How should a community be run?

Below is an extract from the Horizontal Law. My question is does this mean an urbanization has to have a president, secretary and administrator? It goes on to say the administrator can be anyone suitably qualified and can combine this role with secretary. I ask because our president sacked the adminstrator mid term without calling an EGM and now covers all these roles themself. What does suitably qualified mean, are their recognised qualifications for adminstrators? We have around 230 'units', a mixture of villas and apartments.

I know someone on EOS will know!

Many thanks, Poppyseed

1. The governing bodies of the community shall be the following:

Section 13

Provision 13.5. Of the Horizontal Property Act:

Secretary and Admnistrator´s functions will be exercised by the President, unless the Statutes or the Owners Meeting will decide those roles to be performed by someone else.  ( Added by Maria: Any change of what it was initially agreed needs to be done through GM)

Provision 13.6, second paragraph of same Act:

Administrator,  or administrator and secretary functions can be performed by any owner, as any individual with enough proffessional capacity and legally approved to develop those functions. It can also be developed by corporations or companies according to LAw.

( Added by Maria: yes, there is an official professional qualification to work as an Administrator).

Hello Maria

Thanks for your reply. Does this mean someone should be performing the function of 'adminstrator' and that person or company, whoever they are, including the president has to be qualified to do so?

I think it's too late to do anything about the sacking of the previous adminstrator without EGM being called as it is now about 18 months ago.

Many thanks, Poppyseed

If the administrator functions are not covered by the President or other appointed owner: yes, the person or company in charge needs to have proffessional qualification.

Thanks Maria.

Regards, Poppyseed.

Hi

We are in a block of 27 apartments, with most people completing in May/June 2009 some still going through the completion process and approx 10 apartments still unsold.  Does the developer have to pay the community fees for the unsold properties? 

What would be a reasonable charge for an administrator on a block of this size, or is it not necessary to have one on a single block building of 27 apartments.  We have not received any form of communicaton from our adminstrators, e.g. community rules, how many apts are actually sold etc, and all we know is that she is part of the firm of solicitors that the developer suggested all buyers use for their conveyancing.

So far, no cleaning team has been employed as the developer claims that we do bot have enough money in the community account to cover this cost. 

We have not been asked to form any sort of community/committee , everything seems to be in the hands of the adminstrator who is VERY expensive, but doing nothing.

Today we went to the bank and got a statement on our account and there are some questionable transactions.  How do you suggest we move forward from here?

Kind regards

Alyson

Probably you should try to call an EGM and get rid of the administrator, start again with one of your own choosing. You need 25% of the owners (25% of the total quotas) to call an EGM.

But before you take this action, do some research to find an alternative, preferably recommended by a nearby community. It's no use ditching your current admin unless you are sure you have a better alternative lined up. Also bear in mind that in the first year (or more) there will almost certainly be snagging issues to take up with the developer. Once you sack their choice of admin, you'll find it much harder to get things done since they will begrudge your action and will be less inclined to help.

Basic community rules may be included in the estatutos, or statutes, which form part of the master deed for the property. This is a registered document, a copy of which should be available to you from the developer. Additional ("internal") rules are made by the community (owners) itself during general meetings. If no community has been set up by the developer yet, I'm not sure that any administrator has any legal right to charge you any fees at all. A budget must be set and agreed upon by the community (owners) first. Do you even have a president elected yet? This is a basic legal requirement when forming a community. If you do not have any appointed officials, how were you able to obtain a bank statement? What sort of questionable transactions are you referring to? Any payments made out of community funds would have to be approved by the president (if one exists). I'm guessing this administrator will tell you the developer has appointed himself president. I'm also guessing that the developer is paying nothing for the unsold properties.

It sounds like a typical situation (you're not alone!) where there are unsold apartments. The developer will be reluctant to hand over control to the owners, since he will then legally have to start paying community fees on unsold properties, and also will know that he will most likely lose a nice little earner by having his own choice of admin. However, until you get a proper, legal community set up and running, with an approved budget, you will not be able to control things such as getting the place cleaned and maintained properly.

This message was last edited by spanishsolicitor on 02/09/2009.