General Assembly

I think Phil makes a good point , particularly if you take into account the size of the contingency funds.

Other issues I have include the fact that we seem to be paying for the main road in/ out ( and carpark for golf?) , and things like the TV. I have no issues whatsoever for paying my way but would like to know what percentage PW contribute to main road given they use it for construction ,sales etc.

Also the TV costs ( does this include Internet / telephone maintenance costs?)  Again seems steep but I have no problems with the principle so long as it is actually provided. It appears the first connections are this week , so how can we be charged ( albeit only €7 pcm) to maintain something that hasn't yet been provided and presumably should have some sort of warranty for say 12m. PW then charge €400 for a box that costs €81 on the Internet .

I have tried emailing RPM as I am not happy about them taking out an unspecified sum on an unspecified date for services that are not complete yet, but I have not got an answer.

Does anybody have a telephone number for them?

They do seem to respond when in the office. I emailed Victoria yesterday just to ask what the Iberdrola costs are for and she sent a reply very qucikly- not very helpful but qucikly. If anyone else is curious about Iberdrolas charges then they might be interested that Victoria advised I phone and ask! That suggests RPM dont know what Iberdrola are charging for and as my last contact with Iberdrola took me 25 minutes of hanging on, so will likely cost me money I dont plan to do that immediately.

I have just received a figure from rpm for my annual community fee for jardine12 on the jardines resort. It is for 1208.94 euros per year which works out at 100 euros per month approx £90 depending on the exchange rate. When we were quoted approx £70 per month during the buying process the exchange rate was a lot better, so the difference is down to the poor exchange rate mainly and there is not much any of us can do about that. Just wondered if anyone has had figures similar to this on the jardines?

Cheers, Dakey

Dakey is that a 2 bedder?

Dan

Dan, no, its 3 bed ground floor.

Dakey

Personally I dont think thats too bad, how many apartments on J12 do you know.

Jann,

I really hope that that was a misunderstanding and Victoria is not saying the RPM do not know what Iberola are charging the community for - their fees make up a substancial proportion of the 2008 charges - and they seem out of line with the 2009 annual charges - so I very much hope RPM fully understand what the amounts constitute and have checked that they are correct in the context of any agreements in place.  I will be sending an email this weekend, and am intending to pay them a visit when I am over at the end of the month.

Ted

Ted I have a bad feeling they are charging us for builders supply I'm going out tonight so will grill them tomorrow if they are in!

Dan

Been in contact with RPM myself today and they have said our first payment will be100.51€ to cover months January, February & March. Thought they must have revised the budget, 100 euros for 3 months!!!!!! so I queried it and they confirmed my fears that thats actually the monthly payment. Thought as much.

They did say the backdated payments wouldn't be as much. Thats kind of them isn't it.

We have a 2 bed in Jardine 5 and our community fee % in our deeds is 0.495%

We have asked for a breakdown of how exactly they arrived at the monthly payment

Hi

My husband and I have had no correspondence with RPM.  I picked up an email address from an earlier thread and sent them an email asking them to add me to their email distribution list but this has not even been acknowledged.

Could someone clarify what address I should send another email to?

At the time of our completion (done by POA) my solicior refused to sign the community form which would allow instant access to our bank account by the asministrator's company so at present they cannot collect anything from us.  We will of course pay whats due but I would rather have final clarification of what we are to pay before I give authorisation.  Also does anyone know if we have to pay by DD or can you just go to the office and pay your bill in person - a much safer bet as I have hear some horror stories of funds leaving accounts in Spain.

Thanks

MG 

Ted, to be fair Victoria may only be an administrator? Although it is a bit unrealistic to suggest phoning  Iberdola to find out !

With regard the charges my main issue is that I have had no communication despite them having my email address so I have had no idea what I need to put in the bank and when. At least Dakey has got a figure - dakey when will this be taken / for what period & did they mention last years charges ( assuming you completed at some points in 2008)?

Hi Folks,

Here is the response I received from RPM (very promptly I must add):-

Dear Elliot

The Money Will be Collect from your bank account by standing orders,The payment will be every three months.We do not know a date surely but it should not be longer than end of March, Any way you will be properly updated before the payment.

Best Regards.

Alejandro Martín Guevara.
 

Good morning,
                     I have been made aware that RPM may begin the process of debiting community fees from the residents in March and this may be in the form of 3 monthly payments in one go. Please be advised that I do not wish to have any funds withdrawn from my account until the end of the month and any subsequent payments should also be set-up for the month end. This will fall in with the way my regular transfers from the UK to Spain are scheduled giving time for the funds to clear. Please advise of the current intention of RPM regarding community payments.

Thank you.

 

OK-still don't know for sure when it will be, but we are to be informed befor it will happen by this response.

 

Regards,

 

wired out,

They did not give me a specific date, but intimated that the first payment  for Jan/Feb/March would not go beyond the end of March. I have emailed back asking for a figure for the backpayments for 2008 and a payment schedule. We completed on 28/07/08. They have not replied yet so I have just sent another email. I will keep you posted when I receive the reply.

