When you've done the work and they just won't pay!!

Hi All

The first Community meeting will take place on the 28th of September, at 18.00 hours in the Complex, where the swimming pools are. (They have left it a bit late to tell us all. I wonder if that is on purpose, so we dont kick up too much of a fuss. I would not have even known about it unless I had asked my solicitor to find out. )

The developer will not give any written confirmation about finishing the road beside the railway line because the finishing of the railway does not depend on him. I know that this item will be discussed in the Community meeting, so I think it would be important for you to assist.

My question to my solicitor was about satelite dishes--- You should contact the Community office to ask about this. The person in charge is Mrs. Irma and her telephone number is 669 47 28 78.

Good Luck

Westport

 

Hi All

There will be some sort of second meeting at 6.30pm on the 28th of september as well.

 

Agenda for first meeting is below. 6.00pm 28th Sept.

1) Last minute reading

2) Approval of the annual budget for exercise 2007/2008

3) Appproval of internal rules

4) Election comunitary charges

5) Approval webside (What does this mean)

6) Subjects, several, requests and questions.

As most of us will not be able to make it to the first community meeting, I will start a new thread/post for everyone that cannot attend to post their questions regarding the community. Hopefully someone can ask these questions at the meeting. Maybe Max might be interested in taking it on, only problem maybe if one person kept asking all the questions, they might get a bit pi**ed off. Any others on the forum that will be there for the meeting. I think we may have a vote that we can pass on to someone to represent our views. Not much time to organise this.

Good Luck

Westport

 Hi Westport,

Heard about the meeting today, but didn’t receive a formal invitation or agenda as yet. The second meeting half an hour later is a normal convention for communities. If at the first meeting the required majority of members are not present there has to be a second meeting which can make valid decisions with as few members as show up. They plan these meetings quite smartly in advance J

We are still struggling to get a decent copy of the ‘estatudos’ of the community as the current copy still mentions MonteCanada.

The first meeting of the community would be when 50% had completed, so I guess by the 28^th this will be the case. The developer will probably still hold a very large vote.  We will certainly be there as this is the most important meeting ever. The establishment of the ‘internal rules’ and the budget are very important. You can vote by proxy so you can give your vote to another owner to represent you.

I’ll contact Irma about the agenda as your copy is clearly a bad translation from the Spanish version.

 

Dear owners at Don Juan:

 

Please be informed that the First General Meeting of the Community of Owners will take place on the 28^th of September (Friday), at 18.00 hours at the Complex, in the swimming pool areas.

 

The contents of the meeting will be:

 

-      Reading of the last act.

-      Approval of budget 2007/2008.

-      Approval of internal rules.

-      Opening of web site.

-      Election of directive charges (President, etc.).

-      Miscellaneous, questions and wishes.

 

It would be convenient for you to assist or to give proxy to any neighbour that you may know. I attach the invitation to the meeting and the proxy (below).

I suggest that we have one person from each block representing the rest of the block.  I also think that this can be a rotating representative in order that the responsibility does not rest with one person and it would give everyone the chance to attend each community meeting.  This way the onus is not on one single person.

We should all list questions that we feel we want the answer to and each representative can ask that question and hopefully be supported by the other block reps. and report back through this website in the first instance.

 (I agree with Westport if one person constantly asks all the questions, they are seen as a pain in the butt and often obstructive).  I have been involved in a large number of community groups and know this to be the case.

A burning issue for me is the Road at the Railway - until 2 months ago I have been sold a property that had easy access from the Airport to Train to Apartment (I know others will hire a car use the access road).  If you do not drive you are dependant on Taxis unless you want to walk along a road full of bumps/stones, twist your ankles etc.)  This is my view only on this, don't know how others feel?

Westport,

Is it possible for you to make the Proxy form available to other residents (like me) who can't make it over for the 28th and whose solicitor has not been as forecoming as yours and has not yet told me about the meeting?

Thanks

Does this meeting only apply to those who have already completed? or rather are those who have completed only allowed to vote? as we will be completing after the 28th?

My lawyer has advised me that I do not have a vote as I have not yet completed.

Hi davmunster

I have tried to copy and email the proxy form attachment that I was sent, but its not a normal attachment and have had a lot of difficulty trying to transfer it. I will try to get a friend to do it, as he knows a lot more about computers than me. The only other thing is that it will be too late to post your vote to Spain, so you will have to sign it, scan it, attach it to an email and send it, unless there is an easier way that I dont know about.

Westport

Does anyone know if you need someone to represent each Block? As we cannot be there is there anyone who would be willing to represent us and vote on our behalf?

Westport do you remember the dicussion we had about steps being put in Between Phase 1 Block 1 and Phase 2 Block 2. for easier access to the apartments? Are you or others in Phase 1 Block 1 going to ask if this can be done?

