AGM feedback please

Could any of the presidents who attended yesterday's Naranjos 2 AGM please post a summary of the key points or actions. I assume ML were voted back in?

Cheers

Nick

White wash is a term,they would make great politicians skirting round questions thrown,as a rule it seems the employer is powerless against an employee who cant do there job but is good at making it seem all all right.just an opinion

 

will be interesting to see how much they actually put in the minutes?

I attended the AGM for Naranjos 1 to 5 and penthouse blocks 8 to 16. Here is a bullet point summary of what I found.

The event was well organised by ML very professional and well attended by residents for an AGM.
The event was translated live to a decent standard so the non Spanish speaking attendees could follow, however some elements of the conversations were hampered if not lost in translation.
Phil Tann was present on the top table in his last appearance as a Level 2 President. He spoke with dignity and challenged a number of points to which he did not get full answers. Given what has been through I thought he was remarkably well mannered.Other people in the audience including many Spanish also asked pertinent questions to which full answers were in short supply.
Many key issues raised, like the painting of facades and some other maintenance issues were to be dealt with at level 2 meetings so were not dealt with at the AGM which was a little disappointing.
One such issue was the renewal of the Internet contract in January! No detail on new costs provided.
The debt issue was spoken to for about half an hour. All agreed it is the key issue facing the resort. PT and myself sought clarity on what was actually in the bank in cash terms. No clear answer provided. As far as ML are concerned the community has assets or potential assets of over half million euros. This includes 700,000 worth of debt which they are confident in being collected. We will see. So if you are an ML accountant we are well off, if you are a cynical Englishman, we are 200,000 short at the presentation time. We had to agree to disagree on this point.
ML were easily voted in as administrators and I have to say the vast majority of people present were in support of them staying and appeared to be very happy.

We need to keep a close eye on how well the debt issue is pursued this year. This is our opportunity to old ML to account next year as if we have a status quo or worse position on the debt then ML will have failed on a clear remit to recover this money.

One thing that was mentioned at the end under AOB was the painting contract for the complex. There have been some tendering discussions but no mention of likely cost and where this money will come from. ML were uncomfortable will further questions on this issue. Pretty obvious to me that without substantial debt recovery there will be no painting in 2013.

The meeting lasted 2 hours and I left as the newly appointed level 3 President for Penthouse block 11. That'll teach me! Jon Faulkner.

Do we know who the presidents are for Naranjos 1 - 5 and the Penthouse blocks ?

Cheers Carla

Yes, but you will have to wait for the minutes to be released which no doubt will be after the remaining AGM meetings have been held. I didn't note them down.

john that was very well put.

Been keeping up to date on all the comments/feedback leading up to the AGMs and since some of them have taken place, but refrained from commenting until now (too dangerous!)

It is clear that the real issue of concern (and from what I can make out this concern has given rise to the fall out between ML and certain presidents) are resort community fee debtors and the presentation of community assets in the accounts. 

There is no doubt that the resort has come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of years and some credit must go to ML for this (even if it is a small credit as the real progress has been instigated by risk taking owners and IRM).

I may be over-simplifying this, but to clear up the query regarding how much cash the community has in the bank account, why can't ML produce a recent bank statement to support the accounts?  Surely this will prove whether the summary balance sheet has been presented in a misleading way?  If the bank account belongs to the community then there should be no barriers to any community stakeholder viewing statements on request.

As a community policy, I think Level 1 and 2 presidents should be given copies of bank statements on a monthly basis - does this happen? This would give absolute transparency over cash balances and cash outgoings, such that any unknown/unexpected cash payments can be challenged.

It seems ML think that the communtiy debtors are recoverable in full.  However, the independent audit report I have seen (which I think was sent out by ML) clearly states that the auditor can make no judgement on the recoverability of this asset and therefore offers no opinion on the validity of the stated asset.  In reality, will we ever recover all these debts?  I doubt it, and so a provision should be put against this asset to better reflect recoverability and not overstate the balance sheet position.

Just my two pennies worth.  The cash position is not sitting well with me, so if we can get evidence of our cash balance everything will be a lot clearer.

 

 

We shouldn't have to wait too long before having sight of the minutes (Tuesday 4th December) 

HPA

Section 19

3. The president and the secretary shall sign the minutes at the end of the meeting or within the following ten days. Once the minutes are signed, the resolutions shall be in force, unless otherwise provided by law.
The minutes shall be sent to the unit owners, pursuant to the procedure established in section 9.

 

Song d'Autome

This is what the band will be playing after the AGMs have finished!!

This time next year there will many owners repeating the words 'if only' over and over again, mark my words but I won't come back to tell you I told you so.... that's a promise.

Barry

Thanks for trying anyway Barry!

I for one am grateful for your unbiased input!

Gosh chaddyowl 'Songe d'Autome' very deep!!  pardon the pun!!  people will be wondering what the hell you mean - what iceberg, oh that one, as the ship sinks the band plays!!!!  

 

This message was last edited by smivs on 28/11/2012.

  Hi Steeley1981,

Just a quick few words on the points you have made below.  There are 6 community bank accounts, one for each level 2 and one for level 1.  Each level 2 president has read access to their own level 2 account and the level 1 account, so I can tell you exactly what was in the level 1 account and the account of Naranjos 2 at any given time last year but as no one president has access to all the accounts no one has a complete picture.  Also knowing how much is in the bank is only half the story, to determine the actual working balance you also need to know the amount of any promissory notes issued ( post dated cheques ) any un-cashed cheques and the budgeted amount for the following quarter until the next batch of community fees are paid in.

