Time for Action

Hi

Totally agree with your comments. In particular AEA have let the developer off the hook and he must now be brought to account. It was agreed some three years ago that the painting on the first blocks was faulty and the devloper agreed to repaint them as soon as the devlopment was finished and there was less dust in the air.

Enough is enough,  the time for AEA to talk about problems is over, it is time for some action.

I agree with the points raised Steve and I in fact e mailed Melisa at AEA to address some of these issues.  She said she would speak to security but I feel nothing will be done really unless they are instructed specifically to ask anyone without an electronic key for a name and number of the apt they live in or are visiting.  We experienced a lot of people driving in for the whole day most days of the week and especially at weekends and in fact heard groups of holidaymakers at Monte Duquesa discussing which urbanisation to visit and concluding that DV has the best and most easily accessible pools!

I also raised the post issue which is ridiculous.  We had had no post according to the gate in four months and were expecting several items.  Melisa suggested I go to the post office as they often don't bother to deliver due to difficulty in interpreting individual addresses.  I agree - we must have indvidual boxes.  The fact that we are a large urbanisation is no excuse - we are still individual dwellings paying for and entitled to individual delivery like everyone else in the area!

The paintwork / flowerbeds are a total mess and must be addressed for our amenity and so that others are inclined to invest in the development.  The developers should have to pay for defective paint to be redone anyway as they have agreed to do at all of the previous AGMs.  Also they should rectify the building design which curently means water pours directly down the stair wells stripping the paint in the hallways.

We also raised concerns over abandoned vehicles - (jetski, van, etc that we know of!) in the garages parked in spaces which are owned by others who are having to use empty spaces or park on the street.  parking is very tight in our garage and due to incorrect parking and an apparently stolen (numbers ground off) jetski on a trailer parked opposite us we often have to park on the yellow lines outside unless there are other places free.  A friend in another block has had an unused van in her parking space for over two years with nothing done about it!  Melisa responded by saying that it was hard for her to do much as the police will not get involved with vehicles on private property but that if everyone reports any incorrectly parked vehicles she will get them towed outside of the development and the police will post notices on them before they are removed.

I agree, it is concerning that in keeping their own costs down the major owning corporations might encourage the decline of the development and so I would urge everyone to keep e mailing or calling AEA at the very least in order that she is aware of concerns by many.  I think only if a number of residents complain about issues will anything be done.

Painting

At the last meeting I attended a survey and report was being produced to identify why the paint had peeled off.

Ros Y Falcon and AEA were progressing this with the builders and specialist engineers. The plan was to get the builders to pay for remedial work. Please note RYF are not the builders.

Post 

This needs to be very carefully considered. My friend has just become president on a community of over 100 apartments and they are closing off all of the individual post boxes as they are abused rather than used, people lose the keys. The post office will not wander around a large site ensuring that ll post goes into the correct box.

They are moving to a block by block  pidgeon hole system just like ours. This will go into the security office and will become one of the tasks for security.

My own community has 15 houses and individual boxes this works for the mail but they are also stuffed with adverts and other flyers.

If you have individual boxes on a large urbanisation you may end up with more problems. As the addressing on some mail is not clear it go into the wrong sealed post box and stay there for months. Individual boxes will get stuffed with flyers for restaurants, shops and other none mail post.

You as an individual should ensure that all your post including utilities have absolutely the correct address. Post in Spain is not at the standard that we have in the UK so correct addressing will help.

Dogs

If you see dogs fouling take a digital photo of the dog and owner, and ideally find out which apartment they are from, pass this information to AEA via email and copy me or another member of the management team.

Steve i´m agree with you, i sent a mail a month ago to Melissa and Gerardo and no response about theese problems, paintig,air cables,dead palms and an increase of abandonated cars on our street (almost 3 at this moment), also to call Manilva town office to report that our streets to acces to DV are completely dark at night and full of rubish.

If AEA can´t resolve it maybe we have to change to another adminstration .they do not inform us everythig done,progress of negotiations to solve problems,etc.

Luis

I hadn't really considered those problems Jeff but thanks for the information of your own experiences.  We do normally receive all of our utility bills etc to the pigeon hole so they are correctly addressed but this time there was nothing, neither utility bills, IBI bill (even though all the others seemed to have arrived) or other correspondence we were expecting.  Good to hear the painting survey is still underway.  I had assumed this was something which hadn't been followed up as Duquesa Suites residents were promised similar I believe and this was not followed through.

Luis - I hadn't realised there were abandoned cars outside of the garages in the streets too.  Seems that's an ongoing problem

Caroline

Hi Everyone

With regard to the post issue, when we have checked the post bundles for our post we have quite often found post for other blocks mixed in with our block.  Who is responsible for sorting the post into the different blocks because this is probably where the error is happening, the post reaches DV and then sometimes gets incorrectly sorted.  Sometmes we are allowed to look through the bundles ourselves but on other occasions the security guard looks.

