Property refurbishment - advice

Hi There,

I have just read the last few posts, it would be interesting to know who the contact in spain is, if he lives out here and is not an owner, how was he at the meeting on monday. To put things in perspective, there are about 8 spanish owners, they do not want to pay any money at all and want to fight for how long it takes to pay nothing, this is very well as they have friends and family here that they can go to for food, water heat etc, the british and other nationalities do not.

juan carlos charges are 3.75 + iva per appartment per month, there are no extra charges for set up costs, meetings attended etc, this was discussed at the meeting and he told everyone this. juan also said at this meeting that if we used him and then decided he was not doing the job properley, we could call an extraordinary meeting and he would leave and only charge us the current months fee. 

Re him working for idearco, i also have a contact who worked for idearco for 3/4 years, she was made redundant 6 months ago so has her own beef with idearco, she has told me that juan carlos has not worked for idearco at all in the past.  she is also checking out his details for us.

re juan working at other sites, i have already been in touch with the fontana 1 2 & 3 developments, and i hope to be meeting up with thier presidents soon.

I hope this puts peoples minds at rest, it does seem there is a whispering campain against juan carlos, and there is a couple of people that are stirring the spanish owners up about him.

Hi All,

 Regarding Juan Carlos;

It is very difficult to know whom to go with, who is good, who is bad, and who is just out to make a fast buck?

We could just go into one of the administrators in Almoradi, but how would we know that they are any good?

I too have looked into Juan Carlos, as I know he is acting as administrator on the Fontana development (by Idearco) in Algorfa. Although there have been some differences of opinion, the general consensus is that they are very happy with his work.

As I understand it, the Administrator does not work for the builder but is an independent body appointed by the builder. In this case Idearco shut down before Jaun Carlos was officially appointed. - How much of this is true is anybody’s guess.

 As I said before its very hard to know who is good and who is bad, all we do know is that Jaun Carlos is up to speed on the situation, knows Idearco from working at the Fontana apartments, and at least has a some information on who owns what. If we choose a new administrator from else where, will we be waiting a long time for them just to get to the position Juan Carlos is at now?

Please don’t think that I know the answers I don’t, and it is very hard to know whom to trust. I trusted my solicitor, the one that does not return my emails or my calls, the one that allowed me to complete on my apartment without a certificate of habitation, which is against Spanish Law and the one that said I needed to pay 900Euros for utility connection, what a load of crock that was!

 Below is another copy of the response I received from Eye On Spain when I contacted them at the end of last week about our situation. This was from someone totally independent and nothing to do with Idearco or Juan Carlos.

Perhaps it may be a good idea to contact the solicitor below, what do people think? 

What do you think Carol?

John

“Dear John

Thank you for your email.There are so many factors here. The dirt track outside could be a town hall issue. Without an administrator on board and consequently no president there is nothing that you can do.You need to get Juan Carlos on board to get things rolling. If the developer is still the majority owner they still have a responsibility to keep it going. It is very complicated and depends on the state of completion.I would also go to the town hall en masse since they have an obligation not to leave people living in the town without electricity.  The best contact that I can give you for this situation is the lawyer Maria de Castro:

María L. de Castro
Calle Ancha 30, 2º
E-11201 Algeciras
Tel.:  +34 956 657 003
Fax: +34 956 664 643
Mobile: +34 652 195 554
email: mldecastro@costaluzlawyers.es
www.costaluzlawyers.es

Your story is not an uncommon one and we ourselves went through exactly the same. Things started to improve once we had an administrator. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Kind regards

Susan Pedalino
Eye on Spain”

As you say John appointed by the builder, Now i am not saying there is divided loyalties but we do seem to have a rather unscruplious Builder. As for the people onsite who are having to deal with this you have my full support i am not accusing anyone of anything but i do have the right to put and ask questions. afterall i did Know anything about this till last sunday night when you Phoned me,Myself and family will be there on wednesday and hopefuly be able to meet some of you and get a better insight to all of this

