STATEMENT Nº 3
Dear owners
Many thanks for your support: our joint effort has led to a saving of €562,000 in the community[i] budget. The approval of this new budget, which we proposed to our service management company, RPM, came into effect in the month of May. The results can be appreciated in a reduction of €20 to 23 in monthly community fees.
Our association has representatives in several level-3 chairmanships (Jardines de Alhama 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12 & 13) and a level 2 chairperson for Jardines de Alhama II.
On 16 May 2006, our property development company (“Alhama Golf Resort”) representative, as level-2 chairperson, voted for herself with a proportional representation of over 80%. She therefore proclaimed herself general chairperson of level 1, in other words, chairperson of the Condado de Alhama resort. She was able to do this by basing herself on certain general statutes unknown to the majority of us owners.
As a result of these statutes, we find ourselves immersed in a rather exceptional community; one in which we as owners of our properties:
1. - cannot freely elect our level-1 chairperson. This is imposed in the statutes. Therefore, as of today, the 4 level-2 chairpersons –elected by all the level-3 chairpersons- only have a proportional participation of 20%, as opposed to the 80% corresponding to un-built plots that the property development company attributed to its representative.
2. - cannot elect our management for level 1. This is because the level-1 chairperson (Alhama Golf Resort) has the last word.
We therefore find ourselves in a community in which:
1. - we, as the majority, do not feel properly represented by our level-1 chairperson.
2. - we have to continue depending on the services of a management which the vast majority of owners have no confidence in.
3. - we cannot change any subcontracts (whether they work well or badly), since all of them are under the control of the level-1 chairperson (Alhama Golf Resort).
It is very difficult to change this situation; in addition, communication among us is made even more difficult as we speak different languages and there is also the fact of distance: many owners use their properties as a second home. Nevertheless, difficult it may be, but not impossible.
Nowadays, email provides us with the possibility of getting together and forming a united front.
From this moment onwards, we have two options:
1. - To put up with the whole situation, and resign ourselves to what many of us feel is a totally unfair situation.
2. - To organise ourselves and stand up for our interests; to try and achieve a “normal” community in which the owners, who have paid for their property or are doing so through a mortgage, at least have the right to manage their own community, by freely electing their chairperson, management and service subcontracts.
You can rest assured that you will be kept informed of future events in subsequent statements.
Finally, We would like to take advantage of this communiqué to thank you for the huge number of emails received in reply to our previous statements, in which you clearly approve of our having taken up the association again, and you express your encouragement and support for us in this task we have now resumed.
Yours faithfully