Hi Janmet

We will just miss the meeting. Add your question to the post "questions for first community meeting" and hopefully someone will answer it. I think I know what reply they will probably give. Use the small door built into the garage door. I cannot remember exactly the layout of the walls between the blocks, but they may be retaining walls (Holding back the hill of earth). If this is the case, I doubt if they can be removed.

Westport

 

I contacted somedone from Monte Canada and this is what they said happend at the first meeting.  They have a two bedroomed apartment.

"Basically your first meeting should be to vote for a president which is
obviously not easy as no-one knows each other. You will also have an
administrator appointed . After this, the rules will be made up by your
community. The administrator will help set community charges-usually by
size of your apartment. Ours are approximately 75 euros a month. Probably
there wont be much completed at first meeting-everything is long winded in
Spain but they do get there in the end."

Hi everyone

Thanks to all who gave alot of information in answering my questions in the chit chat area about community rules - ( especially Gericom99,Max and Davmunster - by the way we don't want to see gawdy awnings either...) )They were really helpful and it was great to have so many informative neighbours and we all seem to want the same - Sorry for the delay in posting  

We may not complete in time for the first community meeting although our solicitor has suggested it may be Wednesday which would mean we would need a neighbour to vote by proxy for us - Is there anyone that would do that for us ?- Not sure how it gets arranged

How often do they have these meetings as Chris will be there at end of October - Are they only every so often or do thay have to be at specific regular intervals ?

All info greatly received

Mo and Chris

 

The convention is a yearly meeting, but a 25% minority can request extra meetings or the president can decide that one is needed.

While we are waiting to hear how the first community meeting went (the silence at the moment is deafening...) I came across some notes re voting rights, rules etc which I thought might be helpful to all those experiencing this system for the first time. I hope they are not too lengthy or boring to read!!

Entering a Community and the Role of the President

What is a community and what will it cost me?

Nearly everyone buying a home in Spain will automatically become a member of a community. They will be expected to contribute financially to the community in line with their share or “coefficient”. This share is written into the title deeds “Escritura” of the purchased property and is not changeable except in rare circumstances (sub division etc.). The coefficient is calculated when the community is completed and, as a rule of thumb, is roughly proportional to the size of your apartment or house in relation to the overall size of the community.

What you actually pay will be your share of any expenditure* agreed at an Annual General Meeting or an Extraordinary General Meeting. It is your responsibility to be aware of these charges and to pay them ignorance is no excuse and bills are not sent. There are two very good reasons for paying your community charges on time. The first is the moral issue as you are expecting your fellow owners to finance you if you do not pay and in some cases the community will deteriorate as, of course, the cleaners and gardeners won’t work for nothing. The second reason is that the community now has the ability to (through court action of course) freeze your bank account and seize the apartment. Of course this is always a last resort and time consuming but the community always wins and the costs are charged to the delinquent owner. The community can also apply penal charges to late payments and owners in debt have no voting rights at a meeting.

A word of warning here. Before you sign at the notary always make sure that your solicitor has obtained a certificate from the community showing any debt on the property. If he/she hasn’t then sorry, any debt becomes yours. Obviously this also applies to any outstanding mortgages on the property but this is not a community issue and your solicitor SHOULD check everything. In Spain the debt is on the property not the individual.

* If a charge, even if voted for by a majority, is classed as an improvement and your individual cost exceeds 3 months community charge then you do not have to pay however you can not participate in the improvement. For example if at an AGM it was voted to install a satellite system to pick up Greek T.V. stations and you did not wish to receive these programmes then you would not have to pay. For more detailed explanations refer to the Horizontal Laws. So what do I pay for?

Essentially the charges are to cover the general costs of maintaining the communal elements (gardens, swimming pools etc) of which you have full use. You will not be required to pay for things you would not use (for example lift maintenance if you live on the ground floor) however it is not your decision. It will be written in the community rules. Generally the President or Administrator will be pleased to give you a copy before you buy.

Who decides what we pay and who we employ?

Basically you do. The thing you must always remember is that the community belongs to you. Never ever say “They” have done this or that because anything important or costly (except legal necessities) is voted for at an A.G.M. or E.G.M. and you have the same rights as all the other owners. Ensure that your voice is heard either by attending the meeting or appointing a proxy to vote on your behalf. You have the right to put forward any proposals or reject any proposals or budgets.

But someone has to do the day to day stuff.

The President is in charge of the community and has total authority as your representative. He/she is ultimately responsible in law for the actions of the community and represents the community in all legal aspects. He/she is a signatory, together with the administrator for cheques and bank payments. The role of President is mandatory. If no one volunteers then a simple drawing of lots takes place and the winner (loser!) is President. He/she she must apply to the court to be relieved of the office and, as any legal action takes forever here, there is no point as the office is for one year. Obviously any person who does not wish to be President will not function correctly and in such a case will probably leave all the work to the Administrator. The Administrator is again a legal requirement but unless the community is very small then the Administrator will be an employed professional with the necessary software, staff and experience to support and advise the President but it is the President who makes the decisions.

