Bank repossessions

I have just returned from 10 days in Casares and below I have provided details of the meetings held between owners and Ammex on 9th April & 10th April .

9th April I attended the Ammex office with 2 other purchasers in a prearranged meeting , we spent 2.5 hours with Javier understanding the set up and what we can do to improve the position purchasers are in .

10th April a meeting was held on site with 28 owners present and Javier from Ammex attended following our meeting on 9th April this meeting lasted just over 2 hours. It gave an insigt to purchasers as to the set up and several actions were taken from the meeting and ideas and proposals put to Javier at Ammex.  

Below I have tried to capture the content of both the meetings to share with others. I will send a copy of minutes to all the individuals who attended and left their e mail contact addresses for the meeting held on 10th April. It was a very productive meeting as far as understanding the set up and what improvement are being made immeidately and what purchasers  want to happen and in what time scale. 

9th April  Minutes

Present  : Purchasers Jenny ,Linda & Paul and Ammex representative Javier.

Gardening

For PM2 PM3 & PM4 Ammex have sacked the gardening maintenance company and employed a new company. I was provided with the improvement plan that had been put together hightlighting key areas on the site for immediate action. The old comapny was too small and inexperienced to deal with the site and also did not know how to set up and effectively monitor the watering systems on the site.

PM1 had a different gardening company which explained why the grass areas on PM1 were so much better than anywhere else on the site. The company dealing with gardening maintenance on PM1 will remain inplace  however the whole site is too big for this company. The new company  for PM2 -PM4 are keen to get our business on a long term basis ,an example of their maintenance can been seen at Los Grandos just past Duquesa port. I and several others went to visit this complex and can confirm  that they have the tropical gardens we can only dream of at present. They are on a trial basis where immediate improvements are required to happen for the contract to be extended.  

see minutes on 10th April regarding action for the gardens.

Other services

Lifts  - High costs 

Ammex advised there is only one lift engineering company along the cost that is in a postion to support our site and as there is very little/no completion and they have a monolopy and therefore can charge high prices without fear of loosing business.

Cleaning

It has been confirmed that we are paying a cleaning company on all communities to clean the steps every day - the general feeling was that this is a total waste of money with barely 10% occupany on the site at the best of times. These monies can be ploughed into gardens!!

please see minutes of meetintg on 10th April for actions request.

Interlarken  -  President

The named person Ana Maria Larios is there for a name only. The main people that Ammex get instruction from, if any, is Miguel Angel and Antonio Molenia. Ammex are having just as big a problem with Interlarken as ourselves. They are instructed by Interlarken who constantly fail to respond to their enquiries and it is Ammex that are chasing Interlarken all the time for permissions to carry out works. It should work that we contact our president with an issue who then contacts Ammex .What happes in reality is that purchasers cannot get hold of anyone at Interlarken or get a response and so contact Ammex who then have to chase Interlarken to obtain permissions to do anything regarding all of the services.

Garage code for key fobs

A number of purchasers have experienced problems with the key fob codes being changed. Ammex advise it is Interlerken who hold the codes and make all the changes ,it also causes problems for Ammex as they also find they have key fobs with incorrect codes. Med lux homes apparently have a list of codes in thier offices.

Security

Interlarken supply security from 8am -4pm mon -Fri and then Ammex supplied securty outside of these times. There was a notable presence of security on site present during my stay. Whilst I was present they appeared to be on the move across the wholes site and doing a good job.  

Ammex were given  the overall administration but Interlarken set up the intial arrangement  and ammex  have thier hands tied until such time they can take instruction from elected predident as Interklarken are just not interested ,the gardens etc are very low on Interlarken agenda.

Street Lighting

Interlarken control the main street lightening .Ammex and the communities control the smaller pathway lighting in amoungst the community .So far the main street lightening was on at the front of the site but not once you go past the roundabout at the main entrance. This makes it very hazardous especailly when skips are placed on the road and left unlit at night .We have asked Ammex to address this with interlarken as it is very definately a safety issue.   Glass has also been left on the road from the skips and this is hazardous.

Minutes of Meeting held 10th April  - Casares del sol

28 purchasers or  representatives were present along with Javier from Ammex who agreed to attend to answer questions.

