[Anonymous]

😀

Hello

We live on an urbanisation of 40 houses. There are approximately a dozen foreigners and the remainder are Spanish. I will bore you all with a brief description of events.

The Administator for the Community is highly notorious locally and some other communities have eventually sacked her!

In the last three years the following has taken place.
The owner who was acting as the auditor resigned after the President managed with the collusion of the Administrator to amass 25,000 Euro + of un receipted cash expenses.

Aside from this the main fund raiser for the corrupters is community projects. last year they arranged for painting of the community by a local cowboy. The paint is now peeling and the final bill didn’t match the quote because someone “overlooked the IVA”.

This year they are trying to push through a swimming pool refurbishment. They say that the pooli is illegal but it’s been here 15 years! They are all very vague about what exactly is wrong with it. All they say is that if someone injures themselves the insurance is invalid!

We had an EGM and we managed to head them off and vote to keep it closed pending futher information. Even so the President is now trying to call another EGM to vote on it again. BUT this time she says she has arranged for a loan of approx. 75,000 Euro to pay for the refurbishment of the pool.

There are 40 houses and the approx fees every month are 1,800 Euros.

We basically fear that the President and the Administrator will if they win a vote simply arrange an overdraft and have a fortune out of us. It’s 1 thing them raiding the monthly income another letting these thieves get an overdraft in our names.

Does anyone know a general rule about the community borrowing money?

🙁

[Anonymous]

http://blogs.larioja.com/garciafuentes/2007/3/19/los-administradores-fincas-y-sus-abusos

This is a link I found to a blog starring our lovely Administrator. Unfortunately my Spanish is very poor and I don’t get the whole gist of it.
🙁

[DrRobert]

Having had experience of Complexes with Communities I’d never buy on one again! To be avoided like the plague!

[Anonymous]

Yes I concur with that. Oh and the Architect is the brother of the Administrator for good measure so we feel like we are circling the wagons.

What it seems to me is that if you live on a viable urbanisation where owners pay fees then the vultures will by hook and by crook ensure that major works come around every 2/3 years.

Would really appreciate any answers and or guesses on the matter of the President being able to borrow money in our names. They say that they are going to use the monthly income stream when applying for this.

Thanks 😥

[Inez]

I would have thought they would have to have approval from the community in order to do this, but if they can sweet talk the bank!!!

If I were you I would get legal advice tout suite!

[Anonymous]

I’ d never buy the 1st. time. Wouldn’t touch any with a bargepole,you’re just asking to be turned over.

[Anonymous]

The voting system is painful to say the least. First the people who are in arrears with their fees get disqualified from voting. Then you have the locals who are often have feuds with their neighbours. So they don’t always vote with their wallets.

What they are trying to get is an open ended approval. We all know that once the project starts they will overrun on costs. It’s just whether or not they can do that with a bank guarantee funded by us.

My main hope is that the average skint Spaniards see sense as they won’t be able to afford the fees anyway. Turkeys voting for Xmas and all that 🙄

[Anonymous]

An update on this matter. Attended EGM. Matter of raising money via a loan was voted down. Therefore no money to refurbish/ rebuild pool. NB. They wanted to raise 50K euro and said it would cost 70K over 5 years.

We were then asked to vote on raising 70K by everyone paying monthly into a fund for 2 years. Lots of shouting and threats so a number of Spanish owners walked out. They then won a vote to raise 70K.

English pensioner asked if she could have a copy of architects plans and engineer’s report on the pool. President said they were at her house and she would not allow them to be copied. Same lady asked why we needed to raise 70K as opposed to 50k. Was told it was expenses which was not clarified.

Vice President then told any owners that are trying to sell that pool was illegal and couldn’t be opened. Then said that if they agreed to pay into fund then pool becomes legal! He laughed when he was asked to elaborate.

Of 39 houses on urbanisation 14 have voted to raise 70k and won!

The meeting was convened at 5 days notice.

