General Assembly

That is an excellent question .

The articles of association state -

"Given the need to immediately and peremptorily provide a legal representative for the association, the developer "ALHAMA GOLF RESORT SL" shall assume the condition of chairman, secretary and administrator of the association for a maximum term of five years from the date on which the deed of constitution of the grouped property complex is signed.

The said posts shall be carried out by whichsoever of it's legal representatives or volunteers or may be delegated in any of the homeowners or other professionals where applicable, if considered appropriate; furthermore, the said delegations may be revoked"

So, I assume, RPM the legal representatives of AGR(PW)?

Phil

Hi Phil,

No one knows where administration came from. Certainly no one voted for them. It is up to us as homeowners though to decide if the budget is too high or low. There will be another meeting soon to start to tackle this subject and for individual Garden reps to be chosen. I'm standing for Jadine 8 Los Naranjos, simply because I'm the only full time resident there and I'm also getting quite angry at the way we are being treated.

Going off line now, will be back when I'm next at the internet cafe. By the way, we were informed that we would all be e mailed about the dates of the next 2 meetings. I stood up and asked how they were going to e mail us on the internet they haven't provided.

Mel

Hi All,

Below I have copied and pasted an e-mail received today from Sergio as mentioned in my previous posts.  Sergio is a permanent resident on Jardin 1 and has great concerns on this issue.  Sergio has been president of a similar project before he moved to Spain, he is spanish speaking and also good English in order to translate but what's more he is not seeking anything in return for the many hours of work he is putting into all the research that he is doing in relation to the law and also with the town hall in Alhama.  He is just trying to get the information out to as many of the owners as he possibly can as the Management Company are telling us nothing at all and neither are Polaris, although they say the management company is totally separate from Polaris !!  mmm

Hope this helps you

Letter in English is below this.

Estimados vecinos:

Debido al fracaso de la asamblea del día 20/02/09, POLARIS esta planeando hacer una asambleas por separado, es decir, por cada jardín, PH, etc., Lo cual me recuerda ese dicho que dice: "divide y vencerás". Por tal motivo, debemos ponernos de acuerdo y llevar una sola posición.

Sabemos que hay muchas cosas que arreglar como las cuotas de comunidad, y varios servicios, pero para poder solucionar cada uno de estos problemas, necesitamos ejercer nuestro poder en la junta de la comunidad. Esto es importantísimo para defender nuestros derechos en el futuro.

Próximamente les enviare un mensaje con una dirección de correo al cual hacer llegar sus ideas y para incluir mas vecinos a nuestra causa.

Sergio L. Fuenmayor.  


Dear friends:

After the failure of the last meeting (20/02/09), POLARIS is planning separate meetings to settle the community. This remember me that quotation: "divide and conquer". For this reason we have organize and to support one position before the administrators.

I know that there are several problems to resolve, but the most important is to have active representatives to defend our interests now and in the future.

I will send you an e-mail address to address with yours ideas and for contacting more neighbors.


Sergio L. Fuenmayor

 

Just flipped on this thread and fallen off my chair at Euro130 pm for my 3 bed ground floor!  We were always led to believe 60-70 by PW when we signed, so only really expected 70-80 even based on your typical flannel.

I think the question of total budget and costs is important, but I am very interested to see the number of apartments that cost is being shared across, and I think we need full visibility of this in whatever we agree to.  As long as there remains unsold apartments, PW must take up their cost share for these - no question for me.

The excuse they might use in that they are not using services is not valid.  If I only use mine twice a year, I'm hardly using them either!  We need to ensure that they cover the same costs on the unsold properties as we are paying on ours.

Is the maintenance budget covering the whole site or just the areas directly around the properties? For example, who pays for the roads, commercial areas?  Taking the latter, I would hope that all costs for maintenance of commercial areas is covered by the leasing costs to these lets.  I think we should have clear distinction between residential and commercial zones on the development and budgets managed accordingly.

Another question, how will the Administrator ensure that us good citizens who will pay on time by direct debits dont end up having to pay at a premium for properties where for whatever reason they fail to collect the community charge. How do you avoid the old 'council tax' evaders which the rest of us then fund? What is the legal position for forcing payments from such owners?

Looks like I need to rethink my own budget if things dont change.

Thanks to all for summarising where this is, as a UK owner who is somewhat out of touch, this is very useful and informative

Fozzie

Digesting this further......

