How much community fees do you pay??

We are a community of 60 apartments on Mijas Costa, the community has been built for just over 10 years and to date we have run the community very professionally and on quite a health budget. we build-in a painting and emergency fund provision each year and as by law have 10% of the community total held as a Float, both of these are in higher interest paying accounts and the interest goes into the annual pot! 

The whole community has been painted 3 x in that period and buildings, communal areas, gardens and pool are all kept to a very high standard, which is reflected in the knowledge that property sales on the community happen quite quickly and the prices achieved are above average considering the property marketplace.

fortunately we have only two debtors on the community - one couple who owe 12K euros and another appartment that owe3K euros which we hope to resolve this summer. the large debt has been filed for annually and we believe the property will be repossessed soon and auctioned, where upon we hope that we will get our money back?

As the community gets older the maintenace items naturally seem to get larger as we need to repair and replace pumps/gates/lift panels etc etc!! 

We have managed to hold our budget at the same level for the past 4 years but we are now looking at an increase in costs to everyone - we on avaerge pay 620 euros which after the 20% quick payment discount netts down to about 500 euros per apartment so a budget of approx 350K a year to run the community.

My question is, "How does this compare to other similar sized communities that try and run as an "upmarket community" along the coast?" are our fees to low or to high.

I would be interested to feedback to our community committee examples and possibly if someone is willing, examples of other communities budget breakdowns for different items.

i look forward to hearing your comments

Thanks 

It is very difficult to compare community costs without knowing if the communities being compared have a similar layout, extension of common areas, gardens and pool, etc.  For example, we are a community of 31 units and our annual fees are in excess of €1,000 for the smaller units (say 100m2 to 125m2) and €1,500 for the larger ones (say 150 to 250 m2).  What makes our costs so high is the building configuration which is three floors high but quite wide with 5 portals, with each portal having a lift serving only 5 units each.  The highest cost by far is the annual maintenance and repair of the 5 lifts.  Our second largest cost is insurance and the third largest, the Administrators' fees.  Gardening, electricity and water are the other items that are large. Our reserve fund is only 5% of the total and we have not painted the building yet although it is 9 years old.  We should have to paint it soon and will have to request a special contribution from the owners.

Hi Promedia.

Always difficult to compare fees as Communities can be very different, not only in size but facilities etc.

Im President of a 288 apartment Community in Murcia so up the coast, the 26 blocks all gave lifts from underground parking to a third floor, annual maintenance is quite high.

Large communal gardens to maintain occupy a gardener full time and help with bigger jobs

3 reasonable sized swimming pools.

Water costs for pools and gardens is high as is communal electricity.

We also employ a full time Community Manager and Maintenance contractor to oversee smooth running as well as an Administrator whose fees are not insignificant even if a small number of owners volunteer much help.

Like you we establish a repair and repainting fund and currently have healthy reserves as much work has been done to reduce debtors.

After our 20% discount scheme, fees are still over 1000 euros per year.

Hi Hugh-man & Lobin

Understand what you are saying and the extorcionate costs of lifts and maintenace contracts, we have 8 lifts covering basements and 4 stories our maintenace cost is 12,000 euros including the emergency telephone in each lift.

our gardener is onsite 5 days a week and costs us 14k euros, he also doubles up as an assistant to our community overseeing maintenace contractor who costs us 9K euros

1 pool costs us 2k euros as this is maintained by maintenance/gardener

community cleaning of portals and pool toilets. 9500 euros

Electric for the community runs at 12K euros and water is 16k but all residents water is included here rather than individual water meters

Administrator fees are 9k

Our fees after the 20% discount are approx 500 euros per apartment. per quarter

Hope this might give you some more info to compare to and let me know

Aaahhh 500 per quarter, i thought you meant pa.

Still around average.

Just as a comparison with 288 apartments, 26 lifts, 3 pools, 3 large garden areas plus pasillos

Water Communal only all residents have meters    32,000

electricity communal                                                40,000

Gardens maintenance and improvements               70,000

Pools                                                                         9,000

General maintenance                                               33,000

Communal area cleaning                                          14,000

Lifts maintenance                                                       20,000

Administrator                                                              28,000

we budget for maintenance and replacement of equipment and machinery, fire extinguishers, etc.

                                                                                   15,000

general reserves                                                        25,000

building repairs & redecoration                                  30,000

Around 250 per month after discount for Community fees but each owner also contributes around 150 per month for Entidad which covers resort security, bin collection, roads maintenance and perimeter gardens.

With IBI and La Renta Taxes we suggest to new owners that costs of ownership before utilities are around 2000 -2500 euros pa

Just found this thread and thought we might tell you about our community fees but also ask you all a few questions if we may.  We have the largest 3 bed ground floor on our complex of 42 properties and our community fees are 830€ per quarter.  Do any of your penthouse apartments pay extra on their community fees for the area of their roof?  We feel as if we are being discriminated against as our apartment covers more ground floor area than others and yet some of the roofs have actually done them up as if they are an outside room.  Everybody says our fees are high but we do have lifts to maintain along with a full time gardener/maintenance/poolperson.

