Golf Gardens Miraflores Community News

Happy Birthday to our President Jeremy who celebrates his big day today and also congratulations go to our VP. Dave Lines who celebrated his 40th Birthday yesterday.

Jeremy is currently back in the UK for a couple of days on business, however his First Lady, Dot can be seen around the pool, she's the one in the trademark hat, taking notes on things for Jeremy to do on his return to the community tomorrow!!

When Jeremy gets back and reviews all the things he needs to do, i'm sure that he will add an update to this blog.

A possible bit of good news for the community.....We dont want to get too excited, but el presidente has been informed that the largest debtor on the community has been into see our administrator, to discuss the payment of their 4 year old debt (which accounts for over half of our total bad debt). Nothing has hit the bank yet, so until it does..........its all still "talk", however they are now very aware that our lawyers and the court are just a few weeks away from the property being sold at auction. 

Obviously, they have now realised that their losses will be a lot greater than paying the bills, interest and costs, when not if.... the property is sold for possibly less than 50% of its worth at auction. As our lawyer has always promised us "The community will get your money...one way or another!" so to our Lawyer Joaquin, we say a big "THANK YOU"  for your tenacity on this matter, lets hope we have a successful ending to this saga and we can keep them paying in the future.

We now only have one other serious problem debtor -  Janet Ho Li Hua -  Apt 4.2.1.A  who our lawyer possibly believed may have "passed away" as there has been no communication, nor anyone in the apartment for the past 2 years and all utility services have now also been terminated. However after some investagative work on the internet, Janet is alive and well in south croydon and using a mobile phone! So now we have been able to trace her new address and phone number in the UK our administrators can update their contact details for her and hopefully we can inform her of the problems she now has and resolve them rather than just selling the apartment  without her knowledge, so if we can clear up this situation as well.......its almost financial Utopia at GGM2........!

So two bits of possible good news.......watch this space!

         

Sorry to report that at the Committee meeting last week we hadnt got any of the reports or information we had requested from the suppliers, all of them had promised...none delivered on time...what can we say...thats Spain again!!

Please dont worry we are on to it and will not let go,

Since then, The lift company have informed us that some brickwork in the liftshaft needs to be repaired to resolve the scary banging issue. Prices are coming in for this and it will be resolved...promise!

The survey for the tiling on the roofs has been undertaken and costs are expected shortly, we then as a community have to make a decision to sue the developer or pay the bill ourselves which is expected to be many 1000's of euro's and may involve a supplimentary payment if necessary to cover this.

Our lawyer is still awaiting a response to his request for a planning officer to visit the community to establish the garage doors situation and what if anything we can or cannot do!   Watch this space- we are onto it, especially with the critical car parking situation we now have.

These 3 items are top of our Presidents "to resolve" list and our administrators Intercala are contacted reguarly to keep on top of this situation.....we can honestly do no more than we are doing at the moment...its just the system thats moves so slowly.

We will keep everyone  updated on any other information that comes in so keep reading the Blogs    

July was the first opportunity for the new President and his First Lady to take up residence around the pool and bare the brunt of every owner with a minor complaint...the main one being that all the fire extinguishers had gone missing. Under the old administrator they hadn't been checked or serviced for years, and so when we implemented a maintenace plan for the fire alarms and system, a number needed to be taken away and refilled, every stairwell still had an extinguiser in it, but what a panic that caused, owners complaining about what would happen if there was a fire...if they thought about it, most of the extinguishers wouldnt have worked anyway!!!!!  Anyway, they have all now been returned and nobody has said a word of thanks!!!!   El Presidente appears to be a heartless job sometimes, so give thanks to your president and team when they get things done, it motivates them.

So what have been the main points from the meeting..

At our  AGM we agreed to write to the owners of three vehicles that use the community visitors spaces on a permanent basis, rather than their own garage spaces or the road outside. These letters were all ignored, so Lockable Parking Bollards have now been installed to allow the gardeners and delivery drivers to park correctly and not block the community entrance. Keys have been given to all committee members and written notices will be put in all noticeboards informing people of the procedure to get them lowered.

Our president was also concerned that the gardens were actually lacking some colour, whilst the shrubs and lawns were all well trimmed we had a lot of green and not a lot else! The budget allowed us to invest in over 100 perrenial "spreading flowering plants" to fill in all the gaps where plants had died previously. The committee took this job on themselves and over 2 days all these plants were added into the gardens so that the gardeners schedule wasnt disrupted. The sprinkler system has been checked to ensure they all get watered reguarly so expect some more colour very shortly.