We have also challenged security opening the barriers for cars and asked why they are doing this when drivers should have their own remotes.  On one occasion I stopped security opening the barrier until they had checked with the car driver that they were authorised to enter.  I have also reported this to AEA more than once.  We have even had the gates opened for us!

I wish the paintwork could be sorted out as it makes the whole village look tatty.  We have several areas of missing plasterwork on our stair wells.

Another thing I have raised with Melisa at AEA is the pool behind security.  We were told in March 2009 that they were waiting for a 2nd licence.  This year when we noticed that there was still a padlock on the pool gate, we went to the AEA office and asked why this was still closed.  Guess what, one year and a half later, they are still waiting for a licence and Melisa said she would chase this up with Manilva council!!!!!  Maybe if more people challenged AEA then these things would be sorted.

We also had a problem with the lift in our block back in June as the buttons kept sticking causing the lift to break down, a problem not helped by children playing in it.  On one occasion when it had stopped working, the family renting next door to us were leaving and they decided to jump up and down in the lift to try and make it work - which of course made it worse.  Melisa was very good and arranged to have a thorough check done on the lift and so far it has worked fine since.

Hi Everyone

With regard to the post issue, when we have checked the post bundles for our post we have quite often found post for other blocks mixed in with our block.  Who is responsible for sorting the post into the different blocks because this is probably where the error is happening, the post reaches DV and then sometimes gets incorrectly sorted.  Sometmes we are allowed to look through the bundles ourselves but on other occasions the security guard looks.

We have also challenged security opening the barriers for cars and asked why they are doing this when drivers should have their own remotes.  On one occasion I stopped security opening the barrier until they had checked with the car driver that they were authorised to enter.  I have also reported this to AEA more than once.  We have even had the gates opened for us!

I wish the paintwork could be sorted out as it makes the whole village look tatty.  We have several areas of missing plasterwork on our stair wells.

Another thing I have raised with Melisa at AEA is the pool behind security.  We were told in March 2009 that they were waiting for a 2nd licence.  This year when we noticed that there was still a padlock on the pool gate, we went to the AEA office and asked why this was still closed.  Guess what, one year and a half later, they are still waiting for a licence and Melisa said she would chase this up with Manilva council!!!!!  Maybe if more people challenged AEA then these things would be sorted.

We also had a problem with the lift in our block back in June as the buttons kept sticking causing the lift to break down, a problem not helped by children playing in it.  On one occasion when it had stopped working, the family renting next door to us were leaving and they decided to jump up and down in the lift to try and make it work - which of course made it worse.  Melisa was very good and arranged to have a thorough check done on the lift and so far it has worked fine since.

Thanks everyone for your input on this issue. 

The question I posed was whether others feel as I do and what is it that is going to change or we can do differently in order to get these things resolved?

It seems that a number of poeple share my concerns and the more diffuclt question is exactly what to do about it .   Whilst these things are known about and being reported etc they still havent been resolved and my feeling is we will still be here in 2 years time talking about the same issues.

Personally I don't think AEA should be replaced and genuinly think they do a reasonable job and I think we would struggle to find anyone better.  I'm going to put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with, maybe each issues needs its own individual approach.

Steve

Getting the license for the pool is not AEA's job even though they will help if they can. It is the responsibility of the developer.

AEA's role is to collect community fees, pay community bills utility etc. pay contractors we/they employ and ensure the contractors do the job they are paid to do, lifeguard, security, gardeners, cleaners etc.

Chase debt with the individual and via the court process.

Keep community accounts, call meetings and produce minutes.

Advise the Presidents and management team if required on aspects of community Horizontal Law.

There seems to an assumption that they cover others areas, this is not the case.

In our case AEA have taken on responsibility of other areas and we should be thanking them not criticising.

If you want to see what they do join the management team. As I do not live in Spain full time I can only attend a few meetings so a few more people attending the meetings would be useful.

I have nearly 9 years experience working with Administrators as a President and whilst not all are perfect our local AEA people, Sandra especially is very good.

PM if you want to join the management team.

An interesting point about the unlicensed pool close to the main entrance is that  previously it has water being constraintly flowing through it.  I remember on quiet day hearing the water coming down the drains in the road.  I traced the source to the unused pool.  

Just wondering?  Have we being paying for water charges (or approx several cubic meters an hour) being pour through an unusable pool for over a year?

Well  I am there from 21st September.  Locked gate or not  I think I will get my money's worth and go for a swim in it !!

Tales of  abandoned cars parked in personal garage spaces is a new one !

Otherwise nothing seems to have changed.

You can put me on the volunteer rubbish and litter clearance rota.