At the A.G.M. the President will present the actual expenditure for the prior year and the budget for the coming year. These must be approved by the meeting. Generally sufficient information on expenditure is sent with the meeting invitation. The approval of the expenditure and budget together with the election (re election) of the President and Administrator plus agreement of the previous years minutes are mandatory agenda items. Proposals from owners are other agenda items but to be voted on must be mentioned in the posted agenda. Discussion on “Any other business” can be held and, if the meeting agrees the President will call a future E.G.M. to vote on the issue.

This may all seem fairly complex but in fact the laws relating to how a community must be governed are straight forward and epitomize a democratic regime. That is why it is important that your voice is heard.

The HORIZONTAL LAWS can be downloaded from the link below, however the community rules can only be obtained from the Administrator or President of your community. These rules cover behaviour, pets etc. in the community. It’s no good buying an apartment only to find Fido can not share it with you. You also have the right (as an owner) to inspect all the previous years minutes including balance sheets.

One or two points worth mentioning about meetings.

Generally only the President can call a meeting however 25% of the owners combined can legally call a meeting through the Administrator if the President refuses.

A meeting always has two start times or “calls”. For the meeting to be legal on the first “call” 51% of owners must attend to form a quorum. As this very rarely happens the law states that any number of owners form a quorum when a second meeting is arranged but that this meeting must be at least thirty minutes after the first call. Therefore when you are invited to an A.G.M. it will have “First Call” and “Second Call” times. The second call being thirty minutes after the first and the time the meeting will start.

As mentioned it is possible under this system for two or three owners to steer the community in a direction to suit them which may not suit you, so again the message is participate in person or by proxy.

Unless the community has vastly different sizes of homes most owners coefficients will be similar enough that a simple majority vote will decide. The condition is one owner one vote (not one vote per apartment). Strictly speaking a proposal can only be passed if it has a majority of owners and coefficients however if a situation occurs when a majority of coefficients (for example the builder may still own half the community so has 50% of the coefficients but only one vote) is for a proposal and a majority of owners are against he can not force through his proposal because both criteria are not met.

What else will I have to pay?

To the community, nothing else, only your community charges and any one offs agreed at a meeting.

I.B.I. Is, more or less, local rates and is charged once a year (Between 15th March and 22nd May)

Tasa Basura. Is for rubbish collection and is taken twice a year (Between 24th April to 30th June and 3rd July to 17th September)

It is better to ask your solicitor to set up direct debits for all the above plus your electric and water charges, he/she should do this automatically as it is included in his fees which are always a fixed percent. If you go back later and ask him/her you may be charged again. When they are set up it is hassle free as long as you keep money in your account. Even if only one payment is missed the companies will not try again and you may find your water or electric cut off for a bill you missed last year or an old I.B.I. bill that attracts interest at 10% if not paid.

Tips.

If the majority of owners are one nationality it will greatly influence the way the community is run. The owners are the community.

Ask what language is used at meetings and in written communication. If the owners vote for Chinese then Chinese it is with no obligation to translate (Although the official meeting minutes must be filed in Spanish)

Of course do your best to learn Spanish and you will get more from life here.

Download and read the Horizontal Laws

This is the link:

http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/horizontal-laws.pdf

This message was last edited by gericom99 on 9/30/2007.

 Dear all,

Sorry about the long delay. This was one of those weekends where technology us failed as we were completely without internet. I hoped someone else would have reported back but I see this hasn’t happened. However there was no need to get worried about the meeting. We didn’t have a major row and ended up in hospital J 

My initial expectations about the meeting, based on other communities in Spain, turned out to be completely wrong. Usually the developer attends with the votes of a lot of unsold apartments, dominates the meeting and appoints himself as president. However he didn’t show up, so unexpectedly it turned out to be a real democratic process. To get a feel for the setting: imagine all those people standing near to the pool in a sort of circle debating between themselves or as a group with hardly any structure to it. Nobody really presided over it as we didn’t have a president appointed as yet. Now realize that this went on for almost three hours! The Spanish didn’t seem to tire at all. We were saved by the rain otherwise it would have been even longer.

In total there were about forty people, representing something like thirty apartments. I think there were ten representatives of the english speaking community. The administration office was represented by two persons. I must say that they didn’t seem chosen based on their loyalty to the developer. They were quite critical of Arrohabitatge. It looks like a nice, modern administration office which already had done quite some work on our behalf.