Euro 188k for maintenance of the tv aeriel.  Setting aside the cost estimate for this, why would all property owners be expected to fund this through the community charge?  I am planning to enjoy my property and not sit watching tv.  So why should I pay for a tv aeriel maintenance that I wont even be plugging in to?

Thats like saying I dont have a tv at home but have to pay a tv licence fee.  This cost should be paid for by owners who use this.  Would I expect the family in the apartment above mine to pay for the upkeep of my garden?  Of course I wouldnt!

Communal charges should be just that

Does anyone have any idea how much the Penthouses are likely to be charged for community fees? To be honest it looks like the community fees are going to cost more than the mortgage!

Lisa

I think 70 to 90 euros has been quoted for the penthouses

Hi Lisa,

70 - 90 euros is the figure we have

Hi Jackie

Is the email addy that you gave for Sergio in an earlier thread, the one we should be using?  Or is he going to be issuing a new one?

Is he happy to deal with the whole of Condado or just the Jardines?

Have noted on another forum people talking about going to the papers and watchdog again, personally think this would be financial suicide.   Agree with Sergio in that we need to stick together and approach PW and/or RPM in force.

Is there an opt in or opt out option to the tv services? Read something about this over the weekend and cant find it now.

Jan and Mike

(prev JHMurcia)

anthony and andrea, naranjos 7 are with you all, this extra cost is a liberty,

any full time residents on 7 you have our backing if you attend the meetings, sorry but wont be there till after easter, (probably a good job i get rather excited)

Hi Cuz

Having spoke to Sergio and from his previous experience the management company will eventually be working for the residents and once under control they should be doing exactly what the residents tell them to do or they could potentially lose the contract.  You would hope that they wouldn't bite the hand that feeds them they just need to be controlled by the residents and not be allowed to run away with the so called estimated budget.  The difficulty is getting us all singing off the same hymn sheet and getting organised properly.  This is no easy task as many residents haven't even completed on their properties as yet let alone even been out to their property so we don't know each other yet.  The Management Company are well aware of this fact and are taking advantage that we just don't currently have the voting power as polaris will have a block vote on all the properties they still own.  From Sergio's own previous experience once you have got it organised then it is very easy to run and keep them under control.  Just drop Sergio an e-mail and as soon as he has anything to circulate he will include you on the circulation. knowledge is power!!!! The e-mail address is the correct one for Sergio

I agree with you about the press and the people that are just refusing point blank to pay any of the community charges will only damage us, their neighbours and the resort which we have all bought into, not Polaris, as it will not be looked after if they don't pay anything at all they just need to be more realistic with the monthly amount

Thanks Jackie

Know what you mean about not knowing whose on your garden.  We are aware of maybe 7 owners on this forum from Naranjos 7 and 2 others that we met while there in November.  It's going to be difficult trying to get info to all the others.  Maybe we could get leaflets  printed and get volunteers to push them under every door in their garden?  After being made aware of how many people didn't know, and still don't about the first meeting,  there must be something we can do to make contact. 

The one other thing we can hope for is that by having to call another meeting, more will have completed.

I sent an email to RPM today asking if they had information about facts and figures, plus dates for meeting yet, or at least the per jardine costs for community fees.  I got a reply, believe it or not, but they say they don't have the information yet, and will let us know as soon as they have.  Strange, I thought they already had the figures for the first meeting?  Does anyone know what their cuota figure is?  That's what they use to give you your per jardine costs.  Ours are 0.680% and 0.570%

Just looked at our email and Sergio has replied saying he will forward any info. and given us a new email addy to use.                          asocondadodealhama@yahoo.com 

Another problem we have is if people default on the c/charge fees, as those who decide to sell often do, is that those fees get passed back to those owners who are paying.

(prev JHMurcia)

We started gathering email addresses when our development started to be occupied. It started off very slowly but I now have approximately 170 email addresses for fellow owners. As VP for the development, I keep everyone informed of what is going on & also assist if owners need information on a variety of issues.

The other way of getting people involved is to set up a community website.

These do take time to establish but it is worthwhile to be able to discuss issues & views.

Since last February, we have organised 8 nights out where owners gather at a local restaurant for a cheapish meal & a few drinks. Altogether 250 people have been involved in these ensuring a good community spirit. This has all grown from a few names on an email list.

Also, if you have someone willing to co-ordinate these types of things, it helps with maximising the use of votes if some one is willing to take proxies.

