Administrator dictating who is used for Community works

Can anyone tell me whether the Administor of a Community can dictate which company is used for repairs, maintenance etc or can the members of the Community have some input into choosing the company employed for the repairs?  I have a feeling that the Administrator is using a 'friend' or even someone who works for the Administrator in preference to getting quotations from other companies.  Thanks

The Administrator is supposed to work on behalf of the President and the community and it is the President who decides which company to use for maintenance etc.  I think there can be problems when the President allows the Administrator to go ahead and award contracts without having any input into the decision. 

We found that asking the Administrators to get us quotes meant about 3 months delay (or more) so now we do it ourselves and have in fact been able to get some of our own residents to work for us, reducing costs and providing work for our own community. 

We also know where they live if they don't do the job right!

The administrator needs to legaly be chosen by the owners ( provision 14.a of the Horizontal Property Act)

Best regards,

Maria

Thanks Claire T.  When using your own residents for the work, do they have to be registered as a company in order to do the works or does it depend on the type of work being undertaken?  Obviously we would also like to use members of our own community where possible to keep the costs down.  And like you say we know where they live!!

The administrator is employed by the community. He has no legal say in how the community is run or who is awarded contracts, and cannot make decisions on anything without the consent of the president, who has been elected by the members to represent them.

If you have a good, trustworthy administrator, he may well be able to recommend companies who he has good experiences of, and can advise the president on any community matters - he is, after all, the supposedly qualified professional. But sadly, corruption and dishonesty are common problems. Many administrators will attempt to employ companies who will give them a kick back, which will invariably mean the community ends up paying over the odds for inferior services. It is therefore so important to have a strong president who will take his responsibility seriously and not just delegate everything to the administrator, tempting as it may seem. Sad but true. We thought our administrator was basically trustworthy, but we had a president last year who if I was being kind was "reluctant" to do the job, but in reality it would be more accurate to say "negligent". He took his eye off the ball, and the result has been worse than Wigan's against Chelsea today. The adminsitrator took advantage of the opportunity to divert community funds into his own crisis-hit pockets. Bad situation.

As for community members doing some work around the place, if it is voluntary I don't see any problem, and in fact I believe more people should recognise the fact that they actually own a share of the property outside their own front door and be happy to take care of it a bit, rather than just take the attitude of "I pay my fees, so I shouldn't have to do anything else". If everybody helped out a little, a lot of money could be saved. Unfortunately, in reality this never works out, since those that do will pretty quickly end up feeling annoyed with those who don't. The only alternative is to pay members for their services, but this opens up a whole new can of worms. If they are not legally employed (by which I mean contributing to social security either as employees, or "autonomo", self employed) the community is putting itself in a potentially vulnerable position. Even if they are employed legitimately, there's always likely to be a dissenting voice or two amongst the owners, claiming "conflict of interest".

In many ways it seems like a no-win situation, trying to run a community, but the most important thing as I said before is to have a president who keeps on top of things and understands how communities function. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of the administrator, whose first priority is always going to be himself.

Hi again - we don't insist on people being legally registered and we get their services at pretty low rates in return.  There could be legal ramifications, I suppose, but we haven't really explored this.  The amounts concerned are well below the levels where someone would have to pay tax and we have taken the view that it is up to them to decide if they want to register as a business or not.

I'm sure others on the forum will know the legal side of things, but if someone wants to do some part-time work for the benefit of their community and they are paid a small amount for their trouble will the taxman be looking for his pound of flesh?

If they are doing small odd-jobs and claiming "reasonable expenses" I don't suppose there's much to worry about - except the inevitable trouble makers who oppose everything anyone tries to do for the good of the community just to be........oh, damn, you get me started again! GOD, I hate communities.

'Oh, damn, you get me started again! GOD, I hate communities'. Time for you to stay out of community threads then, Roberto. 

We have just had the proxy voting papers for our AGM come through the post & one point on the agenda is the upkeep of walls. Now THAT's going to be great IF owners are told to 'repair & paint your walls' as so many walls are looking decidedly knocked about. Opposite us is a property that really needs attention & the door on their water meter cupboard sited in the wall in full view of us has been missing over a year despite us telling the 'P'. I think the point about the walls is because too many owners have had their walls raised & whoever did them just built on top of the existing ones so they now have a two tone wall. We had all the rendering replaced when our balustrades were put on. Our original builder has a lot to answer for!

Anyway we're opting out of attending the AGM but, as it's 11am in a local cafe where we go for breakfast around 11am we could well earwig!!

I wish, like everybody else, I could just stay out of community matters all together, but then I'd be guilty of exactly what I accuse others of, namely leaving all the sh1t for someone else to deal with, which isn't right and isn't fair. And at the end of the day, although I wish all my co-owners would get involved and help out a bit, you don't get to choose your neighbours, and when you get landed with a bunch of incompetent, ignorant, complacent lazy morons, it's no use complaining - you just have to get stuck in and sort it out yourself. That's if you value your investment and don't want to see it go down the dunny.

Owners in a General ordinary or extraordinary meeting can decide on companies to do repairing works.

Hola Mariadecastro,  can you tell me if there is a law stating that the person or company carrying out the work on the community property has to be registered as a company, or can it be agreed in the community that ordinary members of the community can do the work without being registered  and that they can be paid for doing the work.  Thanks

 You can have an owner doing an  specific work and give to them a compensation, but it is not recommendable in terms of work accidents, guarantees...

Of course, if the job is done on a regular basis, this person will hace to register for taxes and social security reasons.

Employing people tro work for a community of owners is under the same rules as any other work contract.

Thanks again Mariadecastro