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My community holds a special meeting shortly to discuss the problem of owners that owe unpaid community charges. Seems there is around 10% of owners that owe on average around 1500 Euros for the previous 18 months.
My community is very well run and I guess around 90% of properties are second (or third) properties with (affluent) Spanish owners. I wonder what the ramification in the long term will be for communities in general as the situation worsens. Forcing a sale to recover unpaid bills is not going to happen and new owners are unlikely to come along for some time.
Anyone know what generally happens in these situtaions (apart from the community bills for paying owners to increase)? If a property is repossed by the bank surely it doesn’t take on the community debt or does it?
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people can be taken to court, property/assets embargoed. If a bank takes over a property they become part of the community. do you see them paying the bills though?
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Non payment is an issue. The problem is where there are disputes & the Community or the administrators do nothing about it except demanding money.
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10% owing an average of 1500 euros is chicken feed! You’re doing well if that’s the problem! And no, banks who take over properties never feel they have to pay cc! But unlike some owners who aren’t paying because they simply don’t have the money, banks can well afford to pay but choose not to! No wonder some owners don’t bother!
My advice to anyone (including myself!) is; don’t buy on anywhere that has a community!
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The Banks and the developers dont pay. If you buy an apartment in block than you cant escape the community charge only way to avoid this is by buying a House. This brings the issue of Garden, Pool.
manitenance and not forgetting security.If you are in a Country where good faith does not apply, people are shamelessly incompetant & would not think about others & how it affects the community or the village, law does not work. Than it is a gamble.
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Don’t buy on a complex!
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DR Robert, So if we dont buy in a complex where do you sugguest ?. Keeping in mind, what I have stated above in respect of a freestanding House.
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A house or a cottage in a village. A villa (with pool). You can then make your own decisions abut security, the garden etc. Depends on how much you want to spend and where you want to be.
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Back to the point…. EH !
jp1
It depends on your community, our community for example has tried many differing ways to get “them” to pay.
First of all inflate the budget for the community by say 20% and offer this (20%) as a discount if paid on time. We have a security guard on the gate and entry cards for anyone who does pay their main gate entry cards are cancelled and they have to rely on the security guard to reluctantly let them in usually with the president there to ‘have a go.’ If the fees are collected by direct debit and its returned from the bank the community pass on the charges to the owner.
If the non paying owner is renting don’t allow the renter to enter without the owner paying up, I don’t believe the community has to let renters in (unlike the owner.) Plus there is nothing like a family of four ranting down the telephone outside the community not being allowed in, to focus the mind. In addition if they are renting and not paying, chances are they are not paying tax on any income tell them if they don’t pay the community will report them to the tax authorities in Spain and the UK.
Pint the debtor list on the community web site and post this information on the main gate and the notice board.
Sadly even then the buggers don’t pay and it is a waste of time going to court shame is your only weapon!!!
regards
Paul
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It is against the law to not let people enter their premises the police can be called.. further as in many cases there are disputes which the administrator or the committe do not sort out. The only way action gets taken is by stopping the payment.
The commmitte and the administrators have equal responsibilty to solve issues & not ignore them while demamding money.
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Hi Shakeel
I didn’t say stop them from entering, I said that their entry gate card no longer works, no one is stopping them entering their premises just making it less convenient.
As i said the parasites still don’t pay so you may as well have fun embarrassing them on every occasion.
By the way the administrators are next to useless
Regards
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Hi Paul,
I know what you mean. I am sure that would be treated as obstruction . I have known cases where the developers had quoted an amount of monthly fee & honest, decent people had budgeted for it. Once they moved in the sevice charges were four or five fold.The above increase they simply cannot afford to pay & not to mention the £ devaultion against the €. The same people when notice that the services are not being provided & there is wastage all round take that view of not paying or cant pay.
Naming & shaming does not work in modern soceity. Look at Tony Blair, Berlesconi, Maddoff, M.Ps, etc. In fact I feel that in cases where people have disputes and they are named. It is could be libelous.
If the administrtors are next to useless than they should get their act together first in order that the people witholding the money do not have a excuse. In my experience they are in five different catogaries.
a) People were mislead in order to secure a sale and now just cannot pay..
b) People who have disputes and are not being resolved.
c) Due to change in economic conditions.
d) Incompetant administrators or incorrect calulation of service charges.
e) Cant pay & wont pay. They should be chased.We should also note the the corruption that gets involved.
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Hi Shakeel
I think the original question was that “10%” of JP1 community are not paying, the community was well run and in order to avoid ramifications further down the line could anything be done?
It sound like JP1 thinks the fees he pays are reasonable and he gets some value, its just 10% who don’t pay, therefore eating JP1’s lunch thats ticking him off.
I don’t know if he wanted the ins and out of why owners don’t pay, just how to get them to pay. Legal or not my first reply give some of the things our community tried and while they didn’t work 100% it got some of the money in.
Frankly I would beat all those who don’t pay with a wet lilo until they did. By the way, while on the committee I personally telephoned my non paying”neighbours” to ask why and suggest they did, this worked better than anything. So shame does work in my view.
Regards
Paul
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My post was just a general post to discuss..
I have no problem with my community, as I said it’s very well run and owners are generally affluent, the number of non payers was almost zero a few years back, but the number now is increasing slowly.
However, my second property (that I no longer own) for which I received the keys in June 2007 had many non-payers virtually from the day the community formed. Most people probably bought for investment purposes (like myself). Today I would not be surprised if the non-payers exceed the payers in that community as I am guessing that a lot of Spanish property investors are struggling to pay the bills.
So I was just curious if some communities in newly completed complexes are massively underfunded to such an extend that it prevents the community from operating and if so can they really do anything about it, in the current financial climate?
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Ha – this has happened in quite a few urbanizations and basically they fall into disrepair and nothing happens!
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