Gardens 

1. Ammex advised new company taken on to tend to gardens  in PM2 -PM4  - ( see 9th April minutes )

• Immediately -soil prep & weeding & feeding of lawns started  - this certainly improved the lawns around PM4 almost instantly.

However main concern are for other areas raised as follows and Ammex have been asked to target these areas immediately

• Soil erosion near blocks  14  - 17 and also around block 8  - this is something that needs immediate attention
• Soil next to building causing rising damp  - how can this be tackled  
• Grass areas on PM2 and PM3 virtually non existant this is a disgraceful state and need a high amount of concentrated effort in the next 3 month to improve.  - Ammex advised that they hoped to see a huge improvement in the grass areas over the next 3 months with the new company  across the site in all areas.

Actions for long term and new community presidents elected in the foth coming elections. 

Garden designer

• The general feeling at the meeting  by owners was that the gardens need proper designing and that it is hoped that once all the community president s are elected that they will work together to employ a garden designer who knows \what he is doing to design suitable tropical planting areas.
• The random planting of spindly trees does not constitute a tropical planting design . We hope these spindly trees can be transplanted and moved to the edge of paving area to create tree lined walk ways and then the grass areas opened out with lush tropical vegetations over time.
•  The designer will also be able to advise how to disguise the high manholes covers that can be found onthe lawned area and advise on correct types of vegetation that wont damage the concetre below or cause long term problems. 

The fact remains is that at present Ammex will improve the lawned areas but the tropical planting will have to wait until new community presidents are in place.

SwimmingPool access

• The New spanish law states that we must have a life guard present to use the large pools. Ammex have advised that life guards have been arranged for cover for June - August. Owners present stated that this was too short a period for pool use and that all present wanted the pool open for longer. Ammex explained there was money in the budget to supply life guard out side of this initial period .It was agreed at the meetintg to ask Ammex to get permission from the president for life guards to be present from begining of May or from 12th May at the latest with the May half term upon us it was felt that the pools should be available for full use from May September /October  - this is being explored at the moment.   
• When new presidents are in place it was felt that they could work together to arrange for more pools to be open, it may not be sensible to open all the pools for the whole year but to have at least one additional large pool open in the other months may be feesible perhaps opening an alternate pool each month over the winter. 
•  
• Siesta - Life guard Cover summer months

Concern was raised over not having  swimmingpools open during the summer from the whole day with the need for life guards to be constantly present. Ammex agreed to arrange full life guard cover to cover the traditional spainish siesta. - however I still havent had this 100% confirmedcin writting yet.     

• Easter opening

Pools were open for 10 days over Easter and manned by life guards this is customery in Spain to open pools for the Easter period come wind rain & more rain !!!

Lifeguards  -   these cost approx  2500 euro per pool per month .

Concern was raised to the suitability of the  youngsters on life guard duty over the easter period. They had a lack of English language and some owners were concerned that they may not be able to commnicate inEnglish in an emergency with mainly english resident and children likely to be using the facilities.  

Insurance

We were advised by Ammex that we are are not covered by community insurance if we use the pools unmanned. If we decided to climb over and use the pools  we are not covered by insurance in the event of an accident etc. We should not be advising renters to do this and if we see others using the pool we should instruct them to get out !!

Rubbish Bins

Ammex advised that they have put in a request to  the town hall for additional rubbish collection points. This was a heated topic due to the current situation that exists on the site as regards to rubbish and where the collection points are placed.The current collection point in front of blocks 3-5 is totally unacceptable being just metres from owners terraces.  Discussions were mainly around how to improve the current situation immediately on a short time basis and what will happen to the site long term.

It was put to Ammex that the collection point be moved immediately to either the unused land that adjoins Majestice and create a rubbish collection point that also has temporay sides to disguise it and out of the way of all owners, no one should have to sit with rubbish bins just infront of their terrace. Tyically another suggested area being looked at was out side med lux homes offices  - I for one would make the walk and dump it on thier door step!!

The collection points can only be moved inagreement with the town hall and they will not want repeated requests to move the rubbish. It  was felt that this is something that needed to addressed as a community as a whole immediately and Ammex have agreed to support us in dealing with the town hall to get the collection point moved .I have asked owners in PM3 and others based at the rear of the site to look for a best position place for thier rubbish to be collected from.It is better to nominate and suggest a place to the townhall rather than let them dump it on someones doorstep as what has happened. 

