Property refurbishment - advice

Hi Limetree,

Here is what my solicitor said before the news broke about the builder re: the electric,

The paperwork for the utility set up is actioned by Idearco who you have paid 900 euros to make the applications with the town hall and administration costs involved. This does not include the charge from the utility companies for the meters and their installation.

Legally the water and electrical company have 10 working days to connect you onto main's supply once the deeds have been signed into your name. According to what I have read it costs about 450 euro.  So looks like the 900 euro is gone.

Carol,

I presumed from the forum that the meeting at Vegamar was to establish options to set up a community, and to see what state ideraco was in and if there was a bank guarantee. Also independent advice before we jumped in!  This is what my solicitor said when I asked about the habitation licence and builders warranty.  We have requested the 10 year builder's guarantee, which by law they have to have and also requested either the application for the habitation or the habitation certificate itself. This can take up to two years to be released from the local town hall.

More than likely for the moment just the application for the licence)This can be used for the set up of the contracts with the utlity companies. Also my colleague who deals with the banks and the builders has said to me that Bancaja would not have approved your mortgage if they did not have the builder's guarantee. Bancaja do not need however the cedula for the approval of the mortgage. .This seems to indicate that if you took out a mortgage certain checks would have be done on the builder.
Carol does this mean the community pick up the responsibility of the completion. For me I don't know if I have an apartment or not. I agree that for those people who have not yet stayed in there apartment or have yet to complete should not be contributing to electric. Is the electric bills for Vegamar or all idearco sites?

Hopefully this can be confirmed when you attend the town hall.

Regards Jlynas

What about those people who havent completed? Whats happened to our apartments? Did anyone ask about those people that havent completed at the meeting? I am still waiting for mine on escalera 5!  I imagine that all prepaid money is money lost, with no apartment and no chance of getting any money back, or am i just looking on the bad side? Its unfortunate that i cant make it out to any meetings, but does anyone have any info that may help?

Hi all,

again just a quick line and i will try and answer questions, am now at friends appartment to use the internet.

we did ask re people that have not yet completed, an independent lawyer here suggests that you commplete when asked to as although there are problems here, it is still better to have your appartment. obviously your solicitors will have to chase that happening, but we know atlas are still arranging for people to complete (amazing !!!!)

there are a lot of questionsin jilnas email, im not sure re the 10 days to put in utilities after you get your deeds, this would obviously happen on a completed site, this sit e is not complete so the utilities are the builders responsibilty, which as you know is not happening. 2, the electric bill is just for vegamar.

3, the 900 euros we have all paid, is gone as far as we can ascertain.

re who pays what-- this is difficult for everyone, the people here have all paid 900 euro, which the new people will not have to pay, so you could say why should only we pay twice. Also there are only approx 12-15 residents here, so you may ask how can these people have run up 7000 electric in 3 months, i think it fair to say, we havent.

if we do not pay the outstanding bill, which is mainly made up of builders usage to build the properties for the new people, then no one, including new people and holiday owners will not get their meters, again why should only residents then, pay for all of these people to be connected.

the residents mainly live on esc 1&2, these were completed fully in june july last year, so again, we could argue, why should we pay for the building of the later escalera's as ours were completed before the arrears occured.

again, if you live in a flat in england, you still have to pay the full service charge whether you go on holiday a lot or not, nothing is deducted because you may go away for several months.

these are just arguments that anyone can put forward, that i am using as examples. personally  i think the only way is to pull together and get this site finished, and make it a nice place to live, rent out or personally holiday in, if we all pay the charge will be nominal, and claims will be made in court through the community to get back any money that has been paid.

