Hi there I'm an owner on Phase 3a
My wife and I have just returned a couple of weeks ago from furnishing our apartment. But unfortunately we won't be able to attend the forthcoming meeting, so when I contacted Rebecca, she very kindly agreed to raise some of the issues that we currently have. I've PM'ed them to her. But after taking the time to put our thoughts and concerns into type we've decided to post them here also for others to see.
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Dear Rebecca
Unfortunately my conversation with the other owners I spoke to, regarding
patio door security was very brief. But from what I can remember, they seemed to think that the locking mechanism on them was rather superficial and they felt (that according to our contract) we were entitled to some kind of central lock which would be positioned where both doors meet in the middle.
You say you are having
extra locks fitted to your second bedroom. Could you tell me a little more, since I have paid my management company to replace the locks (when all snagging is complete) and would consider (if necessary) paying a little bit more to make sure sliding windows and doors were locked as well as possible.
Another
major concern I have is with the security shutters. Whilst in theory they seem to add greatly to our security, in practice they could end up as a real nuisance. Don't get me wrong - I still prefer to have them, but, my experience so far is that they appear to be quite tempramental.
Ours were repeatedly rattling (it was like someone starting up a motor, for a few seconds before the engine died out again). Speaking to Andrea (in Tech dept), she said it was a simple matter to resolve. She said that they just
needed reprogrammed (and gave instructions how). She stated that any time the power went down, they would lose their settings (and need reprogramming). Despite being a bit of a nuisance for potential clients who you might be letting out to, we did not find this to be a solution. We discovered that any time there was
wind outside, that periodically the mechanism would rattle / vibrate for a few seconds. Not a big issue you might say, but if you are sitting in your lounge or on your patio and it happens again and again every few minutes, then it can be extremely annoying.
We also noticed that some of our
neighbours were having shutter problems - from those whose shutters refused to open or close, to those who would only partially open. But also annoying - if your apartment is right beside another one where the shutter does need reprogramming (one which is starting up for a few seconds every few minutes), then this could end up putting a dampner on your holiday if the apartment is unoccupied and there is no one to reprogram your neighbour's shutter for you.
My big concern is that if there are such issues with the shutters now (when they are new), then
what are problems not going to be like in a couple of years time when Roda say, "sorry its not our problem any more - pay for someone to look at it yourself".
Still on shutters, my wife noticed that those on our
second bedroom (which are manual, not remote), don't really provide any security, as they can actually be raised by hand (from the outside) ,and permit a potential intruder access to the bedroom window.
When we purchased on
Phase 3 we were told that there would be
access across the golf course to the club house. Reading a couple of comments on the forum, no one appears clear on whether this is going to happen or not. My gut feeling is that it won't, and I can understand why from a golfing point of view. BUT!. Great if you and your partner have a car, but for kids or others staying with you its a long, long walk all the way round to the main entrance, before you even begin to head towards town or the beach etc. Without some such access I can't imagine many young or elderly guests who we bring with us wanting to come back a second time.
Again on the forum I've read that there seems to be a problem for walkers on their way towards the Los Narejos roundabout (on the other side of the motorway). There is a
narrow tunnel under the motorway, but this has been flagged up as being unsafe. I feel that we need to add our weight of opinion to that of others , that this is unacceptable. What's the point of having great security on site, if our kids get mugged on their way back towards their Roda apartment.
I've heard conflicting accounts as to the
adequacy of the insurance cover provided by our community fees. On the forum its stated that we do have building insurance cover, but some query the nature of or the extent of this. I think it would be good to have it spelt out. Exactly what are we covered for, or more to the point what does it NOT cover. I know that when taking up the developers mortgage with Santander bank I was made to pay for building cover again. I'd like to know for future reference (when I'm renewing my insurance next year, as to whether I really only need to take out contents insurance.
Some up to date information as to development schedule for the rest of the Roda Golf project would be nice.
I've heard conficting reports as to when e.g.
