First Assembly of Owners

I want to try to assist Owners who have not lived in condos before.

The most important thing in the condo´s life is the first assembly.

Get this wrong and you will have problems for ever.

We all need to understand that a condo is a legal status controlled by civil law. Now also will come under horizontal property laws .

Do not get mis lead by promoters etc who just want to lauch the condo so as to get rid without having interset in it.

I was involved in setting up a new condo as President and also did the treasurer´s work. NO I DON¨T WANT THE JOB. I will offer to assist the Board of Directors if they want any help.

It involved setting bylaws that become law, YOU ALL SIGNED TO ABIDE BY THESE ALTHOUGH THEY ARE NOT IN PLACE.

This means we all follow the rules or can be subject to legal action, which can result in houses being tied by a lien due to unpaid fees for example.

This means you can not sell without clearing the debt, failure to resolve can under civil code result in a Judge selling a house for the best price on the day. This sounds drastic but it is the law so I am trying to get you all to understand how important Assemblies are.

Budgets set by constructors etc are always a guess on the low side, this makes you all feel happy and gets the meeting to run without a problem to the constructor.

We need to see budgets etc well in advance of any assembly.

Last import not to all non residents of Spain on the day, If you give a proxy vote to the constructor because you are not able to attend then you will give him the means to do what ever suits him.

Get involved in the assembly and please understand how important it will be to us all for the time you live there.

Regards John Bryant

Thanks John i have forward this on to a few people that live in fuenta and do not use this website .

Happysole.

The Civil Law covering Horizontal Houses is 24 chapters of Spanish Law that applies to us and cannot be changed by us.

I am working on local rules which will assist the running of the condo and can be ammended by owners at the assemblies.

These cover the 6Ps of problem areas for condos.

People, Pets, Parking, Payments, Pools and Property.

You may not think it is required but trust me, it is safer to put a few common sense rules in the Bylaws before you have problems. They are legal under the Civil Code  once agreed by 51% at the assembly and very powerfull if required.

A poor condo will be hell to live in and property values will reflect the state of the place.

Budgets: My recommendation is the first budget should be a 15month period then becom 12 monthly as per the fiscal year while the Assembly remains 12 months and Calender year.

The reason is the Assembly is held in Jan and to attend owners must have paid the fees for that period. The new budget would start in Jan and therefore adjustments would be required for the first period.

This is always an operational nighmare and owners are uncertain of what to pay etc.

By agreeing a Budget that runs from April you can make life easier for the Board to manage.

This all makes sense, but what happens if it is true that the developer still owns around 60 of the houses?

Happysole.

Spanish Law is as always some what strange, but my Lawyer told this week that the letter of the law is each plot has an owner that can therefore vote. Here comes the confusion, some courts have ruled that an owner with such a high level of voting rights should only be considered as 1 vote, or obtain supporting votes from other owners.

The voting rights may be 1 per plot, % of plot size or even % of house size.

This will be stated in the Condos statute, of course this will be done by the Developers lawyer, so we will have no choice in the matter. The only way after this is for the owners to vote to change the statute, this is very heavy legal work and takes 100% of voting rights which is very difficult to ever acheive. 

The big problem is unsold homes normally owned by the developer are given the power of eaxh plot as a vote. Also many distant owners will give the proxy voting rights to him too, because he is their only contact.

This will mean he has the power at the assembly, BUT MUST ALSO PAY FEES FOR EACH PLOT HE HAS NOT SOLD AS AN OWNER TOO!