Kind regards

Ian & Marie

Hi Limetree and john,

thanks for your helpful emails, yes i will certainly bring up this solicitor on monday, the spanish residents have already contacted another solicitor who has been at the previous meetings, he did not say anything though, i guess the problem may come of too many cooks, and who is going to pay all thier bills. still we can only try.

re habaab, it will be good to meet you next week, its much easier to speak than all these emails, fingers crossed we have electric,

kind regards

carol

Dear Carol,

Glad to hear that you still have electricity, water too I hope.  I for one, am very grateful for the information that you are sending out.  My expensive solicitor does not appear to know what is going on and the only information I have comes via this website and mainly from you.  I realise how stressful and tiring it must be for you but you sound as if you are well up to the challenge.  Good luck for tomorrow.    Just to cheer you all up its snowing in England right now, so enjoy the sun.

Regards,

Safia

Dear All

This news has come as a surprise, I have not been on the forum for sometime so have been blissfully unaware of the chaos that idearco have caused by their failure.

Having read through the various articles it is obvious that Carol in particualr has been working for all our benfits, so thank you Carol in the first instance.

I would support Carol's view that we need to get the water and electricity sorted out as quickly as possible and once we have a clear idea of what needs to be done will ensure we provide our portion of cash to support the community and get this problem resolved.

I look forward to reading the outcome of the meeting on the forum.

Nick W

Hi All

We would like to add our thanks to Carol for the good job she is doing in such a difficult situation.  We like many others completed last October and had to pay the E900 in cash to the builder.  we agree that the only way forward is to pay whatever is necessary to get the utilities up and running.  We have to remember that this is a long term investment for most of us and the sooner we have the current problems sorted the sooner we can relax and enjoy our apartments and be proud of them.  We will be out on the 17th April for a week and look forward to meeting some of our fellow residents then.

Regards

Alan & Kathryn

Please see the response from my solicitor, Aroca Sequier

"The builder Idearco has not gone into liquidation however due to the downturn in the sales of new properties he is having to relocate funds in order to make payments.

We are aware of meetings being held withing the communities to resolve the matter and advise that you contact your administrator, president or committee members as to the outcome.

In the event of the builder going into liquidation the administrators would negoatiate the supply of utilities with the Town hall"

Given that the builder has not goner bust, We need to be careful that we don´t let the builder off the hook in the urgency to get utilities up and running

Hi everyone - I'm Sue and I live permenately on Vegamar.  I am on the new committee alongside Carol (and possibly pending secretary) and she has asked be to keep you updated as to what is happening.  I am replying on her behalf to allow her more time to deal with the situation, and from now on I will be keeping you updated and will try to answer any questions on the update.   She asked me to thank you for all the support she has received in this difficult time and please be assured that she is working very hard on our behalf to resolve the ongoing situation.  

  There was a meeting here last night and I think it is fair to say it was a bit chaotic. Present at this meeting as well as the residents was a councillor from the Town Hall, a Spanish solicitor (aparently employed by some Spanish residents ), Juan Carlos - Administrator, an interpreter - Encarna (requested by the Spanish residents)and Honorio - ? from the consumers association ( but on behalf of 2 residents).

 The councillor from the town hall is going to Iberdroloa on Wednesday to try to get an agreement about the electricity supply, although it may only be for a month.   He seemed very helpful.He is saying that the town hall will complete the road outside.  It was confirmed that that the original licience to build issued in 2005 had a proviso that no one would live here until the site was complete.  Nobody appears to have been told this at any stage in the purchase of their apartment.    After a lot of talking and discussion it was decided to vote on the proposal that all apartment owners pay and initial 200euro community charge.  This was unanimously agreed by all present.  A bank account will be set up and details of the account number and IBAN will posted shortly  to enable your payment. We are asking everybody to pay this amount as a matter of urgency to enable the community to start dealing with our problems. 