The tubs on top of Block 11 are now irrigated properly and all the plants have been deadheaded and fed so lets hope they grow back to what they were earlier in the year when the rain was falling and keeping them watered reguarly.
For anyone that hasnt seen the difference these make take a look at the recent picture.      

http://www.eyeonspain.com/Secure/blogs/imagemanager/promedia/GGM2.jpg

We have also started to get quotes for the pool 5 year maintenace service, an extension to the surround and new steps down into the pool for easier access. Extra New signs will also be going up removing any liability of the community for use of the pool, until we are able to obtain our Pool Licence. So hopefully for the start of next summer we will have resolved the problem we have with the chlorine from the pool killing all the grass around the edges.

The only Palm Tree on the community that was seriously blocking all the views and light from an owners terrace has now been removed. 2 New sun parasols have also been delivered and will be installed this week to give more shade for bathers around the pool.

Sunbeds have been in short supply over the last 2 weeks due to large family parties being in residence, please have curtosy to other owners and dont leave towels on beds in the morning and then go out shopping for 4 hours as was the case recently when people had to put towels down on the grass rather than take the unused sunbeds....not sure how we get over this, but as a general rule if a bed is unoccupied for more than an hour, then i dont see any reason why someone cannot remove the towel and use the bed...is this acceptable or not??

The commercial Flycatcher bags have been installed again in the gardens and owners have already noticed a dramatic reduction in flys bothering them while sunbathing, we now have stocks of thes for this and next year. 

Anyway that's whats been happening in the gardens over the last 2 weeks
 
It all looks great and hope that when you are visiting you will be impressed.      

Well what can I say to all those people about to depart to the CDS for August...it was hot in July and it will only get hotter and more crowded in August. It was significantly noticeable on the beach at Cabopino last week how the numbers of children increased on a daily basis as the week went on and the tone and decibal levels went through the roof with kids enjoying themselves in the waves and warm sea. Still it was nice to retreat into Andy's Bar for a few cool beers and some banter and shots with the lads behind the bar.

I know that its great fun and great food at Niki Beach, but again how can they justify 12 euros to park, 120 euros for a double sunbed and 55 euros for a jug of sangria...its a top day out, but at a top price!!   For a group of 4 with lunch, massages and adequate drinks with a taxi home its a £750 day out!! - its a fairly simple equation... if you cant afford it - dont go hoping its a cheap day out!! 

It was also nice to return to England for once and not hear the pilot say "it's currently raining in Manchester." However the downside to all the sunshine and rain was that the lawns were six inches deep and it took the rest of the day to cut them back into shape.

Loads of great restaurants appear to have upped their service levels ( AND THEIR PRICES) recently, so you can be assured of a great evening out. Our top reccommendation for a new night out is Julie's bar and restaurant in Cabopino Port, just along from Alberts. Unusual menu as its all starter portions of meals and wraps at about 6-8 euros a piece, order 3 or 4 between 2 and i dont think you will be dissapointed in the quality, portion size, presentation and price, the cocktails and drinks in their next door bar start and finish the night off perfectly...enjoy...we did twice!!

 


 

In case you wondered why some of the fire extinguishers have been removed, those that were either not working or empty have been taken away for service, they should be replaced in the next few days. The company have left at least one extinguisher in each block.
Kindest regards
Jeremy

 
 This piece of news hit the press today.

Parador were property sales partners to First Choice and Thomson Holidays

Overseas Property Professional (OPP) can reveal exclusively that the large overseas property agency Parador Properties has gone into voluntary administration as of this morning.

An official statement sent to the offices of OPP this morning from Quay West Communications, Parador’s PR company, reads: “It is with regret that Parador Properties has announced that, due to the downturn in the overseas property market, it has gone into voluntary administration. This does not affect property purchases by any of its clients, as all contracts were made between the individual client and the builder; Parador Properties acted only as an introductory agent.”

OPP has contacted the offices of Parador and will provide an update to this story as and when it happens.

Wow what a day and a rush to get everything sorted before we hit the airport for sunny Spain on Thursday morning.

