Community payments - who decides how much?

Thought I would start a new thread as this is a different question but does follow on from discussions about painting!

We have about 9,500 euros in our community account at the moment for our 88 properties.  We all pay 120 euros a year and have about 20 owners still to pay for 2010.  We are quite fortunate in that last year apart from 1 or 2 owners, everyone paid up eventually!

When I discussed painting with our Administrator he said we could use some of the money from the account to pay towards painting. He is now saying we can't do that as about 6 or 7 people have gone ahead and painted their own houses without waiting for the rest of the community (it is in our deeds that we have to paint as a community).  I have said OK, that doesn't really matter if we all pay just 20 euros next year so that everyone effectively gets 100 Euros towards their painting.  He is now saying that 20 Euros is not enough but all we pay from our community account is the electricity, insurance and maintenance for the underground garage under each block (4 blocks).  We have a separate community for the swimming pool because that is made up of 200 owners with 4 other communities so there is a separate bank account we pay in to.

My question is who decides how much we should pay? OK we should take advice from the Administrator but  I can't see why we need to pay anything next year really with so much money in the account presently.  Is this something we can vote on at our community meeting in February? I can see it is probably not a good idea to pay nothing for 2011 because of issues such as rights to vote, but a nominal amount of 20 Euros should be plenty.

Any advice welcome!

many thanks

Linda

Novice President of her community!

How much you pay is usually based on a budget.

Sometimes there is just the regular quota and sometimes extra for one offs etc all varies from one community to the next.

I suggest you sit down and agree how much all the painting will cost and what other plans there is for the surplus etc.

The fact a couple of owners have jumped the gun and painted themselves is down to them and should not influence the decision not to paint all properties.

Unfortunately we haven't had a budget for this year! The previous year there was only one account which included the pool payments.  We changed Administrators  who separated the accounts and said he wanted to wait a year and see how much was paid for everything before doing a budget for 2011.  We have only spent about 5000 this year so currently have more than enough to run the community for next year - even the year after!  I understand we need to keep some money for unexpected expenses.

The community has agreed by email to paint the properties - something we will have to ratify at an EGM at the beginning of January but I am trying to minimise the extra cost as there isn't enough in the account to totally pay for the painting.  Hopefully by the time we paint again there will be enough to cover it without any extra payments..  Because money is tight for a lot of people, understandably owners would like some of the painting cost to be offset by their community payments. The rest they will have to pay separately.

Therefore what I need to know is can we propose at the AGM in February that the 2011 fees are only €20?  Thereafter they can go back to €120 to build up a painting fund.

thanks.

The annual amount you pay seems very low. So whether EUR20 annually or EUR120 annually I don't think it makes that much difference.

Many communities are struggling at the moment so you are in a very healthy position.

I have seen very few communities that actually maintain a sinking or reserve fund and have that balance available as cash.

But I still maintain you all need to agree what to do going forward and also what contingencies you might need to plan for etc and hence maintain a sinking fund or reserve account. 

Definitely trying to regularise quotas has to be an objective.

I know of one community which has asked each property owner to pay EUR1,000 to pay for the repairs and painting of the exterior and to do that in these difficult times is not good. They asked them to pay it over 3 months. It had all been approved at AGM ....

Hi, on our community there are only 50 apartments and we pay 200€ per year , and as Faro says the 120€ does seem very low.

Just a question to others who have some idea of charges.

On our community there are 42 houses, only 14 bought the others all still owned by the developer as major problems with company who was selling them and people didnt complete and now trying to get deposits back.

Houses are porely build also and most have damp problems amongst other things that the developer will not take any responsibility for.

The developer is the president of the community of owners as he owns majority of houses still (despite not taking any interest in the condition of the site and the houses/gardens of those left empty for 2 years)

We pay 250 euros each quarter and out of this the only thing maintained is the community swimming pool area and the street lighting.

The road in front of the 2 rows of houses has a hole where one of the drains has fallen in and the pavements are subsiding in places.  We are told these are not the responsibilty of the community of owners, Im not sure who is responsible for these parts of the site, the developer will not do anything about them either.

Any suggestions please?

There's no simple answer to this question as it depends on shared facilities etc.

Best you can do is scrutinise the budget and make sure the money is being properly spent and not fictious charges back to developer or his cousins etc

At next AGM (or before) make sure you change President and Administrator as both will be family or very cosy relationship!

Of course neither President or Adminsitrator are going to do anything against developer which is why they have to go!!

Do you know if the developer is paying community fees on unsold units - the norm here is to stop if there is no hope of selling.

You probably need to talk to a lawyer to see where fault lies and how claims can be made etc. You have some element of insurance but failing that you can claim from any party developer, builder or architect etc

But of course the existing powers are not going to be going out of their way to facilitate or advise on claims.

Also as far as I'm aware the developer only has one vote even if he is up to date on his community fees and it's not one vote per property - I think there was a case on this before?

Goldie

We pay €120 a year because the only communal facilities we have are the underground garages under each of the 4 blocks.

Insurance, maintenance and electricity are the only costs which are quite low hence why we have a very healthy bank account!

Swimming pool is a separate community and separate account.