Community charges..... non-payers....direct action?

hi all, i also live on a community that has late payers, we also penalise and give discounts, but as always we have the same people who always pay late and we have some that owe several thousand euros each. what make my blood boil is that in  the 3 years  we have had our administartors, i have not heard of 1 single case being taken to court, and also i hear that 1 person on our community is being allowed to pay off his debt in installments, which is 4, 000 euros, why is it that he has not been taken to court, hes owed money for nearly 2 years now.

In my community it seems that if your face dont fit they pick on you on the most stupid things you can imagine , yet they let things like serious late payers go by.

ok heres a few tips that did work for late payments.

we have a community tv system and internet. so first they cut off the tv and that really hit the people who rent the apartments, so owners of those paid up swiftly and next the internet is cutting off as it is included in the community fees. maybe that will help some of your communities.

adios amigos

Congrats promedia. Keep moving ahead!

Maria

Well done, that is some progress . Unfortunately the biggest debtor on our community is the builder who still owns several properties . They seem to make a 50% payment of the fees when they become due and it seems they divvy up when sold!

Mark

Thought I would give you an update, as i started the non-payers thread some months ago.

Our community has 60 apts and i'm pleased to say that our debtors list has dropped dramatically for the first time in 4 years.

We will announce at our agm that we have recovered over 30Kof the 50k outstanding in debts this year, leaving us with some stragglers on payment plans, 1 owner that the administrator thinks has died and 1 owner with a long term renter in their apartment.

We still have some hope of getting this money as the renter is getting so much flack to put pressure on the owner to pay up, especially when they get the next letter, informing them that all community services to their apartment are to be terminated...we'll start with the TV links and see what develops from there........

That will start them complaining to the owner who takes the rent and they believe their water will also be turned off, as all their water is paid for by the community, they are reguarly the only people living (on the second floor) in their portal outside the school holidays, so if their lift also happens to pack up they have been made fully aware aware there are no funds available to repair it, because the owners are not paying the community fees......

Just another couple of tips to keep the pressure on..

We installed glass fronted noticeboards by the car park lift entrance in every stairwell on the community. In these we reguarly update and have the name and shame them sheet, listing the current amount outstanding and the current situation which apeases the other residents, ie 30 day court letters been sent, interest and legal charges added....awaiting 60 day confirmation of embargo against selling the property being put in place, further interest and charges applied.....application issued and being processed for the sale and auction of the property by the courts...... phrases like this have scared the debtors into paying and everyone realises that the community are not prepared to be messed about. nobody likes to be named and shamed and certainly they dont want friends and relatives seeing their names in RED.

One thing that we discovered is that a lot of the addresses, phone nos and cemail addresses the administrator had for the overseas owners were wrong and correspondence and community bills were being returned gone away and just re-posted to the spanish apt which may or may not have a letterbox. So we created an emergency contact data sheet for the presidente and focussed on getting details from other residents, friends and renters for any contact details we could lay our hands on, this worked and when we sent the correspondence to the new addresses or phoned them up, we got success.

The community also implemented a prompt payment discount for all owners and 11K euro's extra has gone into the community funds through late payment surcharges.

We are now down to 2 out of 60 that we going to have a problem with, so we'll deal with that through the courts and sell their homes, none of us can understand why somone would spend 300K on an apt and then lose it all for not paying the community fees. 

anyway thanks for your ideas and  help with all the ideas and support

Thanks for that Maria, I've added it to my "favourites"! Some useful links (enlaces) on that site, too. For example, all the various region's own colleges. So, should complaints be directed to the regional college first?

A translation of at least the homepage, explaining their function etc., may be interesting for members to read.

¡Feliz fiestas!

Roberto

Maria, the link I gave earlier was for the Murcia region colegio de adminstradores (because Cooberpedy is in Mar Menor area*), but I was unable to find, with a quick Google search, if there is a central body to which complaints should be directed. Is it correct that each region has it's own colegio overseeing administrators?

Although it's going slightly off-topic, this thread is interesting in that it seems to have exposed yet another issue that many property owners are disappointed and disillusioned with, namely community administrators. Does anybody here have anything good to say about theirs? Do others feel like I do, that too much responsibility is dumped on the president, who is usually an unwilling "volunteer", is unpaid, unqualified, inexperienced and in quite a few instances not even necessarily able to speak Spanish.

I only have limited experience of how the equivalent of a community operates in the UK (and that's from quite a few years ago), but I'm fairly sure that the management company of a block of flats looks after pretty much everything, and the secretary/treasurer/president or whatever he/she is referred to, basically just checks the accounts and authorises the budget. Why does it seem to me that here in Spain, professional, qualified paid-for administrators have to be coaxed to do even the most obvious and elementary tasks involved in running a community, let alone get stuck into the less savoury aspects?

Comments?

*Before any smart ar*e mentions it, I know Cooberpedy is actually in Australia and not Murcia, but I'm referring to the EOS member, not the town!

The speed at which an embargo can be placed on a property ( by the Court ) depends entirely on how soon your community has instigated legal proceedings and how long it takes the court to give judgement.

Apparently, if the debt is over 300€ the community does not have to pay anything to instigate the proceedings and at the 1st AGM after the debt has reached this figure the community of owners can vote to give the Presidente the authority to take these debtors to Law.

From the point of view of with holding facilities from debtors, by law, you cannot do it...........however fustrating this is, it's just against the law.

Thought that was a long way down the line, told you I was no expert!

Personally, if I had not paid my community fees, I wouldn't have the bare faced cheek to use the amenities.

I would even feel shame faced to arrive an use my apartment.

So these people who do not pay, are not nice people anyway.

Good luck with it, hope you get a solution.

Kind regards,

I knew I could rely on EOS members to come good, thanks everyone. Hopefully my jittery feelings are misplaced, but going on the lack of help we have had from the administrators re chasing up our non-payers, I feel I am right to be a bit wary,  They know that they are looked to to provide sound fiscal advice to communities - and are trusted to work on the communities behalf - if we start to get inklings that all is not as it should be, then I think our president would be wise to look to the college and consumer offices.

Fibby, the embargo of the property, is a million miles away from the first couple of years of non-payment, and very much depends upon how proactive the community is and how much influence they have with their administrators - in the meantime the galling fact of the matter is that those people are entitled to use their property and rent it out,  as well as using  all the community amenities and no-one is allowed to make any attempt to stop them without running the risk of finding themselves denounced.  Mad or what???

Have read this thread with some interest, as we have some non payers in our community.

We too have pools keys, but not for a full year yet, so it will be interesting to see what develops.

As for non payers, I am no expert, only know bits & bobs through chats with our Presidente......................

But in the long term, the community can put an embargo (is that the right word?) on their property.

The community can take possesion of it, board it up to prevent access and ultimately sell it with the monies going into community funds.

Phew, lucky I pay my fees, we fly out today and would be gutted if the front door was nailed up!

Not sure, but you could perhaps try this: http://www.coafmu.es/