Today we have had been organising a list of essential Emergency and Useful Phone numbers that can be displayed in every noticeboard along with a new "Exec Committee Family Tree". and thats where the fun started, when you start to look online for emergency numbers you find that there are a whole raft of differing numbers for Riviera and Mijas Costa, so I brought them all together in the uk, put them on a spreadsheet and circulated them to all the team.

We then had some really good suggestions to add emergency glaziers and locksmiths numbers to the list, along with taxi's, train and bus stations and arrivals and departures at the airport.

Then we got the suggestion for the British Consulate in Malage, as at least one guest on the complex is bound to lose a passport or need help this year!!!

So we have ended up with quite a substancial and comprehensive list of telephone numbers that owners and guests may find useful, especially in an emergency.

We have also had some major issues today with the post again just being left outside on the wall, calls and requests to the post office delivery team have been ignored, we cannot allow this to continue and so we are now considering moving all the postboxes outside the main gate, which will undoubtedly become a litter hazard very quickly with all the leaflet posters and mail dropped on top of the boxes when the postman is unsure. The main issue is if we have one postbox for the community outside, then who is going to be responsible for opening and distributing the mail everyday....do we have a voulenteer on the community that would be prepared to do this.......let us know.

    

Today the palm tree will be cut down that was discussed at the AGM, Marcelo has 3 of his men with him to bring it down safely and then dispose of it.
It had originally been planned to carry it out sooner but with some major problems with the watering system last month Marcelo had to concentrate on the repairs to that first.

Well it's done and finished, the Summer newsletter for the community is written and all the new pictures have been added. All that remains now is for a couple fo people to read through it and i'll get 150 copies printed off early next week so that i can bring them to Spain with me for distribution to the owners by post. We also push one under every door on the community and pin one into the noticeboard in every portal, so that owners and rental guests can have no opportunity to say "i didnt know about that!"

I understand from Ivett that we have now also put stickers in the lifts to let people know about emergency procedures should they become stuck, if they do, the community rules that are in every lift in 2 or 3 languages will give people time to read and learn them off by heart!!

Jeremy is also putting together for everyone, a small credit card with emergency numbers and the community website address on so that people can carry in their wallets and purses useful emergency numbers while in Spain. It will hopefully also get a few more residents using the community website when they return home.

You will be pleased to know that we had our most successful day on record yesterday for visitors to our website. 26 unique people visited the site for the first time, which isnt bad for a community of only 60 apartments. Our desire to become known as "The best place to live on the Costa del Sol" is gaining momentum and one of the owners who has their apartment for sale has said they have had a lot more interest in the past 4 weeks.....now he knows why?

Have a great weekend everyone, i believe the sun is shining and the temperature hit a high of 35 yesterday, on the 10 day forcast it just says sun, sun, sun and more sun - so roll on Thursday, a couple of Desperado beers and dinner at Max beach to start the holiday off on the right note seems like a great idea.

As most of the committee are in Spain from about the 15th onwards Jeremy has proposed that we organise the first community BBQ by the pool, anyone got any suggestions for the format, date or time for this???

Add a comment to this Blog with some suggestions.
        

One of the things that came up last week was that we found out the postman is no longer obliged to deliver the post to post boxes inside the community hence the reason for the post all being left at the sales office.

We need to look at the options on this and any suggestions would be welcome.

As I see it we have 3 main options.

Option 1: We move all the post boxes outside in front of the entrance gate on the wall somewhere and the block 11 boxes outside there gates. When we had discussed this option before their were concerns over junk mail and it looking untidy. Dave is going to look at getting some quotes in so we know the cost for this option.

Option 2: We have one large post box outside the gate and then we have to employ someone to empty it and distribute it amongst all the other boxes. This may work as a temporary measure but it will be a time consuming job and its a cost we have not budgeted for.

Option 3: We have a number of large post box's outside the gate one for each portal with keys given to every owner in the portal and the same for block 11 each owner then would then collect their mail.

We need to make a decision on this at the next committee meeting so please look at the pros and cons of the options above and any other ideas.

Other items

I will speak with Lazara Friday morning and see what the latest news is on the repairs to the lift in block 3 and also see if the technical report for the penthouse roofs has come in yet.

Congratulations Ian on your 50th and a great party last Friday, I have just about recovered from all the beer!

Dave is going to be away until the middle of next week so please contact Intercala or myself if their are any problems.

Thank you

Jeremy