Community charges..... non-payers....direct action?

Hi Roberto,

I never give up hope!

I have ten cases arriving on monday so I will let you know how they go.

It is me not making myself clear, Sorry. The cases I can help with are cross border EU claims. Anyone who is resident in Spain with a Spanish debt has to be pursued through the Spanish courts. Anyone resident in another EU country with a Spanish debt(except Denmark - they opted out), can be pursued through their home court. It involves country of domicile.

I appreciate people are sceptical about this and also about me. Once I have started these ten cases I will provide an honest assessment of the system. The President who has instructed me will also provide feedback. Sometimes it just takes a little faith.

Speak soon.

I was wondering if anyone did get in touch with Solutions, and if so, what was the outcome? I'm sure I'm not the only one here who is interested to know about this possibilty of recovering community debts through the UK courts?

Question for Solutions, if he hasn't given up hope with us lot:

A while back on this thread, I asked "are you talking about British property owners in Spain specifically, or can you recover debts from anyone?" to which you replied "It can be done for anybody in the EU (bar Denmark for some reason)".

I noticed on another forum tonight that you have posted on, someone asked a similar question, questioning how you can do this if you are not qualified as a lawyer in Spain, to which you replied "Not qualified to practice in Spain as I don't need to be. I can do it through the UK courts (except for Spanish residents)." (my italics)

Can you just clarify then - you are talking about pursuing British owners of Spanish property, who are resident in the UK? I think it's important to make this clear, since I'm quite sure that a large number of community debtors (in Spain) are actually residents (in Spain). The owner I mentioned previously, for example (who owes €5000) is Spanish and lives in Spain.

Just to let you all know that I am flying into Malaga tomorrow morning and will be staying in near Mijas until sunday lunch.

If anybody is nearby and wants to meet about the recovery of Community Fees let me know and we can see if we can arrange something.

Kind regards

Hi

This is why I went off topic and asked the question, It would appear that we have two self employed gardeners, all year round. Say they get only 1ke ea per month thats 24ke divided by 9 before we start on anything else, ie pool.

When we completed on the house in February, and was there for 10 days, I only caught sight of them once.

Seriously considering putting a bid in myself, after saying that the community does look well maintained.

Steve

Be ready to fall over,

Our chemicals alone are over €1000 a month, ( i pass the bill )

Our community pool is 50m x 7m and 1.8 deep so quite big but very expensive to maintain and having about 30% German owners who insist on it being spotless through the winter hense the costs.

It is kept to a high standard.

28SAC

Maybe I should buy a lawnmower and move back there!

I think we currently pay about €300 incl IVA (vat) per month for a registered, insured company with own equipment, to maintain the garden and pool (incl all chemicals). During the winter they come once or twice a week, probably only total a couple of hours. During summer, three times a week, a couple of hours max. each time. I suppose it probably doesn't work out that much cheaper on an hourly rate really.

Oh, and they're rubbish, but better than the last two who we sacked!

Hi,

We were offered €25 per hour with the tools and equipment but decided against it.

Its the general going rate for a garden company with registered workers and insurances in Mallorca.

28SAC

Ahh......but everything's expensive on Mallorca, isn't it? Afer all, the gardener probably commutes from Barcelona every day, right?!

On a serious note.....if you provide the equipment, you have to remember to consider maintenance and repair costs. (plus who will actually take care of these things and whether workers will be responsible and careful with equipment that isn't theirs).  Also, consider whether the community insurance covers workers, or if they are self employed, check they are insured etc. Stuff for your administrator to advise on.

Hi,

We pay  €14 per hour and we supply all the equipment.

Full time for 6 months a year then part time the rest.

28SAC

What's a good community gardener?

I would think €10 / hour should be enough, but I don't really know. If full time, maybe €1200 per month? I'm guessing.

Thanks Maria

Roberto

Good point re 9 houses and over 10% lost, guess we are making up the shortfall.

Can't see what the gardeners do for there money but thats another story, looking at Justins survey and talking to others we are paying far to much.

Sorry, I know its off topic but what salary would a good community gardner get.

Steve

Hi All,

Just had a read through the posts and hope I can answer a couple of questions.