There is going to be a proposal put forward by the administrator at the meeting on monday, this is to say that no one can, of  will be forced to pay these bills, however the people that are willing to pay towards them, will have their electricity connected onto the builders supply and will be able to use it, this will also mean that we can light the communual areas and get the swimming pool clean as the pumps and fliters will work again, 

the people that do not wish to pay towards them, will not have an electrictiy supply until such time as they make arrangements with iberdroloa for thier own meter, as before mentioned iberdrola will not do this until the correct certificates are obtained, which at the present cannot be, as iderarco owe the company 80,000euro.  They will also not be able to use the swimming pool as they will not be paying towards the electricity that will be keeping it clean and safe to use.  The same will happen with the water, the ones that do not want to pay the 60 euro for the certificate to get thier own water supply will not have any.

unfortunatley this is the harsh reality, and i appreciate is very distressing for everyone, and please remember on behalf of the residents, we are the ones without the utilities now, whilst we are forced to use builders supply which no one wants, there is no way of measuring who is using what, and what the communal areas, pool, hallways, stairwells, lifts etc are using, therefore the only way is to divide it up between the number of appartments here. but again this is entirely your decision. I think what i must add though is that if you want only approx 12 residents to pay this 7000, bill, it will not happen and then no one will get any electric for many months, maybe years whilst this is battled out

i want to stress to you all, i am not here to dictate what you must do, you must all decide for yourselves, i will always try to be fair, and give you an informed argument that you must then debate between yourselves.  This is all your complex and you should all have a fair say in what happens here. 

Sorry there is no better news at the moment, and i would also like to thank those of you who have sent me emails of support, they have been greatly appreciated, and cheered me up during this horrid time.

kind regards

Carol

 Hello All,

 As many of you know I flew out for the meeting yesterday at the Apartments, to find out first hand what was going on?

 I would like to take this opportunity publicly thank Carol for not only taking on the responsibility of President but also for the time and effort she has already put into finding out as much information as possible for us all.

 Thank you CAROL!

 Our apartment is just a holiday home, and we feel for all those that have to live with this situation every day. We do not have spare funds, but know that unless we work together nothing will happen. We understand the difficult situation regarding continued builder supply electricity, but we also except it is not possible to workout who is using what.

The debts and situation we are in is purely down to the unscrupulous builder, and I feel we need to be careful not to make a bad situation worse.

 If we all remember the dream apartments we all bought into and are united in going forward, the day will come when we can look back on this just to remember that this was the time we came together and become a close community with many new friendships forged.

Well said John, I totally agree we need to remember that we need to pull together as a comunity and resolve the situation as quickly as possible. As Carol has pointed out there are many of us who have paid 900 € already for the electricity and water. We didnt complete until October but still had to pay this. We are now going to have to pay again to get our meters put in and our supply connected. Surely at the end of the day the quicker we pay off the outstanding bills and get the complex up and running smoothly the more people will be able to enjoy their holiday homes and the permanent residents their new lives in spain.

Whats the point of owning a holiday home if we are unable to go there due to no utilites and no pool to enjoy in the summer.

I think Carol is very brave to take on the responsibilty of president. She has our full support and we trust her totally to do the best for all the owners.

Deb

In absolute agreement with you Deb and John and like you both, fully support and appreciate all the time and effort Carol is putting into this on our behalf.

Allen & Leigh

Carol

Thanks for the update and further explanation in relation to the utilities etc, without actually being there and only reading between the lines on the forum it is hard to fully appreciate the grim situation there. It would be in everyone's benefit to contribute to the utilities and continue to support the residents on site with there progress.

Thanks Joanne

I agree with the previous comments and also believe that whilst no one wants to pay the builders debt if we dont than we are all going to have apartments we cant use losing thousands of euros we have all invested .

So i say lets sort this in short term and help the people on site who are fighting our corner in our absence and fight the builder through the courts in the future whats the worst case we have spend upto a 1000 euros each appartment or not be able to use our appartments for upto 2 years while this gets sorted  

Regards

Ian & Marie Spence

Hi all

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Carol for all her hard work on our behalf and also to offer any help we can, we wlli be out on April the 18th and will come and have a chat  to see if there is anything we can do to help ,so Carol keep up the good work and we will see you soon. I would also like to thank John who acted as proxy on our behalf  and for the very informative email cheers John. As for the 900 euros we also lost, and being a Yorkshireman it hurts beleive me it hurts ,but that has now gone and we feel the only way forward is to stick together on this so you will have our money for the utilities and our continuing support on your good work  THANKYOU.