All the fees from the owners is paid into the level 2 accounts, so each quarter there is an influx of money which is then paid out over the following three months.  Current what happens is that the contractors are paid out of the level 1 account and then transfers made between level 2 and level 1 to cover this.  Unfortunately the amounts transferred are completely random and bare no relation to the real costs, ML just transfer money from which ever level 2 has any left.  This is completely wrong and not at all how the statutes are set out.  The statutes define the common services that should be provided at each level. i.e EUCC, Level 1 and Level 2.  The level 2's should then contribute towards these costs are defined in the statutes.  At the moment only La Isla does this, not the other 4 level 2 communities and even the amount paid by La Isla is not the correct amount as documented in the statutes.  The presidents are supposed to get monthly reports detailing all expenditure, unfortunately they do not show sufficient information for them to determine that true cost of their individual communities be that level 3, 2 or even level 1.  In fact Ml stopped providing these reports in July, so the last financial report that we were sent was for the June month end.

Anyway getting back to the 2011 year end report sent out with the call to the AGM.

To most this seems to show that the community had €587K in the bank, in fact this is what ML tried to tell the owners at the AGM.  In reality this amount included all the debts of the community, which we are unlikely to ever recover, so in fact we were €170 in deficit.

Of the €757K debt at the time €185K is from the days of RPM and dates from 2009.  RPM never provided full details of the actual debtors only summary figures such as "Jardine X has €XXX of debt" ML have been chasing RPM and the banks for over two years in an attempt to get this detail with little success, so this debt is unlikely to be recovered in the short term, if at all.  

Over the first six months of the year, the only period the presidents have data for, the debt have been reduced and at the end of June stood at €644,707.57 but then the year end figures supplied to the presidents on debt showed a different figure to that sent to the owners with the AGM call?

January Totals
DISTRIBUCION GENERAL DE LA DEUDA
PROPIETARIOS			645,679.60 €
POLARIS			98,310.54 €
BANCOS			47,479.07 €
IRM			67,678.04 €
La Isla			83,532.67 €
			942,679.92 €

 

the amount of debt from owners breaks down as follows ;-

PROPIETARIOS POR SITUACION
PROPIETARIOS			142,530.37 €
SITUACION JUDICIAL			166,167.73 €
PASADO A CCDR			92,116.60 €
CON PLAN DE PAGOS			58,910.28 €
PDTE ACLARACION AÑO 2009			185,954.62 €

 

The June figures are :-

June Totals
DISTRIBUCION GENERAL DE LA DEUDA
PROPIETARIOS			549,999.28 €
POLARIS			54,772.69 €
BANCOS			4,102.61 €
IRM			35,832.99 €
			644,707.57 €

 

The June financial statements showed :-

Total balance in all accounts €758.054,20 and outstanding payments of €687.960,04, so we ended june with a balance of around €70K which is an improvement.

Anyway, over 4 years's as a president my main aim has been to get the finances of the community laid out as documented in the statutes, without which the fees paid by the owners will not be 100% correct, and monthly reports presented in a way that clearly shows ALL income and expenditure.  For the first 8 months of this year we worked with Juan Carlos, Mileniun's accountant, to define the budget and report formats to achieve this, it was agreed that these would be used from July onwards but unfortunately following the events of the summer all this work was scrapped and no progress has been made.   As it is obvious that Mileniun will no longer work with me, they no longer answer my emails, there was little point of my continuing to be a president.    So I wish you and all the new presidents the best of luck you will need it, just remember the law states ;-

"The president shall legally represent the community both in and out of court in all matters related thereto."

 

 

 

 

 

This message was last edited by ptan on 29/11/2012.

Thanks Phil.

As I said, I may have been over-simplifying, and as I expected, you have proven that to be the case.

Sounds like an absolute mess, with no element of control in existence.  I voted against retaining ML as administrators for the simple fact that there appears to be no transparency over finances.

What you have explained below is even more worrying, how can anyone manage finances of a huge community using the approach ML are currently taking?

 

The method of control / bookeeping they operate is cash accounting, you only see a window that can be and obviously IS being manipulated to give a false position.

We inherited exactly the same and changed it immediately, we now know our exact financial position at any time.

So so typical of the administration industry...cash accounting allows all sorts of strange things to go on, you would never see a business running on cash accounting financial controls, in fact it is noty allowed under financial regulations yet we with a turnover of over €440k and CDA with a turnover probably nearer €2.5 million were run like that.

Beggars belief really and some think it's acceptable.

Barry

Some people think its acceptable, some think its unaccpetable, most don't realise what the accounts look like.

I think the ML haters maybe need to accept defeat this year and move on! I know how you guys feel, I was gutted when Obama got re-elected, but there was nothing I could do (he will be gone next time thankfully!)

Maybe come back sooner next year, with a stronger and clearer (much clearer!) campain.

If ML as bad as you claim they are, you should have no issues getting them out next time. 

I know the likes of Fighter2, SMIVS, Ptan, Chaddy etc, really believe in their cause, but I feel that the way you have tried to convince people to vote against ML has polorised people.

I am a floating voter, who did not vote this time, if your arguement is good next year, you may just get my vote?

I don't have to pay, at least directly, for Obama's mistakes; I do for ML's!!   

Does anyone know who's counting the votes, and, more importantly, who's scrutinising the results?

 

Peter