I would say to anyone, anywhere thinking of buying in Spain. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET INVOLVED. It will end up with someone knocking on your door demanding money with menaces. The corruption is so ingrained that ordinairy working Spaniards accept that they have no defence. There are a lot of elderly expats who have no defence and are being preyed upon. It’s like Naples without the violence. 🙁

[Anonymous]

For my complex, which is larger, I have calculated that the annual income for community fees is around 160,000 Euros a year.

For this fee, there is gardner (I doubt he is full time) a cleaners (or two), they have 6 blocks and have to clean the communial areas, each block cleaned twice a week and on average the cleaner is in a block no longer than 2 hours (I am being generous). That’s a total cleaning time of 24 hours a week. So being extremely generous 1 full time cleaner.

Also there are 2 life guards for the summer which is around 3 months.

So we have

1 full time cleaner
1 full time gardner
1 life guards for 6 months
6 lifts to service
communical water and electricty fees

Any other maintenance fees I have to cough up. Last year it was 450 Euros to paint the block, my portion of painting is about a sitting room and living room.

Most residents 90% are Spanish.

The retired community president takes 600 Euros a months as fee to wander around the complex and notify blown light bulbs. He decided upon this responsibility himself and also decided upon himself that 600 Euros was a reasonable payment for this unappointed position.

The complex is very new, less than 10 years old, so its really the gardening and cleaning that needs to be covered.

Yes, corruption is rife and someone is making a lot of money from community fees.

[Anonymous]

You do have the right to go to the Administrator and inspect any records at any time. I think that you may be fobbed off but if you e-mail your request they will start to take you a little more seriously.

I also think that because of the problems in the construction sector there is a big movement towards ripping off owners of existing communities. With a bit of ducking and diving they can turn a little job into major works and they are off and running.

It’s simple protection as its not too hard to sabotage stuff and create work out of nothing.

I have just spoken to a neighbour who has spoken to someone nearby who has also been mired in the swimming pool scam:

Your pool does not meet existing rules & regs and can’t be licenced by local council. Therefore insurance is invalid and all owners could be liable if someone is injured

The quote for making it legal is say 90,000 Euros

Most people say well we haven’t got the money to pay – No problem our friendly Bank contact can arrange funding and you can pay over 5 years

It’s a good old scam and believe me they are being cooked up allover the costas right now. 😯

[Anonymous]

Brian2

Have you read the horizontal Property Act http://www.icamalaga.org/funcio/legales/coleg6/lphingles.htm as i am sure it will be of help on how things are suppose to work. You should also have a read of your statutes which will help further.

Section 17, 18 and 19 may be of interest regarding the quotas of votes needed by law to do what they are doing. You could for example contact the ones who either didn’t attend or walked out and setup a group to oppose the current committee and all you would need is their proxy. Given that you and your proxies oppose the 70K you could call an EGM (over 50% of the quotas needed)

As an owner you can (by law) see the accounts and any other matters relating to the community and it’s administyration, you own a share of it!

from your brief outline it does seem they are overstepping the mark but you really need to be clued up on the law before wading in.

Regards

Paul

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much will read up on it.The point here is what constitutes necessary repairs and what are improvements.

At this time the President is not releasing the engineer & architects report & plans which we have paid for! Has point blank refused to deliver copies of them.

😯

[Anonymous]

Hi

At this time the President is not releasing the engineer & architects report & plans which we have paid for! Has point blank refused to deliver copies of them.

I would suggest you need legal advice take a look here http://spainlawyer.com/guialegal/guialegal.cfm?IDCAPITULO=04070000#04051004000000

In the meanwhile contact your neighbours and see if they agree with you, if they don’t in any numbers all is lost anyway.

Regards

Paul

[Anonymous]

Lots of neighbours obviously dont want to be robbed but a lot of the Spanish come across like its their patriotic duty to be mugged by their own!

Big majority against just need to mobilise them.

Thanks very much for the pointers.

I do think that a lot of these crooks are real small time and just taking advantage of people’s understandable apathy in fighting this minor but now going MAJOR corrupt practices. What I would say to everyone is its worth having a go at them if you can. 😡

[Author]

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