Is 3.4% reasonable for a mortgage these days ?

Hi All

We were unable to attend the AGM yesterday, so are very anxious to find out how it went? I have heard through a friend who attended the AGM for Coto  Real on Monday, that by all accounts, it was a complete shambles!!...unfortunate as it is for Coto Real and I sympathise with the residents completely ,  I'm crossing my fingers there is a more positive  and welcome result for DV, as we are fortunate have more residents to fight our corner.

HERES HOPING!!

Hi Twinnie

The Coto Real AGM was on Wednesday, not Monday, and from all accounts was a well organised and fairly productive meeting.

There is a Coto Real Duquesa Golf Residents Group which was well represented at the AGM and although we didn't get the answers to questions we asked, at least we have marked everyone's card that it will be a totally different affair next year as we will be much more prepped.

As you know we are cousin developments, sharing the same developer, management company and indeed Presidente.

John Cox is an honoury member of our Residents Group as we want to share ideas and opportunities, and help, support and encouragement as much as possible.

Your own AGM was next day to ours, on the 27th. I'm sure it went well.

Ours lasted 6 hours so I hope there wasn't too much fatigue from ours spilling over !

The AGM was indeed on Thursday and lasted about 5.5 hours. The same top table attended both and when i chatted to the intepreter he did say that DV's seem to be progressing a bit more smoothly that the day before at CR's. It takes atime because everything is translated for the benefit of all.

There were lots of discussion about many things ...some agreements reached and some not but will attempt to highlight what i can remember. The minutes will be available soon on the web site.

• Budget for this year agreed and approved. Should mean a 10% reductiuon in fees as more units come online.
• Accounts for 2006 presented at the meeting along with audit report for that period. Audit for 2007 not yet completed but PROMISED in about 2 weeks time. No vote taken to approve and signoff as not available !!!
• 5 debtors being taken to court. Discussion about AEA's lack of feedback to owners re their payments as many were on the debtor's list and didn't know why. No explaination forthcoming . In fact between the date in early March when the agenda was sent out and the meeting date I became a debtor even though they don't take my money until April. AEA need to address this area .
• DV has a surplus , according to Sandra Rodrigues, of €171,000 . this cannot be verified as accounts not available or audited.
• 5 people co-opted onto management team to assist our president. Names I do not have except I have volunteeered and Jeff Layton will be joining too.
• AEA's engineer, Pepe, has been asked by the builder to produce a snagging list of issues to be addressed before competion. Painting is one of these, the dirty area around the small pool plus many more.
• Pepe has produced a file of breaches of community rules by residents...interesting photos of Sky dishes, dog mess on stairways, laundrey and beer bottles on stairways...
• The question of door and window grilles was discussed but nothing decided as there were many views expressed that they didnt want DV turning into a prison camp. this will be discussed within the management meetings and reported back
• there will be 2 AGM's ,if that is not contradictory, per year. next one is late September..
• AEA will have an office in block 11 , although concerns were raised about the location
• There will be a gated entrance, but there will be no post boxes for residents in the gate house.
• Security will be beefed up by having a trained quard (vigilante) and an untrained quard on duty during the night and 8 hours in the day.
• Wifi. I am awaiting a proposal from a company for the provision of hot spots.

There will be items I have missed but please see the official list on AEA's web site.

 

 

John,

Thanks for the update.

I note that Pepe is making a list of community infringements. I have two thoughts here:-

1. I don't think it has been made totally clear to owners/residents what can and cannot be done.

2. With the break-ins people may take action to secure their property, door and window grills (rejas) without thinking that this may be an infringement. With the slow agreement on this subject (this should have really been resolved at the AGM) I think people will take action as necessary to secure their property. Having to wait a year for an answer is not good enough. So I think where additional security has been added we should receptive to this.

The rules state no external changes, so if the change is within your boundary is that external or internal, just a thought.

This message was last edited by manilvajl on 3/31/2008.

Jeff

Good points.

The external doors actually sit inside your door jam so could be considered within your boundary.

john

 

Many thanks for that, John.

I am very concerned that a decision was not taken re the grilles for doors/windows.  Considering I believe it may be law now that on new builds grilles have to be installed on ground floor properties by the developers (correct me if I'm wrong), I think this should have been something where the design was the only issue to be put to a vote - not whether they can be installed or not!  Not all owners will decide to have them  fitted anyway,  and I'm not very keen to have my property the possible target for burglars just because someone in an apartment upstairs doesn't like the look of the grilles or thinks they could possibly make DV look like Wormwood Scrubs!!!  In fact, personally, I think that's ridiculous, especially in a country where grilles are extremely common and practically the norm!  I do hope AEA come back soon with something solid on this.

Jeff, I think you're right, in that there will be many owners who will decide to take action they feel necessary to secure their properties, with or without prior agreement.

Jan

I couldn't agree any more with you on the doors and window question. There was a strong comment from a Spanish lady who was totally against them and if a vote had been taken on the design presented by an owner then it would have failed as our President would have voted against them as he stood up and said so. When the first management meeting takes place I believe we can have a reasonable chance to persuade the president.

Just been on the AEA website (password access needed), there are no community rules posted in English only Spanish, I will ask Rosa to add the rules in English.

Also to emphasise the point about painting, the developer has agreed to have repainted all the areas where the standard of the finish is not up to scratch.

John,

But what do they mean by "not up to scratch."?  That's a subjective statement.  I would suggest where ever the paint is flaking, chipped or bubbled it will should be made good.

 And are they going to patch or paint the whole block?  I would suggest  areas that visually exhibit a general pattern of deterioration should be extensively sanded and all flaking paint
removed  before a  2 coat repaint.
 
To what extent will they remedy the cause?

Example:-
I 've seen several areas where the paint is badly damaged due to water flow in heavy rain.  
If the root cause is not fixed the damage will return within say 12 months.

Where ever the cause is seen to be water ingress a remediation plan should be presented to the community by CfH at the next AGM (late Sept 2008) for consideration.

My thoughts are the RfY is currently motivated only in generally improving the visual appearance of the site sufficiently to improve their sales prospects and nothing more.
So clearly we need to ensure that they go the extra mile.

Paul

Paul

Not upto scratch is my term to describe their description of areas where the paintwork has quite clearly been applied when the rendering was wet which has caused the paint to lose its adhesion and start to flake or for any other reason that has caused it to flake ..that was the their intepretation.

Its in the community's hands to ensure that the paintwork is made good and now there is a management team appointed which can ensure pressure is maintained.