Underground rubbish collection points  - something for the future presidents

These are now being installed up and down the coast and are proving to be very popular and  and would be a great at solution to our problem on this site. This is however something for the communities to work on once they are formed. My understsanding is that you can get some funding towards it from your town hall. 

Garage Doors

Ammex to address problem with garage doors on block 10 & block 17 -

 AGM

Ammex confirmed that they would do\the following in the preperation for the forth coming AGM's

Send proposed agenda to all community owners approximately 4 weeks before and not later that 15 days before the AGM date.

Send proxy voting forms out with proposed agenda to all owners residental addresses. If you cannot attend you need to complete a proxy voting form. 

Ammex to advise all owners of voting protocal and final date for voting if not attending meeting .

The AGM will be conducted in English and in Spainish

Elected President s do not have to be resident but it would be more desirable but it is more important to have the right person with the drive to get this community moving in the right direction.

If no nominations are received then my understanding is that an owners name on the community is picked out to be president for the year. This could be alphabetically chosen.    

Additional items to be included on the AGM agenda

If you want additional items on the AGM agenda to be discussed at the meeting you must write in advance to Ammex to get them included as an item on the agenda. I suggest we all e mail Ammex with our requets to ensure everything is covered. ie. Swimmingpool opening times. service contracts  gardening etc.  etc.  

 Budget  - Management

Several of the services are under individual contracts i.e cleaning so you cannot just stop the cleaning contract that has been set up without possibly incurring penalty clause so it is therefore imperative that each community looks at thier contracts to understand when and how they can make changes. You dont want to sign up for another year of cleaning ?????

Ammex cannot just stop the cleaning contract and put the money into the gardens as we would like as this instruction has to come from the current president which is Interlarken who really cannot be bothered to do anything . Several owners who own properties on the coast felt that the daily cleaning on the site was very excessive. And that a fortnightly clean was acceptable. The monies saved in the forthcoming budget year  on cleaning would be better spent on improving the gardens.  

Sueing the promoter for miss sellng of the site  - Med luxury Homes  - Ocena View Homes etc

This topic did crop up on numerous occasions and there is obviously support for this to take place. Once the community president s are inplace it was felt that it would be better tackled as a collective community building up hard evidence around the marketing of these 'luxury' apartments. Full defination of the planning details placed with the townhall will need to be clarified and this will also led us as the persual of Interlarken and the building company as well possibly.  With 527 units  a small proportion of the community charges could be set aside in the busget to pursue this casue under the correct solicitor. With several  members on board that has just successfully sued promoter and Majestice there is more confidence about getting a right result but at the right time with the right backing and as a group together .  

In the immediate short term it was felt that we needed to concentrate our efforts in getting  gardens improved, bins moved and AGM and president elected.

 I hope you have found this epic message posting helpful .I will try to keep the message boards upto date with developement from Ammex following the actions  raised at the meeting. 

 

Jenny  

    

 

 

This message was last edited by brutus on 4/24/2007.

I'm sure that many other owners in Casares del Sol will agree with me in thanking everyone who contributed to the meetings on 9th & 10th April and in particular to Jenny (Brutus) for preparing and posting the minutes.

The feedback is extremely useful and gives us a good idea of what to expect at the first AGM's.

Many thanks

Simon

thanks for the update and to everyone who attended and i feel more positive.

the points raised are very constructive, when i visited last summer my first comment was the silly spindly trees.i am buying in block 30 and i think the gardens could be great with hard work and clever design.at least javier appears to want things to work

i will be happy to get more involved later in the year

noddy

Great work Jenny, and thanks to all who managed to get over. A very informative posting, and very positive!

All we need now is a President or Presidents who can do actively push Ammex to provide what we as a community require.

Was there anyone at the meeting who expressed an interest in being President because if we do not choose one the President will be chosen by the drawing of lots! I would support the President as much as possible, but due to my workload in the Uk cannot offer more than that as i would not have the time.

I'm going to start a new thread entitled "Who wants to be President" as this is now the most crucial thing we must do.

