Have we shot ourselves in the foot

Good Giles, goodbye!!

 Barry, I am very sorry but to compare Mazarron Country Club with CDA is just ridiculous. I dont wanna go into details but I know your development quite well and, with all my respect, this is just not fair to compare the two. Just seeing the security system  I dont think you have the same standards as we have on site but I now do understand better where you come from. Regarding your comments on Spanish work just reread your comments, no need to say anything more. Rupert - Quality Homes at Al Kasar

PS: by the way, I am also onwer on site

Hi Rupert

Once again you translate what I am writing wrongly, I have not and would not try to make any comparison between MCC and CDA, that would be entirely futile as the two are wholly different types of urbanisation as you will recognise if you know it well as you say.

My only reason for posting here is to alert owners to the very clear signs of an administrator trying to take control of the owners and restricting their rights to cast a vote without hinderance in the forthcoming AGM. Similarly the way they have contrived to depose elected representatives of the owners in a very unhealthy and unprofessional way, that alone would worry me enormously were I an owner.

They are not being transparent, why I don't know and nor should I but what they are doing is almost a carbon copy of the experiences we had with our last administrator, an experience that left us very close bankruptcy and has taken 3 years to recover from. We took the option of self administration because we had no choice if we were to rescue the situation, perhaps you still have a choice but that will disappear if you allow this situation to conclude in an all powerful administration company that has little respect or regard for its employers.

Barry

I will leave my contributions there unless anyone has any questions of me which they can do by pm if they desire.

 

This message was last edited by Fighter2 on 16/11/2012.

Rupert how rude!!  Fighter has offered his help and advice only in all his posts your post is quite frankly insulting.  I personally think CDA is a fantastic resort and I want it to stay that way or better still continue to improve.  I have friends interested in buying on CDA and I hate what is happening in the background but I think I will refer them to an alternative agent I'm sorry to say

"Spanish Practices" is an ancient term that most of us understand the meaning of. Whether we like it or not we all are and have been subject to since our Spanish adventure started. It's a fact and little or nothing you can do to change it.

With a week to go to my AGM which I will be attending I have read the papers that I have been sent, had a few PM's which have been helpful and read the dialogue on this forum. I am still not in possession of sufficient detail to make a major voting decision on our administrator.

The positive facts that I do have are:
CDA is a wonderful place in an excellent location.
It is growing quite fast with new buyers coming in every day so it seems.
The facilities that we have are fantastic and improving.
The condition of the place is excellent by typical Spanish standards.
It is maintained to a very high standard.
The cost to me is very cheap, almost too cheap.
The vast majority of residents of all nationalities are nice people and good neighbours with a common purpose.
The potential for the future is huge if the Euro issue is ever resolved, but I can wait for that.
I certainly don't want any of the above to change.

The negative facts and suggestions that I am aware of:
We have a significant amount of debt caused by people not paying their way. This should be no1 priority and is gradually being resolved if a bit too slowly for my comfort.
We are due to start a major repainting exercise and this needs funding, priority no 2.
There is a problem especially for non Spanish speaking people who cannot meaningfully engage with the administrative process to a standard where they can challenge what may be 'Spanish practices' in allocating work and contracts. We are in Spain after all.
I have no alternative options open to me.

So when I attend the AGM am I going to stay with the positives and continue to enjoy the reasons why I bought on CDA uninterrupted- a holiday home for relaxation and a get away from politics and 'Spanish practices' in the UK. Or am I going to opt for something else that I have no detail on and run the risk of self rule as suggested by Fighter2.

An estate like CDA which is huge, needs a significant level of management just to keep it rolling on a day to day basis. This is not something for amateurs and requires a significant infrastructure behind it. We currently have that in place even if some are not happy with how it is achieved. Personally, I don't really care as long as I get what I bought into at an affordable price.

Some may think this is apathy. Especially those who know me and of my background. But I only get excited about things I can influence and that is not the case here. We Brits have a history as long as your arm of falling out with pretty much the rest of the world when we either don't like or don't understand how things are done elsewhere. Is that the case here?

So on Saturday next week unless something significant changes and a coherent alternative is presented to me by an equally coherent person, then the status quo will remain. I suspect this will be the view of the majority of owners on CDA and is the reason why an administrator once installed is not going to be changed too easily. Jon Faulkner.

What you have enjoyed so far Faulky may not be with you in the future but lets wait and see eh?

Very well put Jon Faulkner, I am very much in agreement with your last post.

 "We are due to start a major repainting exercise and this needs funding, priority no 2."

 

Really?  Why would you believe this is actually going to happen?

It's quite straight forward Phil, priority 1 recover the bulk of the 650,000 debt and then priority 2 , pay for the painting. Not rocket science.

I don't blame you for getting out of the politics by the way, leave it to the professionals whoever they may be. Have we come up with an alternative yet to ML? I am deafened by the silence. JF

Until the 12th of Never.......................

JF

It’s going to take a lot more than rocket science to paint CDA for 650.000 euro, I think Harry Potter will have to be called for. We could probably use his help with recovering the debt as well if we expect to get the whole amount of 650.000.

Either way there is no time to wait for this money to come in. The resort is already in need for painting and renovation. So far it has been an easy task to keep the resort well maintained, it’s more or less a question of cutting the grass and hedges, and replacing a few broken tiles and light bulbs. That’s one of the good things with a brand new resort.

