very well what I will not post on a public forum.
The decisions of the Community of Owners are public information. Every smart prospective buyer will demand a copy of all the minutes before buying into Don Juan. There is nothing secret about them and there are lots of communities in Spain which regularly publish all this information on the internet. It's considered a sign of a well run community so it actually contributes to the value of our homes.
I also do agree with both posters that EOS is no longer the best spot for us. The lack of moderation, the negative image it got with lots of people who are not willing to be involved in the nasty arguments, the lack of structure etc. are all valid reasons to move to a private message board with areas exclusive to owners.
As long as we don't have that (and I reminded Justin very often about his promise) we will have to cope with it. It's true, RG, that there are less posters than a year ago, but that says nothing about the amount of readers. Judging by the numbers of PM's and e-mails the topics are still read very well. People are just afraid to get involved in a shouting match and I can understand that.
Now why the comittee stopped the communication by EOS is not a case of possible secrets I think. They promised in their election campaign to be more even more open than their predecessors and came back on that decision. They are capable people so no doubt they can explain why they decided to do so.
In my view it's not working as it would have been much better if we had access to the proposed rules/statutes way in advance of the last meeting. I have always been an advocate of an open approach to community matters. It's our collective property and we are responsible for protecting the value of it.
Max.
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Although it was not mentioned on the EGM or communicated in any other way there is actually some very good news on the financial front. Our promoter has paid most of the outstanding fee's all well as the 300 Euro's community fee start up cost per apartment which they originally withheld. Our financial situation has hugely improved as a result of it.
I have always stated and based my budgets on the goal to get to a situation with an average 15 percent or less of debtors and I think we achieved that by now.
If I'm wrong I trust the comittee will correct me on the actual figures.
Max.
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As requested by max! I regret to advise he is wrong. The developer has not paid the withheld 300€ fees. I do not believe these issues are suitable to be discussed on an open internet forum. I will explain our financial position to our mailing list with an update on other issues by e-mail on Sunday.
_______________________
David
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The developer was sentenced to pay them and there is no legal right in Spain to 'compensate' for other claims. So they will have to cough up the money regardless of the outcome of any counter claim.
There is nothing secret about this as the developer is completely aware of this situation. We can't discuss legal strategies on an open forum but there is nothing wrong with publishing the outcome. We won 19000 Euros and we should celebrate that fact as it makes our financial position so much better. That the developer doesn't pay is not very important as they will be ordered to do so by the judge and meanwhile we have a much needed reserve fund.
Max.
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Apart from strange accusations (sigh!) at my person which I will clarify next week I must admit that I'm amazed that the neighbour of the shed happily voted to make that legal. I wonder if the votes where counted correctly. When the minutes become a silly representation of the actual quite normal meeting you start to wonder....
Max.
This message was last edited by max! on 18/10/2009.
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Hi what if you have around balcony and want to close this in with glass curtains what roof can you have ??
ARTICLE 32. B The closing off of terraces will be in glass with no frames showing, known as”glass curtains” in all cases to be
installed without danger to third parties, the same can be installed on the lateral parts of dwellings but never from
ceilings. Terraces cannot have roofs of this or any other material Irene
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