08 Aug 2007 4:19 PM:

Hi Maud,

My view (having lived in Alcaidesa Village for 9 months) is that we don't need 24 hour security (costing 80k euros a year!), but we do need a daytime caretaker. The caretaker at Alcaidesa Village is excellent, very helpful, always doing some job or another and delivers your post to your door, so we should try and get someone like that.

Gideon

 

Community thread: Can anyone recommend a Property Management Co - Los Flamingos, Estapona

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17 Jun 2007 5:58 PM:

Neil,

Here are the annual charges :

Caretaker 18k

Security Company 66k

Garden Company 34k

Cleaner 7k

Social Security 5.5k

Lifts 11k

Electricity 15k

Water 10k

Insurance 6k

Administration 11k

Maintenance Works 7k

Maintenance Materials 7k

Pool Maintenance + Chemicals 4.5k

Macrocommunity 27k

Stationery & Stamps 2k

5% into a reserve fund 12k

A few other small charges.

 

That little lot totals 247k. Townhouses pay 2% of that, so just under 5k a year.

( I got my numbers a little wrong in the first posting because they actually give the figures for June-December and I just doubled it but it should be a little less than double )

 

Community thread: Can anyone recommend a Property Management Co - Los Flamingos, Estapona

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17 Jun 2007 5:30 PM:

Yes they told me a similar story a few years ago (the fees will be small and be decided by all the owners).

I am currently renting in Alcaidesa Village. They do not pay for a security company and it feels perfectly secure here. Their annual community charge is 180k euros which is roughly what Birdie Club would be if we decide not to have security. Also I think the budget for the company to manage the communal garden of around 40k euros a year could be trimmed down substantially.  The other charges cannot really be reduced (they are things like caretaker which I think is vital, cleaner, maintenance of pool, lift maintenance, electricity, water, insurance etc).

So if we can get the annual fee down to about 165k euros, that works out to around 3,300 euros per annum for the townhouse, i.e. 275 euros/month and less than that for the apartments. Still pretty high, but much more acceptable.

Community thread: Can anyone recommend a Property Management Co - Los Flamingos, Estapona

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14 Jun 2007 9:46 PM:

Hi,

I am the owner of townhouse no. 6.  We completed today in San Roque. Ros y Falcon give you a snagging form and you have 30 days after completion to fill it out and report any problems. They are pretty adamant that they will fix anything that needs fixing.

I had already had an independent snagging survey done a last week by Gordon at www.snagging.es - he does a very thorough job and gives a very fussy report in both English and Spanish. Mine didn't highlight any major problems, mainly basic clean-up jobs of grout and paint, doors not shutting flush and plugs on sinks not working properly. Am a bit disappointed that Ros y Falcon are doing nothing with the private gardens (just uncultivated earth with weeds growing).

I was pretty shocked at how high the service charge is going to be : around 5000 euros/year for the townhouses. This is unacceptable to me. They gave a breakdown of the budget, main costs are roughly 80k/year for security (not sure we need 24h security if there is already 24h security just up the road at the entrance to Alcaidesa), 21k/year for caretaker (do we need a security guard during the day if there is a caretaker in the development ?) and 40k/year for the garden company (this seems very steep considering most of the communal area is paved). The total budget for the community is about 290k euros/year split between 77 properties, the townhouses pay around 2% and the apartments somewhere between 0.75 and 1.5%.

We are going to have to get together as a community and decide what we want our money spent on before the next meeting takes place later this year.

Look forward to meeting you all soon,

Gideon (& Katie)

Community thread: Can anyone recommend a Property Management Co - Los Flamingos, Estapona

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10 May 2007 11:34 AM:

Hi all,

My wife (Katie) and I (Gideon) will be moving in to townhouse no. 6. We having been renting in Alcaidesa for the past 6 months and have really enjoyed it here. We went up to the Birdie Club a couple of days ago and the development looks great, the finish of the house is better than expected and the view from the roof terrace also surpassed expectations; only downside is there is a huge amount of building work going on in the surrounding area, so it is a little noisy and there are a lot of lorries and cranes around.

I look forward to meeting fellow owners very soon for drinks and perhaps a round of golf.

Gideon

Community thread: Barry

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