Minutes of the meeting

I have just received the agenda for the meeting on the 9th May.

Not very exciting but I'll try and upload it.

Try this.

Ah, that's the meeting 9th May 09 referred to previously.

As many as you can should attend that AGM - being the first it's very important that you get several Owners elected to your Board, and at least one of you as Vice President.

It will be interesting as to who your management company will be - personally speaking this is probably the most important decision in your official first year. A good management company is essential, a bad choice here will hamstring your efforts.

Hi everyone and sorry for butting into your forum. We have an apartment in Arenal  Golf and were in a similar position to yourselves. We had our first community meeting last week.

As the developer still owned most of the units ie the unsold ones, they had the majority vote so what they say goes. They elected the President, who was a representative from their company in Cordoba and the Vice President was a representative from the sales office. they also had already selected the Administration company. So we didn`t have any say as far as that went.

However several owners did attend the meeting armed with proxy votes and were able to put our concerns forward in the form of a question and answer session towards the end of the meeting.

It was suggested that we have several people represent us as owners, one for the Spanish and one for the others.These people would have meetings with the President, vice president and Administration and be able to voice our concerns. More importantly they also had access to our budget and are able to monitor the spending.

We are already over budget because previous Administrators were able to do what they liked and that money has to be clawed back ( from the owners ) in the form of increased community fees. I think all phases in Arenal Golf were in debt at their first community meetings.

Unfortunately you will not have a big say in running things until the point when most of the apartments are sold and the owners are in the majority. Until then it is important that you have an input  by  having yourselves represented by owners who are able to monitor what the Administration Company does especially as regards your budget. If this is not suggested at your meeting then some of you should bring it up.

It is also an idea to put your concerns on paper and forward them to the Adminstration company in advance of  the meeting .

Best of luck

Thanks for the info.Do you know who your Administration Company is? We were told by our Administrator(Juan Santos  from AJS)  that no back payments would be expected from owners. Did you get chance to ask questions during the meeting? Was there an English interpreter?

Any other tips about what went on would be very helpful as we intend to be at there.

I personally was unable to attend the meeting as I flew home the day before but we had several owners who did attend. We gave written consent to those people to vote ( if allowed ) on our behalf. It didn`t come to that but it wouldn`t have made much difference anyway as the developer held the majority votes due to the number of unsold units. Several owners contributed to the cost of hiring an interpreter and were able to ask questions towards the end of the meeting. We made a list of things that we felt needed attention, had it translated into Spanish and presented it to the Administration Company a few days before the meeting. Some things were not to my liking, eg. the debt run up by the previous Administration Company. But overall it seemed to go OK. As a result of the meeting some major snagging issues were attended to. For instance we had problems with garage doors not opening and people completing in blocks that had no mains water connected. These were fixed within a week. The owners were able to elect representatives to meet with the President and Vice president. Those representatives also are able to monitor the spending by the Administration Company although they can`t actually write the cheques. If you are already in debt there is no point in going to the meeting and asking for sunbeds around the pools. The first thing has to be to get out of debt and control your budget by prioritising what you spend your money on. Get the important stuff sorted first like water, power, lifts , garages, snagging in communal areas etc. Ask if all owners have paid their community charge, more importantly has the developer paid his and how are they going to chase up those who haven`t paid. If you have a representative it makes sense to choose someone who lives there if at all possible. Hope I`ve been of help.
 

I was one of only eight English owners ( 4 couples) able to attend the Arenal Golf Phase 4 Community Meeting. I had the proxy forms of a number of others.

To add to Robert's comments. The Administration did supply an interpreter, a young Spanish woman, however, prior to the meeting I had asked an English friend ,who has lived in Spain for over 25 years and offers interpreting services,if she would translate some questions into Spanish that a group of us were seeking answers to.This she did, together with another friend of hers who is a lawyer specialising in Community Law.The questions that we wanted answered were, with few exceptions, no different from those of the Spanish residents.

I emailed the questions to the Administrator  in advance of the meeting and also visited him in his office with a second copy of the questions the day before the meeting. It was useful to meet him personally and he seemed pleased that we had made the effort to put our questions in writing, and in Spanish, prior to the meeting. A group of friends who were unable  to attend the meeting will be sharing the interpreter costs with us.

