Things that are allowed....

In the past week I have read acouple of comments about things that are allowed(or not) to be added to the properties. I know  it's all there is the rules and regulations and heaven knows I'm a man for following rules but I note today a mention on a thread about taking down the rattan roof on a pergola. It was mentioned on the other forum about the new internet system neding a dish and whether that will be a problem as they shouldnt be fixed or seen, and on that comment was also one about washing lines.

People have now been living on CdA since June 2008 and whilst I understand the other resort mangement were rather hopeless it seems to me that a long time has elapsed for the present team to get it together and 'make' peole follow the rules. I actually think its a bit late and a little unfair to make people take down things that they have not even had a specific reminder or complaint about before- despite the rules. Hand on heart has everyone had a copy.

 There are several massive satellite dishes on upper terraces that are quite visible- will they have to go? Don't fancy being in that argument as real money has been spent there.

It says in those rules that sun umberella's should be white (so I'm being told) will that be enforced and any grill work should be white. I have seen brown wall dividers on upper terraces and on a couple of ground floor terraces, some people have fitted brown wooden cupboards to their ground floor understairs. Some people have built up their rear ground floor walss and added gates - is all that to be corrected? Will the cow shed and other encasing around pergolas have to go? And if so when?

Being told the resort management are going to deal with these things is great- but is it really going to happen?

 Ho Tony,

The community rules with regard to property alterations has been well discussed and publicised over the past few years.  Just because people have been getting away with such changes in the past does not make it right.   Ignorance as they say is no defence.    As you say RPM never really enforced the rules, or showed much interest in anything else come to mention it, but we now have a different administrator and things will change.  In a community such as ours we need guidelines as to acceptable alterations, otherwise people would do as they please and we could end out with some completely unacceptable alterations.

The community rules are in the process of being amended, for a vote by the owners at the May AGM.  But in the meantime, any alterations that have been made that are against the current rules and are not proposed to change will be required to be removed.  

As I'm sure you remember it was agreed at the 2010 AGM that NO property alterations should be made without the approval of the community.

I'm actually in full agtreement of community rules- though I probably knew that there would be rules and they could be quite restrictive wereas other purchasers may not have had that awaremess. Some people wont want to abide by rules anyway.whether they are appropriate or not.

I'd be interested to know what adaptations are about to be proposed and who has suggested them- the owners?

Just feel its been a long time before the community rules have been enforced and potentially thats a big problem.

hi all i would like to know what the committee is going to do to those who do not comply to the rules how are they going to enforce them. pepole are going to say i pay my mortgage and the rest of my bills not you . so i will do as i see fit

It wasn't my intention to start a big issue about the Community rules when I started this thread and I can see by the way it has been avoided people dont want to get into the subject. However, buying  in this sort of community in Spain means that you have agreed when signing the purchase agreement to living within the community rules. Otherwise you should buy a house in town or an individual dwelling off an urbanisation. There are statues in relation to buying on our type of resort or on an urbanisation- they can appear restrictive if you want to be difficult about them. It is not like buying on a traditional housing estate in the UK. it is rather like buying on an private apartment block in the uk that has a maintenance charge and you have to abide by certain rules and regs when you live there.

These rules and regs are enforceable by law in Spain, which I know is a long winded procedure but dont think the communities dont use them . For 1 example; I know of people on La Torre who fittted extensive black grills to their ground floor apartment at a not inconsiderable cost but eventually had to have them removed. I know of other circumstances but wont bore you with them but they involved blocking in pergola's and building walls.

My point was only that people have lived on CdA since 2008 with no action ever being taken, and therefore its going to prove difficult, when people have spent real money, to get them to alter things they have done. It would have been far better if ML, when taking over, had made quite a song and dance about the general rules and regs rather than gentle and unenforced reminders. I also think ML should email the rules and regulations annually to all owners on their records so no mistake about them can be made. I think saying 'you all have had  them' and ' they are on the official website' isnt sufficient. I know that people who completed in the June -Dec 2008 period by proxy(of which there were very many) didnt get given or sent them at the time of completion (no matter who says they did- it just didnt happen) They couldnt get them until they could collect their deeds and for many that was months and months after they had the keys to their apartments and had bought fixtures and fittings-thererein this created a problem and confusion about them. At that time there was no website to chase them up on even if you knew about them.