In the future we will have to spend a lot more than we have done on keeping the resort looking good. There are still a lot of loose tiles, the pool areas already needs to be maintained (lot of tiles missing in the pool, sealing lacking etc.) And the painting will take a lot of time and probably a few million euros. We have to get started as soon as possible. This is not a question of ML or no ML, it’s something we have to do to protect our investment. I think it calls for a significant rise in community fees (at least for some period of time), or a one-time payment from every owner to at least get the painting done for now.

Why an increase in Comm charge or one off owner payment?
We have ALL paid for repainting already as a propotion of our fees SHOULD have been kept in a fund for this purpose. Why has this money been squandered by Milleniun?
This is all smoke and mirrors, hiding inadequacies by our Administrators who are relying on the owners who occupy thier apt 3-4 weeks per year and do not see what is really going on.
We have been warned by Mazarron CC about similar problems they encountered, Milleniun have had written warning for not adhering to Presidents instructions and now we find we have no cash to fund painting. Vote Milleniun in for a further period and our problems will increase further.
Let us form our own "owners Administration" and we can subcontract Gardeners, Security etc ourselves. First year saving euro 300k
in Milleniun fees alone.
Vote with apathy at peril.

Davell

I have half a tin of Dulux Weathershield in White, which I will happily donate to the "Painting Fund".

I am also happy to paint the whole resort for just 640,000 Euros, plus the cost of a 6 inch brush and some turps.

We need to get shot of ML and take control of the community ourselves. There is only one way this is heading and it aint good.

Darren

Half EMPTY tin of Dulux Weathershield I presume.....

If it was up to me, the job would be yours

If we allocated 600.000 for the job, that is 200 euros per apartment which is more than enough for a painting job. A contract of that size in these times would be very attractive as a competitive tender. I'm sure there will be professional decorators on this forum who could advise, but quoting excessive fees based on inflated prices of a few years ago just won't cut it in these times of austerity.

If we can't organise a re paint, then people will go it alone, I certainly will, and then we will end up with a patch work quilt effect.

I've said for a while that the maintenance fees are too low. The Spanish owners on CDA I am led to believe will not want to increase them because they probably can't afford to and they don't tend to prioritise maintenance on property which is obvious when you look around.

A quarterly maintenance fee of at least 250 euro is the ball park figure that we should be voting on, not who will administer the place. If we went for an owner based administration we would be dead and buried within a year. You are kidding yourselves if you think we'll meaning amateurs can manage a place like CDA. The amount of back biting and misrepresentation that goes on within this forum should be lesson enough on that one.

Vote for a team of presidents that have a common purpose and who will hold the administrator to account. The weakness has been the Presidents who don't stand together as hey have their own interests at heart.

We'd be better off spending money on employing an estate manager who would act as an advisor and go between the presidents and ML. That would be a good motion for an AGM, ML wouldn't like it as they would have to cooperate or leave and we the owners would be getting proper advise and not rumour and innuendo.

JF

 Faulky444,

Don't you think that reducing the debt is already being treated at a priority?  In January we out the process in place where by any owner with 6 months fees outstanding would be taken to court if they did not settle the debt.  We have also employed a UK collection agency to chase UK debtors.

Here are the figures from Jan to June when I was level 1, unfortunately we have not received monthly reports since then so cant help with the latest figures

PROPIETARIOS			142,530.37 €	103,437.39 €	100,478.45 €	129,400.60 €	110,038.73 €	80,635.36 €
SITUACION JUDICIAL			166,167.73 €	158,488.10 €	140,354.52 €	136,002.38 €	124,154.27 €	153,541.39 €
PASADO A CCDR			92,116.60 €	120,659.74 €	106,123.36 €	107,074.13 €	107,725.71 €	93,487.09 €
CON PLAN DE PAGOS			58,910.28 €	52,861.92 €	47,459.67 €	54,897.46 €	47,491.43 €	31,327.04 €
PDTE ACLARACION AÑO 2009			185,954.62 €	186,305.58 €	183,904.64 €	184,116.98 €	182,734.69 €	191,008.40 €
Totals			645,679.60 €	621,752.73 €	578,320.64 €	611,491.55 €	572,144.83 €	549,999.28 €

The first row are owners that owe < 6 months fees or have been sent a burofax warning of impending court action.

The second is those owners we have started legal proceding against

The third are with the UK debt collectors

The forth have agreed payment plans

The fifth is debt we inherited from the day of RPM for which we do not have full details, we are constantly chasing the banks to get.

The debt will slowly reduce as the cases go through the courts but every quarter there are new owners that don't pay for which we have to start the process.  No it's not rocket science it just needs a proper process fully followed, which we have, it just takes time to get people through the system.  This is NOT a political problem just a financial management one, one I did have the experience to handle but we rely on the legal skills of the administration to collect and prepare the paperwork to start procedings.

We actually considered employing a resort manager, this was discussed amongst level 2 early July due to ML's failure to forefil the role correctly, probably another reason that ML wanted me gone.

 

I am quoting UK or Spanish prices, not Scandinavian!! Pinch yourself, 600.000 euro! That's a lot of money in anybody's language. I agree with Darren (2nd time in a week!) I'd do it for that.