My friend was also able to attend the meeting ,and this was invaluable, as she provided me with a running commentary as the meeting progressed. As a result  I was able to take notes for those unable to be present as we went along. The Spanish interpreter appeared to listen to large chunks of the dialogue, whilst only feeding back a small part of what had been said..

On our Phase of Arenal Golf the Developer still owned over 80% of the properties at the time of the meeting, so in law had the right to put forward its own representatives as President and Vice- President.

Vocales, spokespeople for various groups, were asked for at the meeting . As I live on the Phase permanently ,and have some contact with the majority of the English owners, as well as writing a Blog on the Arenal Golf website, it made sense fo me to offer my services as a vocale.

The Vocales will be meeting on a regular basis with the President, Vice President and Administrator to look at budgets, and in theory to act as a channel of communication between the officers of the Comunity and the residents. It remains to be seen how this will actually work in practice.

The Administrator will be on site two Monday evenings each month for two hours for people to meet him or to bring up current issues and problems.

He will be circulating a list of snagging issues in community spaces, along with the minutes of the meeting, and residents will be asked to add any of their own, and to prioritise what is already there,as well as what they have added. It was made clear at the meeting that issues relating to access to buildings and garages had precedence over swimming pools and gardens.

If anyone is interested in the notes that I took at our Phase of Arenal Golf's first meeting please send me a private message with your email addres and I will forward them to you.

 Thank you both for taking the time to give us  your input. Most appreciated. If anyone is attending the meeting, could they please PM me with their email address that I can contact to give them my proxy vote in writing. Also, if anyone wants/needs to pay for a Spanish interpreter, I am happy to contribute to the cost of this.  I think it may be time for us to get on board as a community here. Anyone with any more thoughts? Margo

I too am unable to attend the meeting.  However Ken has kindly agreed to take our proxy vote.  I am also happy to contribute towards the cost of an interpreter.

One other question apart from the one about the southern boundary.

When are we to get sun loungers or is this what they are referring to in item 8 of the agenda. 

Don't know which idiot titled this thread 'minutes of the meeting' and not 'agenda of the meeting'.

We´ve got a list of 10 general questions and 16 points about repairs to the site which we´ve emailed to the Administrator in advance.Item 8 refers to the colour of the permanently fixed sunshades which people on the top floors may need.The sunbed question is on the list as are any other points or questions which people sent to me by private message.

Will keep you updated.

Sue and Dave

I Need to get something out to you in writing so you can use my vote if possible but not sure if you can print it direct from here and dont have emails for any of you..  Having said this,  i dont think it will make a difference at this stage do you?  there are so few of us that even if we all had our votes out there and being counted they wouldnt add up to much compared the amount they have.

See if you can find out if all of the pools (or the three with tenants around) are going to be in use this summer despite the others not completing.  It was my understanding from the administrator the day he attended the road protest that we will not have to contribute any more fees until we are on utility contracts and that this would not be happening any time soon.  Therefore i suspect they will keep switching pools so there is only one in use at a time.  But people that are holidaying there will need some sort of loungers surely.

Anyway,  I wish i could be there but work wont let me at the moment.  very frustrating.  I am sure you guys will do a really good job. 

Is there a list of the questions up to now anywhere?  i am sure there is nothing to add, although you could tell ken to ask about our telly's ha ha.  yes, i am still on about that!.    What are the permanently fixed sunshades?  They are parasols already erected around the pools are they not?  i dont get that bit. 

suzanne

Item 8 is the sunshades for the top floors.  As the weather becomes warmer it is very hot on the top floor balconies, Sue & Dave want to place a sunshade on their balcony.  The development must have one colour that is picked and used by all apartments.  La Noria have royal blue.  It only affects the apartments on the top floors really.

oh right .... well, erm.... i think ...... pink with yellow polker dots..... all those in favour?     

i have to admit i have never liked la norias but thats because there are so many of them i think and they have the blue paintwork too... anyway, i'm waffling now, its irrelevant to me as i am ground floor.  

Wish we were there trace eh.     I'm going stir crazy at home here.   Never mind.   Soon.

suzanne  xx

Less than three weeks and we will be there.  Hooray!