Johnf - You cannot have claims going through UK and Spanish courts at the same time. It is a question of considering what stage the cases are at in the Spanish court and what has been expended. If small amount of fees and at start of claim it may be worth abandoning over there and pursuing in the UK. I would really need to discuss in more detail to advise. There is a thought though that costs can be added to the debt through the constitution of the community itself. It is therefore possible to add these to the debt and chase in the UK. This would depend on the amount though.

Roberto - No assets, definately the biggest problem with simply selling the property in Spain. The good old man of straw. This is where I think the UK option has its main advantages. I say this looking at their UK property, attachment of earnings, baillifs etc. Also, yes it would be good to get the name of the owner regarding 5,000 euro debt!

deniseatnycs - The fees for my service are negotiable with any community. No I would not charge if I chased somebody with no assets. I would continue to try and enforce and if I recovered the money I would then charge.

I hope this helps.

I have been taken up on my offer by a community and will be attending there AGM (flight permitting) at the end of the week. I will update you on the progress and ask the President of the community to join this forum in due course and provide feedback on what I do.

Any other queries, please let me know.

Regards to you all

Denise said: "The Community charge you are paying should not increase because of one  non payer if this is the case it suggests it was set too low in the first place."

Perhaps. Remember, though, Steve said his community only consists of 9 owners. Work out how big the shortfall would be in your community if over 10% of the owners did not pay. To keep essential service functioning, someone has to pay.

Good luck!

Maria

Hi Denise

Yes this sounds like the way to go. I was pleased to find that our new community has a similar scheme, however as we completed on the 10th Feb and our lawyer had charged back the proportion of unpaid fees to the vendor ie 1st Jan - 10th Feb, we lost the discount for the first quarter.

Hey ho, will be on time next month!

Steve

Hi G.B

Maria has reminded me of an important point.   We have a charge of 20% on top of the Community charge for non payers and also a discount of 10% of early payment and this works well.  Initially at the A.G.M. two years ago we increased the Community charge by 10% at the same time offering the discount of 10% so those who paid and continued to pay early in the year were in effect still paying the same fees as they had from the beginning.  Those that could not be bothered and paid in the first quarter paid 10% more and those who pay after the first six months pay another 20% so the Community is in a win win situation and all of the owners are satisfied as they do not feel as though they are supporting the late/none payers who will have to pay eventually with the % on top.

Maria & Denise

Thanks for the information, intresting.

Team GB:

Always the agreements are in written, you can postpone the realization of the debt till it is actually negotiated. Of course, your rights to interests need to be accounted.

That agreement has an executive value ( aknowledgement of debt) and once it is decided by the COmmunity of Owners, you will be able to collect it ( out of court or judicially)

Best,

Maria

Hi Steve and welcome to the wacky world of Communities!

The Community charge you are paying should not increase because of one  non payer if this is the case it suggests it was set too low in the first place.  We have a similar case on our Urbanisation and we have been pursuing the "owner" for the last four years with the contact details that were supplied by the Constructor.  There has been no response to the numerous letter and buro-faxes (like a registered letter) and now we have started to take court proceedings (amiss of us I realise) we discover that the property still belongs to the Constructor and was never actually sold!  The Constructor and the buyer are in a long winded court action because the buyer paid a percentage of the sale price but not all, and the Constructor wants his money.  The property is worth at estimate 50% of the original sale price as it has been used as a cat refuse and the windows have been left open to the rain and the winds all of this time, so goodness knows where this will end. 

Sorry to waffle on but just want you to check with the Land Register who owns the property, before you go to the expense of claiming the fees.  Also be aware that if the owner has a mortgage on the property more than the value you may be a long way down the line of getting your fees, although a new owner may be more willing to pay if they are aware of the situation before they buy.  In our experience though the banks, well all except one, have played fair and are paying the fees without any fuss, getting the gardens and pools of these empty properties maintained however, is another matter.

Our new house is in a community of 9, one has been empty now for around four years with no community charges being paid during that time,apparently the owners have not been contactable and the community have taken legal action with a view to having the property auctioned.

As a newby to the community I'm still finding my feet and trying to find out the full information without being pushy, but apparently the other eight of us have/are paying the missing charges between us which makes the fees sky high.

The president has told me that when the property is sold the community will have quite a bit of surplus cash that will be used to carry out a couple of major projects that have been needed and the quarterly fees will be reduced.

While I have the ear of presidents and or ex presidents on this thread.

Is it normal for things like this to go on for four years?

Is it normal for the community to pay the short fall of debtors

Thanks

Steve