Noreen

Hi Cuz

The quoto for our 2 bedroom apartment on jardin 5 is 0.495.

Jann

At the agm opting out of the tv was brought up by a spaniard and he was told that this was not an option as the development was sold with digital television supplied.  However once the community was up and running we could look for a cheaper supplier.  Polaris said that they have had a lot of problems with the tv as companies were reluctant to take it on board as there was not enough profit in it for them. 

Anybody know what the quoto is for a 3bed apartment on Jardine 5?

Is there going to be a community budget for each Jardine, which is then shared between the properties on that Jardine, or have I read correctly that all Jardines west of the sports centre are one community and those east another?

Some Jardines have more apartments than others, so is the density of apartments per Jardines taken into consideration?

Given the meeting descending into chaos around the budgets, are they still planning to make the charges in March, or has this now been deferred pending resolution of the major issues?  If they suddenly take €130 off me x 3months, whilst they admit that the budget is not sorted, then I will be very dissappointed.  I have no issue with paying back dated charges, but only once the budget and charges are agreed.

Is that too much to ask?

To be honest, I think we are in danger of trying to dot the I's and cross the T's a bit too soon.  I am trying not to make too much conjecture on the subjects mentioned.  There are, of course, fundamentals such as the community fees which need to be contained and accounted for (in detail by PW) but, after that, I am sure we can have as much fun as we like arguing the toss about TV services, internet services, the colour of the sun brollies we put up etc, etc.  None of us want to be taken for fools but if we mix up the real issues and the peripheral issues - which can be dealt with later - then we are in danger of being railroaded by PW when they get fed up of us all barking at each and every little detail.  This is only my opinion of course.........................

Hi I agree with (ajw) in so far as we should concentrate on the main issues and not the incidentals, however we all know that PW’s way is to divide and rule so looking at some of the costing from the budget provided by RPM to the meeting, if we don’t stand up to them now that money will be paid to PW for T.V. infrastructure and garden maintenance and so on and so on, which we will never recover, this could and should be done for far less by competitive tendering, PW know, we like other resorts, will do this ourselves in the end so they are taking as much money from as they can now (I am not suggesting having less done just value for money).

As far as Martyn & June (cus) suggestion goes for leafleting every apartment then if one person on each Jardin or Block was prepared to print and distribute leaflets to their own area then it wouldn’t take long, I would certainly be happy to do it for my Jardin. So if Sergeo was able along with others happy to help they could produce an information/action sheet (In Spanish, English & ?) and email it to someone from each area and then that person print and distribute it to all apartment in their Jardin or Block  the distribution could be done easily, quickly and cheaply. The alternative is just pay up knowing they are ripping us off.

Phil

couple of points from me on this one:

- non payment of fees by a seller is not possible.  On selling the property and transferring your "share" in the management company you have to settle fees up to the date of sale, and likewise when you buy you take on the "share".  The harder thing will be recovering monies from normal residents. 

- I agree with Arlene to focus on bigger picture in all this.  Trying to divide the budget up at this stage is a futile exercise.  We should be ensuring RPM are in control (and confirmed independent), appoint our directors to hold them to account.  I would then expect due diligence of the budgets and tendering for services - which would have to be approved by the directors on our behalf.

- I am not keen on having flyers under my door when a person renting from me could see it.  I think airing our dirty laundry and getting bad press is not the way forward.  Referrals and word of mouth is key to renting this year and next!  Can I suggest that we start a thread for people to PM someone with their apartment number, contact name and email address.  We could build this up and distribute and eventually when people are meeting people etc we could build a pretty good database of residents and email contact.  Maybe Sergio is already getting a good list of email contacts that could be used in this regard to build the picture.

- and finally, I have seen reference to PW "divide and conquer"....what is being referred to?

Hi Alhama

What is being referred to in relation to the divide and conquer statement is that they are splitting up Condado into different groups i.e. Jardines 1 to 5 are one group, Jardines 7 to 13 another, Los Naranjos another and the Penthouses etc.  In the first meeting last friday it was for Jardines and the second meeting was for Los Naranjos/Penthouses.  Information in relation to the back charges, in particular, the amount was not given in the first meeting but then given in the second meeting, then there was a nasty rumour started that the residents of Los Naranjos had agreed to the amount of community charges whereas the residents of Jardines had not agreed to the amount "suggested".  People wanted us all singing off the same hymn sheet and not divided into separate groups

Hope this helps