Beach Club, Phase 4, Hotel etc are likely to complete. I know these dates can change, but I'd like to hear from the "horses mouth" what official dates they are now talking about.
With a gas boiler fitted in the kitchen (of our apartment), from a safety point of view should we not also have had a
carbon monoxide alarm /meter fitted as standard? On a similar point, our apartment isn't even fitted with a
smoke detector / alarm. We're not too bad, since we're on the ground floor, but my worry would be are there no smoke detectors in the whole block?
When information arrived regarding the meeting on 2nd May, it included details about proposed railings. But nothing for anyone who wanted to fit
fly blinds (or prices for them). On our short visit to Roda a couple of weeks ago, I succumbed to mosquitos which had obviously sneeked into the bedroom. We went out and bought a couple of the electric plug in protectors for bedrooms, but we may want to consider proper fly blinds at some stage.
Having a ground floor apartment, we have the little
walled in gravel area beside our front door, which rises all the way up to the top floor. We have noticed that already some people above us (I don't know - could be builders, or cleaners), have started dumping things into this area from above. This concerns me as the whole area outside our door, could end up as a
rotting waste tip (over time), even if just the odd item was dumped periodically from above, and we are not there for extended periods to clear it away.
Don't know if anyone else on phase 3a has had a
problem in receiving the free UK channels with the rest of the Spanish ones etc which are available (and which we will be paying for as part of our community fees).
I tuned our new TV in and could only pick up the non english ones. I've contacted Customer Services and Technical Department, they say that all the channels should be available, and pass the buck to Teleast (who supply the service to Roda residents). On contacting the latter, they say they are not aware of a problem, and offer to send out an engineer (at a cost). Before I do so I'm just wondering if other owners on my block / phase 3a are able to receive their full compliment of "free" channels (including the english ones). I've tried re-tuning but to no effect. I have noticed elsewhere on the forum that other residents have had similar problems in the past.
When we were in our apartment a couple of weeks ago, although we were impresseed with the build itself, we were disgusted with the lack of cleaning which had been done BEFORE our furniture was moved in.
We had paid an outside firm to do a construction clean for us, (and are currently in the process of having most of our money for this returned to us, since their cleaning efforts were pathetic). However the problems were not all of their making.
We also hold Roda liable. They informed us our apartment was ready. But we had to spend two days of our holidays a) going round all the marble floor "skirting" tiles, cleaning off excess grout and plaster and filling some holes that had not been filled. We also took it upon ourselves to clean the patio area which the Painters had not bothered to clean their excess paint spills and sparks from. Were we MAD - well maybe. Yes we did add these to our snagging list (for Roda to attend to), but in the end we decided that a) we didn't want builders in moving our furniture around and perhaps making more of a mess than they cleaned and b) we wanted to ensure that the job was done right and to our satisfaction, before we let our apartment out to potential clients.
Whilst cleaning around the marble skirting tiles we
noticed small light brown coloured "mites" were present, and were obviously setting up home in any crevices they could find. Hence the reason why we took it upon ourselves to also fill any holes we found. Although they were not present in large numbers (at the moment), we were concerned that they may become a problem in the future. So we asked Customer Services & the Technical department what we should use (or advise our cleaners to use) to
spray to treat the potential problem. Unfortunately we didn't get an answer. Perhaps someone might be more knowledgeable at the meeting.
Finally, although the grounds look well when lit up at night, we
noticed that the our pool itself is NOT lit. This surprised us a) since we thought it would be more attractive if it was and b) from a safety point of view we considered it was desirable. (I'm aware that there already has been an unfortunate accident, regarding a pool a few months back), and think that proper lighting at night time might be an obvious way of preventing another. Thinking that perhaps it was just our pool that was not lit up, we had a look at a pool in phase one (one evening). Although you could see it from the lights which light up the grounds surrounding it, it was not lit up either.
This has ended up as a longer list than what I anticipated it would be, but I'm sure many of the issues I've raised might resonate with other owners, and would be worth raising at the forthcoming meeting.
Thanks
John Wilson