I have just noticed that Michael Hardys fees are the same as the ones I have been Quoted and he has a 2 bed in jardine 5. I hope they dont think mine is a 2 bed and have quoted me wrong!

Dakey

Dan- I also first thought they we must be being charged for the builders supply when I saw the Ibedrola charges!!

However its more likely for the maintenance and lights. As I think that of a night CdA can possibly be seen from the moon the lighting charges must be huge (even though not all the car parking has had lights throughout) If you arrive in the evening you can see CdA from a long way off!! Maybe we could persuade them to turn off every other light.

Just hope we are not charged some connection charges for setting up the link to the substation.

I suppose a clear breakdown of costs would clarify everything and for better or worse at least we will know how they come by the figures. Initially we were told that 50/55 euro's would be our monthly community charges and that that was higher than other developments because of the high level of facilities and services. That we understood. Even with the changes to the euro'sterling rates 100 euro's is more than expected..

I doubt a call to Iberdrola would clarify anything- as its been pointed out on this thread RPM's Victoria is just an administrator so may not have the information but also who ever you get through to at Iberdrola is a call handler and unlikely to be able to provide a real insight.

We certainly need to be getting to the bottom of this. There is no way a small proportion of the development ie Jardines, Naranjos & Penthouses should be paying for the whole bloody Condado estate ! As most of us know who have been there, the place is huge and 50% of the street lighting will just be illuminating thin air and contributing to global warming. If Polaris want this on - they should be paying for it. There is nothing that needs lighting up outwith our Jardines & Penthouses blocks that the car headlights can't deal with in the hours of darkness. Also as previously mentioned, the Polaris construction traffic will far outweigh the traffic generated by the residents at the moment as far as paying for roads is concerned. Maintainance of gardens and communal facilities - fair enough, we all want them to be kept up to spec' and I am happy to pay. First thing I will look for when we go over again is if the palm trees that appeared to be dying off in our gardens are either revitalised or replaced and we have no dead patches in the lawns. Get that sorted before you think about leaving the lights on all night please. 

Regards,

To answer an earlier question from Stonephil who are RPM Spain

I have also searched and come up with nothing, but today whilst checking my paperwork on an e-mail from Victoria when she sent out general information including the budget the logo at the end of the letter was for

CARRILLO Asesores-Tributarios-Abagados  I think this is a firm of Lawyers not quite sure how they are now involved in Property Management and there seems to be no reference to RPM or Property Management on their site

http://www.carrillo-asesores.org/nuevoproyecto5/nuevo5.htm

but then i am only at Spanish level -1 so dont understand half of what i read there perhaps someone can find a link?

Lawyers managing Property seems very odd?

Thanks Mick,

On the other thread about solicitors it is mentioned that one of the owners of a firm of solicitors has something to do with RPM.

I was taking a look at the La Torre residents association website (which they have set up independent of the original Polaris residents site, and I think there are a few lessons we should be learning from their experiences.  Whatever their current financial position, they are certainly taking some steps to rectify it, and what they are doing looks very professional.

1) As mentioned elsewhere they have produced a very detailed explanation of the community charges - I think we should look to our administrator to do the same. http://www.ltgr.es/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=1

2) TV services.  They are having some real problems with Polaris over the maintainance of TV and Telecom services - charging very high maintenance fees.  Polaris still own the plot of land that the systems are on, and all of the equipment, hence La Torre can't easily replace their services - and the charges are 3 - 4 times other quotes (and work out about €11 per month per plot) http://www.ltgr.es/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=1

3) Community rules.  La Torre have a very comprehensive set of rules - these are on the Polaris Residents association site, and include a potential "penalty charge" if rules are broken of up to €1,000 per day - from the date an owner is advised to correct the issue - If this is legal (which I assume it is) it should be quite an incentive to adhere to agreed rules.  The rules cover properties, pets etc. http://www.polarisworld.uk.net/content/view/54/53/

4) They also have a section for proxy voting at meetings, and full updates of community information. Again we should look to our administrators to earn their keep and provide a similar site for Condado. http://www.ltgr.es/

Ted

Right, I am beginning to get somewhere with rpm. I have just had an email from Victoria, in addition to the 1208.94 euros she has quoted me for 2009 community fees, she now tells me that the monthly fee for last year from august to dec will be 29.67euros per month. She still cannot give me a cast iron date for when the payments will be taken, but she says they hope to organise another meeting soon and they will confirm the dates then.

just to reiterate, we have a ground floor 3 bedroom apartment in jardine 12 on the jardines resort.

cheers Dakey

Hi Dakey,

That information is really helpful - at least we now have more specific figures.  Are they saying that they will not take any payments from anyone until there has been another meeting, as there was originally some talk of the first payment being taken in March (I think someone mentioned the 10th March). 

We are also in Jardin 12 - which number are you?

Debbie and Paul