Dave&June

H i all

We are also in aggrement we have also lost our 900 eurosbut it will be good to finnaly get rid of idearco they have held the site up by over a year.At least we will be able to get all the areas cleaned and be on our own water and electric asap .Good work carol you have our full support.

                                                       Many Thanks

                                                                                 Dan & Sheila

Hi Everyone

We have just returned home after attending the meeting on Wed.

Regarding the 900 euro, it has been lodged with our solicitor and as far as we are aware even people completing now and in the future will still have to pay this charge as it is for connections etc, so anyone who has already paid this, it isnt lost. I hope this makes people feel better about that situation

I would also like to give our thanks to Carol who has been working hard on all our behalf

I found this on the eos it may help

http://www.eyeonspain.com/Secure/articles/article.aspx?article=/faq-snagging.aspx

Q: What is builders supply and how can this affect me?

Evening All

Big THANK YOU to Carol for standing as our President, albeit that she was rail roaded into it.  I am sure we will all give Carol our support and any assistance required.

Myself and Gordon attended the meeting on Wednesday which was quite lively and I hope that the meeting on Monday is a bit more structured and the Spanish will allow this to all move forward quickly.

I also agree with John's comments regarding us ALL pulling together as a community to get Vegamar up and running as we all expect it to be. 

It is a shame that this situation has arisen, but hopefully it can be resovled without too many problems..........

Hiya all we are going over tomorrow and wondered if anyone knows whether or not the water and electric are actually still on.

Debbie

Have just spoken to carol and the latest is that the water and electric are on till monday after that we dont know till the meeting on monday night with the administrator.

Deb

Hi All,

Just a very quick one as trying to read and reply to all my emails, but i would like to say to you a very big thank you to, for all the support, and encouragement that i have had from you, reading this site (which i was dreading in a way)  has really cheered me up, its nice to know that you appreciate and support my efforts, and i will truly try to keep fighting on on your behalf.

regards

carol

Hi everyone here is an email from my contact in spain re vegamar he has been in spain fo a number of years and i have found him to give good honest advice

Hi there, things seem to have settled down at the vegamar at present. I think personally the whole situation stinks, Jaun Carlos is a wolf in sheeps clothing, I promise you. At the meeting on wednesday even the spanish did not want him as your administrator, but people are frightened & I can understand that but they need to take a step back & look again at the situation. He works for Idearco always has for the past 3 years +, why ???? now does he want to help others, only for money & lots of it, his adminitration charges will bear this out.  Wednesday's meeting to form your community was not legal as every owner should have been given notice & had the right to nominate someone to have a proxy vote re the issues arising at the meeting & this was not done, why!!! Jaun Carlos want to rule the roost, Ian I am so frustrated re the situation, personally there is nothing I can do but I think I could have helped advise everybody involved but as I said before everyone here is frightened & new to all this so they have gone for the easy option but the best one? I wonder!!! . 

Hi,

I have just read the latest posting on the site and whilst I am not an owner as I haven't completed, what is going on at the moment is very concerning.  I was worried when I read that the spanish owners were not happy with Juan Carlos's appointment I wondered if they knew things which the non spanish owners did not.   I realise that urgent action was needed particalarly for the resident owners but is there any way that we can get any information from any of the other Idearco developments he has or is involved with which will give some idea of  how good he is. I did try the internet to see if there were any comments but with no success.   If there is any way that people on the ground can make contact with other idearco clients who are using his services this would be useful. The fact that he has worked for Idearco should not automatically prejudice us against him, he is after all an employee.   I am sure that he would be willing to provide the committee with a brief c.v. detailing his qualifications, experience and contacts who would be able to provide information as to his effectiveness and professionalism, if we were appointing an administrator in England we would expect such details and just because it is Spain this should be no different and as a professional he should expect such inquiries.   This would help reassure owners and owners in waiting at this difficult time.  Perhaps this information could be requested at the Monday meeting.

Regards,

Safia