Ian

 

A big thanks to all who took the trouble to attend the meeting with Ammex and an additiional thanks to Jenny for the report. Looks like good things may start to happen and that some sensible planning is emerging. Clearly the need is to get the right president now I just hope someone emerges.

I wonder if it might be possible to communicate to all purchasers re the existence of Eye on Spain. I have been trying to pass on the word when I meet people and it is surprising how many do not know anything about it. If all purchasers could be informed about it then they could communicate on this forum and perhaps a President could be found.

I have no idea how many purchasers are aware but looking at the number of different names communicating on this site it seems to me that somewhere in the region of 80% / 90% of owners have not posted any communication. I know this does not prove they don't know of it's existence but it makes me think that there must be lots of potential presidents we have not reached.

What do others think and how do we 'get the word out'. ??

People / organisations who know the addresses of purchasers include, Ammex, MLH and the various managing agents(although there are probably too many of them to cover the ground thoroughly)

Unless there were other ideas that occur it seems to me that only ammex could be easily used to carry out the communication. They have their own website but I think the independence of EOS would appeal more. Is there any mileage in seeing if they could arrange to communicate to all purchasers re EOS so that we could widen the base of users?  I am assuming that Ammex have e-mail addresses for those purchasers who are on the web and therefore communication could be sent quickly and inexpensively. For those not on the web EOS is no use anyway.

Just a thought, time is not on our side to find a president(s). 

see full minutes below

I'v just come back from the site ( Block 23) after spending a week out there to take delivery of furniture and sort out all, what now seems to be the same issues as many other owners.

I have just read the minuets of the AGM with great intrest and do agree with alot of what has been said. I'm in PM-3 so our AGM is not until 30th November, I just hope enough people will attend.

To answer holhome7980 question about getting more people involved in the EOS forum. I did ask Ammex if it was posible to have a list of all the owners on the site so they could be contacted and be informed about EOS.

They said this was not possible due to the data protection act , god they actually have that in spain!!! I did have one thought of droping a leaflet through every door on the site informing owners of the EOS forum, but this would become a cost issue.  

 I think the site will be a really nice place once all the crap has been sorted with the likes of Interlarken and MLH. I do think that most of use now feel the same about the way we have all been mis sold our spanish dreams!!  and the way the site looks at the moment. 

I would just like to say ref the gardens, I was told when I first came to look at the site that all the gardens would be complete and landscaped. This is what we all paid for as part of the purchase of our property, why are we looking at paying to have them done again when Interlarken & MLH should be paying for this. Our community charges should be for the upkeep of the gardens not building them from scratch. This all adds to the way our properties have been mis sold to us. 

This message was last edited by gazza10 on 4/29/2007.

i agree with all previous comments regarding interlaken and feel that through ammex who should act on our proposals we should investigate procedures to sue interlaken. however on a more practical note, i am buying in pm4, should everyone pay 200e (i think it is important to see how much actual expenditure it costs per unit ) then we are in control of our own destiny to have a good enviroment for our holidays.

otherwise we could be waiting ages for interlaken to do anything even if we won.

i think we should look at the future and not dwell on whats happened before.

i am as disappointed as most as i bought for investment purposes but if we stay positive and pull together we have the benefit of one of the best locations around.

i am due to complete in a couple of weeks and have insisted that the management fee of 840e is paid direct to ammex.i dont know whether thats the norm with all completions.

i understand tracy has now left, i felt tracy did very well in difficult circumstances and appeared to be a help on several matters when i have visited considering the authority she had.

noddy

Re the comments made to Gazza10 by Ammex that they cannot release the names of other owners because of the data protection act I was actually suggesting that they (that is Ammex) e-mailed the purchasers themselves. They would only have to bring the website to the attention of purchasers and it would be up to the purchasers whether or not they used it. This would not require Ammex to disclose any details of purchasers and so would not breach any confidentiality. If anyone thinks there is any mileage in this and are going to be in Casares maybe they could go and see them. I will send ammex an e-mail but face to face is probably best.

Can you tell me who was successful in suing the promotors, and for what reasons, as I am now being told I have forfeited my deposit, as I am not happy and will not complete, until I get what I was promised before I signed the Contract. I need all the help I can get!

If possible could you pass on their details, as I need to ask them more details

Regards

Angela Taylor