Hello Pippa,
It is unusual for a non owner or non resident to comment on this website and I would be interested to know the objective of your posting and who it was intended to influence/inform?
As an owner in Los Dunas de Cope, I found your posting interesting in that it is always good to get feedback and see things from anothers point of view, I also found it useful because I can show your comments to Gesisur so that they can see the impact of a bad first impression on potential renters and buyers, from a potential buyers perspective. However I also found your comments to be mostly negative and found this worrying because it does not present a balanced picture of what is good about Los Collados.
As you probably know from your inspection visit, Los Collados is a fairly new urbanisation and we are in the process of getting the community to pay outstanding community fees and work with the administrator to iron out initial teething problems, this is just beginning to come together and will take time. The AGM in August will be the forum for owners to voice concerns about many issues (some raised in your posting) which will no doubt improve the urbanisation and also provide decent information about timescales for improvements and what is the direct responsibility of Gesisur and where they can simply try to influence with the developer Mar Y Casas/local council etc.
A group of UK owners are forming a network to share information, ideas etc and will hopefully include Spanish owners if we can contact them and this will help deal with issues as they arise.
Whilst I agree with the points you have raised I also feel there needs to be more detail and balance as your comments read in isolation would be very off putting to potential renters and buyers who do not have the full picture and this is not in the interest of Los Collados as a whole.
The Main Road & Pavements
The main road into the resort has been used by developers as the main access for all construction vehicles and deliveries for the Jardines de Cope and another aparthotel, it is in very poor condition and does not create a good first impression of Los Collados, however The Jardines de Cope are almost finished and the new road surface should be laid by December 2007. Apartments in Los Dunas de Cope and one of the aparthotels near this road are most affected by this in terms of dust, noise, the flow of traffic and building work, - however apartments away from the main road (the vast majority) have not been affected to the same degree and in our case (Bloque 15 Los Dunas de Cope) we have experienced no problems with current building work other than a little dust on the roof terrace which after an absence of three months is to be expected in a hot dusty country. The roads and pavements in Los Dunas de Cope are all finished to a high standard and during our visit in July we observed staff power cleaning the pavements etc. Street lights which were damaged during storms in March were repaired very quickly and even the drain/access covers on the pavements are smart and painted black. I would agree that all residents have to experience the unattractive, rough and bumpy main road to access their apartments but the roads, pavements, streetlighting and gardens in Los Dunas de cope are are finished to a high standard and builders do not use these roads to access any current development.
I will be asking Gesisur at the AGM what can be done about improving the main road and pavement in the short term until the new surface is laid in December 2007
Water Features and Gardens
The water features at the front of the urbanisation are dried up - and I will be taking this up with Gesisur at the AGM, I agree they look unsightly and the large frog population will no doubt have suffered due to lack of water. The gardens looked reasonably maintained but I will check this out before the AGM and raise it if necessary
Mini Golf & Tennis Courts and Club house
We viewed the apartments last year with several different agentsand we were given two different stories about the mini golf and tennis:
A . that they are part of the urbanisation and "ours" hence we would pay community fees etc. and have some control over them
B: That they were nothing to do with the urbanisation and were part owned by the local council and would be developed for the use of local community not just Los Collados and run as a business. Mini Golf & tennis were not promised by the second agent but merely referred to as a potential benefit near to the urbanisation.
I will be raising this for discussion with Gesisur to find out who owns the tennis courts, club house and mini golf - the completion targets for both the club house and the mini golf and what influence if any, the owners of Los Collados have. During our July visit we noticed that work was being undertaken on the club house and also some gardeners were working on the mini golf course. So it looks like progress albeit slow progress is being made.
We love our apartment in Los Dunas De Cope and in spite of some of the teething problems we do not regret our decision to buy it; the weather is fantastic, it is a great location for enjoying the truly Spanish town of Aguilas and its many surrounding unspoiled beaches, local people have been amazingly friendly and helpful - lazing by the pools is not affected by the building work and at present playing tennis is free..... All that said the current building work is causing a few problems - more for some owners than others. There is no room for us to be complacent we need to get the communities running properly so that we have proper representation with the administrator and developer so that we can begin to work together to ensure that maintenance etc. is carried out promptly, consistently and to a high standard. I feel very confident that the AGM will be the start of this process and that Los Collados will improve and reach its true potential in a very short space of time
Amanda