I would also query where does any funding come from to go through legal action?- I'm not asking this aggressivily but from curiosity. In the past I have heard that individual apartment blocks or cul-de-sacs or Jardin's had to raise money with regard to legal action against residents in their specific  locations.

As has been said ' ignorance is no defence' but in the interest of cordial relations probably a bit more publicity would have helped. But in the main I'm asking because I'd like to see the rules obeyed other wise there's no point in having them and recent snippets of information suggest ML are about to become more active.

This is such a very difficult one.  Some of the work done by people is absolutely fantastic and really enhances the place.  They have made the effort to use natural colours and have planted lots of shrubbery and flowers etc.  However, some of the work is hellish.  With brightly coloured tat hanging from every available surface and crappy looking additions.  I am thinking of no particular person or property here before anyone accuses me of having a go at them but, of course, one person's idea of what's tasteful and another persons idea is, obviously, wildly different.  Personally, I don't mind the use of natural materials and colours - wood, rattan, brown, bieges etc but goodness knows how they can enforce anything without having a watertight set of conditions.  I am one of the very first completers on the resort and, at the time, although we pleaded with PW to give us a clue as to what the aesthetics were to comply with - we got nowhere.  So - out we went, spent our hard-earned cash on what we thought was ok - only to be 'informed' a couple of years later that the type of lighting we had put up was not acceptable.  How can this be fair?  We asked and asked at the time to no avail.  There - rant over. Arlene.

Having looked at the 'aesthetic modifications' booklet on the official site. There's little to bother most people. The focus is on additions being white( sun canopies, curtain screens and enclosures for under stairs or laundry in ground floor apartment) except for fencing which should copy the fencing around the pools.

With regard to the lights

  This actually seems to refer to the lamps rather than the  light fitting and as Jardin 12 has terracotta light fittings, as fitted by PW, is probably not a problem. In the midst of other things that are definately more major I doubt the lights are going to be an issue.

Hoping nothing will really cause people difficulties but this all makes interesting reading.

I may be wrong but I seem to remember someone saying you couldn't have a washing line up.  If thats true how do people dry their washing.

Overall I'm in favour of having conditions as long as they don't go too far.  If it doesn't stick out and draw attention it's probably not going to bother people, and vice versa.  And I agree with a previous post that some people have done some great stuff with their places without making them stand out. 

I'm not in full agreement that everyone should have everything the same colour...a few options on the colour of sails or umbrellas for tables would be nice.

Polaris like uniformity and dont want individuality-therefore their 'rules' are for everything to be white, on our resort at least in the original designs. The resort is meant to look like those promotion video's we all saw in 2007- lush gardens and white buidlings.

 Heaven help us if PW come back and build some of those new style Mar Menor apartments around the golf course- they are earth colours but would probably clash quite garishly with our traditional white design and rendering.

Even on other resorts where PW have gone down the line of colour wash for the exterior of building there's a strict pattern to it. But CdA is meant to be representative of a traditional pueblo style. I remember looking to the show apartments for the Jardines and they had brightly coloured canopies and umberellas to represent the Olympic flags (or World Cup, I think-cant remember!) and the sales girl pointed them out and said 'but you cannot do this here'

I remember the washing lines controversy ,when I first started to look at this forum I read many back threads which included  several threads about things like washing lines and sun brollies which apparently are also meant to be white rather than in a colour which caused a bit of angst on the threads. Can't find that info in the statutes now but that could just mean I can't find it not that it doesnt exist.

Think the more major alterations are the things that will cause issues whenever ML get around to dealing with these matters.