There will be a committee meeting on Saturday where all issues will be discussed more fully.

I will keep you posted with future developments after the committree meeting.

Hi, All

If the builder is not in liquidtion, why is there a delay in getting signing completed? Would it not be in the builders interest to get these signing complete as there is a large amount of money o/s. The completion for properties on ESC 5& 6 should have been October 07 there is a number  of us who have not yet completled. , If the office is closed and the builder has gone awol who does the signing?  If and when completion happens who gets the balance is it the builder? If he is not in liquidtion it would not be the creditors  ie: the utility companies.  By the time the town hall or utility company take him to court the money will have gone!  There has been no response from my solicitor, agent or the newly appointed administrtor. Can anyone who was at the meeting shed any light on this as we wait in limbo!

Regards jlynas

Hi All,

Read all about us in the local paper!!!

Go to the following link.

http://www.algorfa.co.uk/PreviousNewsletters/Algorfa-news20.html#Algorfa433

Hiya all got back from spain yesterday. The meeting was roudy on Monday night but it seems as though we are actually getting somewhere now.

As you can see from Sues post below things are getting sorted slowly.  Poor Carol looks shattered but is doing a fab job looking after everyones interest. It will be lovely when the pool is sorted and the comunual areas are clean. I for one cant wait to get back over there to enjoy what is a beautiful development. All of the owners i met whilst we were there are really lovely people and I look forward to seeing them all again by the poolside with all the probs behind us.

Anyway I really dont want to be back in the Uk but needs must.

Debxx

Hi,

I am one of the people who have not completed yet.  I posted a thread yesterday 'Disappearing builders' on the general website and have had two replies one of which says that Idearco  have gone into voluntary liquidation, has anyone  else heard this?

Safia

Hi all

Does anyone know what went on at the meeting on Saturday

Dave

Hi everyone - update on the situation here.

There was a meeting on Tuesday between the administrator, solicitor and Honorio.  The outcome was all 3 were in agreement that we have to take action now to restore the utilities and after this take legal action against the builder.

Also on Tuesday the Coastrider ran a large article of our plight, following a long interview with Carol.

Wednesday - There was a meeting with the Town hall and Iberdroloa, but this was mainly unsucessful.

Thursday - following the article in the Coastrider, Channel 9 new (spanish tv ) contacted Carol to arrange an interview with the administrator and herself and to film the complex.  A crew came and did several interviews amd filmed residents, pool etc.  This was broadcast at 2.45pm that day.  Another film crew was then dispatched and spent a long time filming within the complex and more interviews with Carol and even to the extent of filming her cooking on her camping gaz stove ( only soup of course !!).During this time our builder had seen the news and contacted the administrator.  We were then told that the builder is prepared to come and finish the site within the next 15 days.

Saturday - A  committee meeting was held.  From this the news is that a meeting is to be held midweek with the electrical contractor and Idearco to  the final installations and obtaining the correct certificate for habitacion.  Also a company has been contacted, again by Idearco, to complete the road.

The builder at this time is unwilling to pay the arrears to Iberdroloa ( electric co ).  However be assured we are still working towards a solution, but 7000 e is a lot less than the 100,000 euro that it first appeared to be. 

A further committeee meeting is to be held at the end of the month and an extrordinary AGM is being held on 2nd May at 7.00pm for all Vegamar Owners.

STOP PRESS  -  Sunday -  The pool has started to be cleaned and is looking better.

                          -   Monday  -  The road has been started.

Well thats about it for now - if you want to email me can you send it to vegamarsec@yahoo.co.uk 

Joanne - we cannot advise - you must seek legal advice.  The administrator does not get involved in this.

Hi Sue

Thanks for the update great news about the road lets hope the meeting with the builder and electrical contractor is a fruitfull one. Thanks again to you all out there at the sharp end, see you on Saturday

Dave&June