Change of Gated Community into Commercial Community

Can anyone help.

We live on a gated community in torrevieja.  There are about 12 homes occuped here permanently with some of the others used as holiday homes and about 8 remaining unsold.

We have discovered that the builder has sold a property to a doctor who intends to run a surgery from here in the underbuild of the property. Indeed the builder is busily coverting the underbuild now.

We have urbanisation rules that state no dwelling is to be used as a commercial premises.

The rules of the ubranisation have been established by the builders solicitor who is the builders brother and who is at the moment the president of the urbanisation as the committee is not formed until next month at the meeting.

We in the community are up in arms about this.  We have paid extra monies to be on a gated community. We have demanded a meeting with the builder and solicitor on Monday.  The builders has advised that we all have intercoms fitted so that the doctor can give his patients access to his surgery.  This means that all toms dicks and harriets will have access to our community where there have been several break ins already.

Can this happen.  How come the doctor has planning permission when no one on the urbanisation has even got a habitacion certificate for their properties.

We have only lived here for 5 weeks and already the dream is a nightmare.  For those of you thinking of making the move - don't bother.  in these five weeks the beaucracy has virtually finished us off and the respect for the British is dwindling due to our lack of spending power!

If access is by intercom and the doctor only allows his patients through what's the problem, or have I misunderstood the situation? Personally I'd be very happy to have a doctor on site!

Regards, Poppyseed

The point of the matter is that this community is gated and supposedly secure.  You are not allowed to run commercial operations from your dwellings.  The builders has sold to the doctor and given him permission to do so.

The community will not beneift from this doctor operating within the community.  He already has a private patient bank (mostly russions).  They will be coming into this site at all hours thus making the urbanisation insecure.

There are no benefits to this community whatsoever.

We need advice on how to proceed.  The builder has reqauested a meeting on the sreet of our community at 5pm tomorrow.  Ob viously he doesn't expect the meeting to last long as we will all be freezing our wosit's off. 

I'm sorry but I don't know the answer to your question, but I too would be perturbed if this happened on our urb. You don't know who the patients are or what they are being treated for. At the risk of sounding snobbish, you could have drug addicts, drunks and all sorts entering the complex and you have no guarantees they (or any other patient) wouldn't linger on site after their appointment, maybe making use of the facilities?

At the end of the day, people buy into gated communities for the extra peace of mind given by such a community. This sort of defeats the object.

Mark

I do believe in people power and a fair and democratic process, and if the majority of residents object to this situation I sincerely hope you achieve a satisfactory result. (Still think it would be handy to have a doctor on site though in case of an emergency.......)

Regards, Poppyseed

Hi Seria - I do sympathise with your situation but please don't write Spain off because of your first few weeks here.  It is a real culture shock and it takes time to get into the ways of the Spanish so try to take it slowiy at first.  I've been here 8 months and am still trying to get used to the systems - or lack of them - and need to work hard to keep the blood pressure under control sometimes!

Re your immediate problem - it would seem to me that there are three things you can do - firstly it might be a good idea to go to the town hall and ask if you can stop the doctor opening - I'm not sure of your legal position but there is a lawyer here called Maria de Castro and she gives really good advice on a wide variety of topics - search for her posts and then send her an email.  If you have decent Spanish or know someone who does that will make a huge difference if you go to the town hall.  The doctor will need permission to develop his underbuild and also will need a licence to use it as a surgery - go and object to the granting of these licences.

Secondly, speak to the Administrator for your community and ask them about the current regulations - they are supposed to advise the President about the law and community regulations.

And thirdly - on a longer term basis - have elections for President and committee for your community and get rid of the present regime.  This can be difficult to achieve as you will need to find people to stand for these positions but if you are all upset about the current situation then that should provide motivation - and make sure that anything you want discussed at an Extraordinary General Meeting is formally listed on the agenda as there can be no binding vote taken otherwise.

Your lawyer should have ensured you had your Habitation Certificate before you completed on your property so you should be complaining to them if you still don't have it.  Do you have your own electricity and water or are you still on builder's supply?  This is really important and you need to keep up the pressure if you don't have this.

You will find the answers to most of your question on this forum.  There are lots of us here from Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa so just ask if you need any advice or support.

Best of luck!

Hi Everyone

Thanks for your responses.

Meeting was held with the builder and doctor on Monday.  It seems that the doctor is a professional person in Spain (as anywhere!) and for that reason can use his home for whatever he likes.  He is a consultant at the local hospital and will run a private practice from his underbuild 5 nights a week from 530 until 730 with 5/6 private patients a week.  He has offered everyone a free consultation with him.

He will have an intercom fitted to the gate connected to his property and will personally escort patients to and from his surgery.

So as you can see.  When in spain you have to abide by spanish rules. The meeting was held in the showhouse not the street as the builder wanted and laster over an hour and a half.  At least we all 'sang from the same hmyn sheet.  But we shall see.