The meeting was held in Spanish, with some short translations in English. However while translating, the discussions in Spanish went on, so I have concentrated on the Spanish part. (If I concentrate real hard I get the drift of a Spanish discussion; it helps that people often repeat themselves on these meetings J)

The administration office explained to us that:

-          electricity is delayed because our development was not yet entered into the computer system of Sevillana. The expectation is that this will be solved this week. At the moment the communal areas (escalators, pools, hallways) have no electricity. They are working on that. Individual owners have to apply for their private apartments themselves.

-          We have no license for the pools yet as they can’t be cleaned and the water circulated due to the lack of electricity

-          We are only allowed to use the pools with a lifeguard on the premises and for a maximum of three months a year. (this shocked me as I always thought our pools were small enough to escape the strict law on pools). Outside this period they ought to be closed, but we can probably use them at our own risk. It’s more efficient and nicer looking to keep them filled and cleaned all year round so they are available. Based on my experience in other developments I wonder if the president won’t close them as he carries the responsibility.

-          Telefonica doesn’t have lines available in our area. When and if this will change is unknown.

-          The administrator already researched an alternative and Iberbanda is prepared to install their W-Lan system in our area at no installation costs if at least thirty people sign up for it. This will provide you with a fixed telephone number and an internet connection. As I’m currently using their system I know all about it. Cost will be about forty Euros a months which is comparable to ADSL in Spain.

-          The elevators can’t be operated at the moment as there has to be a working fixed telephone connection in them. See above. The alternative is a very expensive sort of ‘mobile’ connection.

-          The administrator had a budget proposal which we at the end agreed on for the coming months only.

-          There was a list handed out with the exact monthly contributions specified for each apartment.  To give you an idea: a one bed apt is about 40 Euros, most two bedrooms are in the 60 to 75 category, penthouses pay 85 and the owners of a semi-sotano corner apartment (we!) pay a hefty 122 Euros a month.

-          The administration office operates a internet based community portal where you can log in and have access to all important documents, the minutes, etc. You also put forward questions to them. (*and no: I’m not giving you the login code on this very public forum*)

After the informative part discussions started about several problems. Snags in the buildings themselves, cleaning (always a big issue in community meetings; one half wants to reduce the budget, the other half want better cleaning etc.), the community rules, awnings, glass curtains and security.

I don’t have access to the official minutes of the meeting so consider my report as an informal impression and don’t complain if I misunderstood or incorrect describe what has been decided.

Security: I was strongly in favour of keeping the vigilante. Some of the Spanish were opposed to it. The English faction was silent on most issues. We settled on a compromise. We (DJ I) will do the gardens of DJ II until these are completed. This is in our interest as these gardens would otherwise get full of weed. In exchange we propose to the promoter to keep on paying the vigilante. Seems like a good deal, but it has to be approved by Arrohabitatge.

Cleaning: we decided on a provisional schedule and one owner who operates a cleaning business herself will monitor the works and propose a possibly better schedule at the next meeting.

Community rules: to be decided on later when more owners are attending. We want to have a next meeting at the end of the year. I raised the problem what to do with awnings, glass curtains and aircons which will be installed in the coming months. Luckily the Spanish agreed with me that this had to be solved now as it’s very hard to get people to change it afterwards.

Awnings: they all have to be the same colour. We even decided which one but your reporter was distracted by another discussion so he missed it.

Glass curtains: they ruin the architecture of the building and the majority was opposed to it. We found the perfect solution: only frameless curtains are allowed.

Finally we had to choose our official officers. It’s not a sought after job, but in the end Hernan Lamandia was willing to act as president. To represent the foreigners it seemed the Spanish wise to have a non Spanish vice-president. Yours truly took his responsibility as nobody else was prepared to do it. We also appointed a ‘vocal’, which literally translated is a voice. It’s a member without formal responsibilities but he or she will be the deciding vote if the other two can’t agree. There was some argument who to choose as there were two candidates, but I missed the final decision.

A very long post, but believe me: reading it at your computer is light work compared to the three hours of full concentration without the comfort of a chair and some refreshments!

This message was last edited by max! on 10/1/2007.

Hi Max (and others),

Thanks for this short and (somehow :o) precise minutes, much appreciated. I'm sure that it must have been hard to get through.

About the awnings, I belive that they have choosen the one there have been installed since june in the appartment in picture 1 at the "June 12th - 83607" series. It looks like it's some kind of yellow.

Hi Max,

Thanks for such a comprehensive report on the proceedings at the first community meeting. It is good to see that the administrator's people seem to have a professional approach and are not necessarily following the developer's line. 

I understood from your post on 26th September under "Utilities" that electricity was now available on site - is this correct?

Also was there any mention of provision of communal or individual satellite dishes ?  An other thing that needs attention and looks bad at the moment is the green foliage on the front of the various embankments - it is very patchy in places and probably needs some help... maybe some Guinness would work wonders.

I would buy into the W-Lan telephone deal if they can find another 29!