Appointing new administrators

Our recent, & not very harmonious, AGM resulted in an unexpected  vote of 'no confidence' in the Administrator - a company, not an owner. A proposal to sack the Administrator quickly followed & was passed. It is intended that a new Administrator/company is found * appointed as soon as possible.  My question is: Can a new Administrator be appointed by the President & Committee or does there need to be an EGM to appoint the Administrator? 

I can't find anything specific in the Horizontal Law to say that the administrator cannot be appointed by the president, but I would think that it should really be a matter to be agreed at an EGM. We're thinking of doing the same so will be interesting to see what others think. Trouble is, the owners here who want to ditch the existing admin won't be president, so expect someone else to find and appoint a new one and handle the change over. Typical!

A couple of years ago our President appointed a new Administrator and had this ratified at an EGM several months later. 

This individual, a Spanish national, turned out to be literally worse than useless.  He was replaced by another Spanish national, also a qualified Administrator, who did an average job.  But at our most recent AGM we decided that it was not good value for money so he was dismissed also and we now do the job ourselves.  Now officially one person is both President & Administrator.

On our urb there are several barrack room lawyers who seem to have too much time on their hands to create mischief - but none of these have questioned the legality of the move. 

So I believe that your President is entitled to appoint an Administrator w/o an AGM/EGM approval.  As I understand it the only requirement is that the appointee must be a qualified Administrator, if an external person.  Having the appointment ratified at the next AGM/EGM makes sense.

Good luck.

Acer,  MCC ?

Indeed it is Peter, nice to hear from you. 

Further help/comments required, please.

After our AGM in April the President appointed a new Administrator. So far their performance has been disappointing but they have now presented us with a new problem. When they were appointed they said there was no need to hold an EGM to formally appoint them. However, they are now saying that they cannot represent the Community in any 'legal' matters because they have not been 'named' as Administrators at a Community General Meeting. The effect of this is, they say, that they cannot take any legal action against debtors & nor do they have the legal authority to ask the banks for the annual direct debits which owners have already set up to be paid in January. The debtors is a minor problem, they just get away with not paying for another year. The big problem is that the direct debits will not be paid & owners will have to be told to make alternative arrangements. The majority of owners are not resident & will probably not make any arrangements until they come out later into 2012 - possibly resulting in a cash flow problem.

Can anyone confirm that what the Administrators are telling us is correct, please?

The banks and any other official body will only accept instructions on behalf of a community on presentation of the official minutes book that contain the pertinent minutes recording the official appointment of the person or administrator that is issuing the instruction.

You could try the banksdirectly with the President who is the senior representaive of any community taking with him the minutes book and all necessary identifications and he could then take control of the bank account he may have to contact the old adminstrator to get his removal from the account if successful he could then order the DD instruction, all is not plain sailing but can be achieved I assure you.

Alternatively call an EGM and formally elect the new administrator but if you take my advice drawn from a seriously bad experience DO NOT allow the administrator alone to control your banking, the President or another officer of the community should be a joint signatory to ANY bank transaction always.

Barry

MCC