Jojan

I have only ever seen the community fees based on the percentage of the built area of a property.  Thus the area of the terraces,  balconies etc are excluded from that calculation 

It is very difficult to compare community fees as different community´s have different common elements , some have pools, gardens to look after , lifts installed, walls to paint etc. Hence Jo jan pays 830 a qtr we pay 20.00 euros a year  

large 3 bedroom, 2 full bathrooms ground floor apt, with early payment discount €2400 per year. The complext went through a very bad patch where so many people were not paying. That has been reversed and all bar one is behind in payments, The community decided to up the fees to restore the complex back to the original state with improvement and to build up a war chest, just incase we hit bad times again. Hopelfully we are coming to an end and the fees will be reduced.

johnzx when you say terraces does that include the roof terrace?  We are being charged on the ground floor area of the built area of our apartment but we wonder if somebody lives in a 3 storey property with a roof terrace or even an apartment with a roof terrace do they pay for each floor plus the roof terrace?

52€ per month for a one bed, top floor apartment. I don't know what the 2 bed/ 2 bath and duplex properties pay. I do know however that the ground floor properties pay more for upkeep of their gardens. As a result, many people have paved/ gravelled over their gardens to reduce their fees.

Mark

On our community the total community bill is split by the % of the total area of your apartment including terraces of the whole community, so yes on our community ground floors and penthouses with big terraces pay proportionally more

lifts seems to be a massive cost for all communities, we have 10 lifts and pay over 15000€ a year for maintenance and emergency call out service direct from the lift if stuck.

we have discussed this with various people and believe that the small number of lift companies have a cartel running that keeps the prices high. Does anyone feel they have a cost efficient lift service provider??

45€ per quarter for a Two bed villa  .we have a large community pool /road cleaning/ street lights.

We charge for the build size of the  property and the usable outside area. For the houses that means your gardens or patios etc around your property and for the flats the roof space if you have access to it. We only have 2 storey buildings.

Each property pays based on the size and we have to pay for street lighting (it's in a gated complex), upkeep of communal gardens, upkeep of swimming pools (3 large and 4 small). The electronic gates seem to take up quite a lot of money and we also pay for lifeguards in the summer and a security guard until midnight, also summer only.

For our 3 bed with 105 sq m build and 60 sq m outside area we pay €136 a quarter so €544 a year. The smaller lhouses, 2 bed with smaller gardens, pay about half that but the larger houses (4 bed with a lot of outside area and a roof terrace) can pay up to €2000 a year. Ground floor apartments can also be expensive for those who have large outside areas.

All the outside walls get painted every few years and the complex surrounding walls are covered in the community fees but private walls are paid extra depending on the amount of wall you have (last lot cost me €70 which we could have done cheaper ourselves but some of community want them all the same shade white).

We don't have lifts what with it being only a maximum of 2 storeys but we have done extra work like making most areas disabled friendly, fitting of ramps and dropping kerbs etc.

There are also private, underground garages and the owners have to pay an annual community fee for that space as well.

IanCook

That does seem expensive for lifts we negotiated a 4 year deal with Thyssen including 24 hour call out and access to the internal emergency phone and pay €21000 pa for 26 lifts in different blocks which run from basement to a third floor.

Yes, all charges should be based on total usable area.

Looks like quite a few on this forum...are getting screwed on maintenance charges ...I suppose that's the joy of buying on a so called golf resort and so forth with a  low asking price to lure you then screw you on the long run  ...the first thing I would recommend anyone asked was how much are the maintenance charges / why buy on a golf resort when you don't play golf... urbanisation are much cheaper to live on / 3 bed 3 bath detached villa with own pool €350 per year IB and thats it... think twice and part with you money once.

Good point Windtalker but having a detached villa with pool, you have to maintain your own pool and gardens as well as carry out maintenance and insure your own property.

But I fully agree if you live or are there much of the year, then yes probably better than buying on a resort.

PS it is NOT the resort that stitches you up, as owners form the Community of Owners who decide on budget and facilities etc.

Also a good point Hugh Man...but my villa is on a  300 MTR sq plot I don't have 26 lifts or any golf courses  to pay maintenance on ..so living  permanently or owning a holiday home on a urbanisation will always work out much cheaper that living on a resort...you also stated that it was the owners themselves that set community fee's ..this might be the case for some small resorts...but the very large ones with many thousands of properties on would not be able to cope without a professional management team and permanent maintenance staff ..hence the extremely high charges.

Hi windtalker, we do live on what we would class as a small complex only 42 apartments with one large pool and one small one but our fees are set through the coefficient and as ours has a large footprint we are told we pay more which we don't agree with what about 2 bed apartments who have a roof terrace all layed out with a pagolla, sun beds, tables and loads of pots of plants etc etc which in our view is another room and private at that and they beieve that anything up there should be paid for by the community!

We have a full time gardener who also looks after the maintenance and pools all for over 30k.  6 lifts costing about 12k, a cleaner etc.

I think it's all down to personal choice.. when it comes down to it ...if you are living full time on a resort ..I suppose around the €2,000 is not to bad ..if you are a holiday home owner with ocacasional use it could be a expensive option...I am at present in the process of selling my large villa on a urbanisation as it is just too big for my needs now...the IBI is €350 per year the pool cost €750 per year to have it cleaned...I have bought a 2 bed quad on a gated community that has a community swimming pool the IBI is €200 per year and the maintenance charges are €180 per year ..the number of properties within the community is only 55 ..the maintenance charges cover pool cleaning / walkway lights and your post box.