Inflated communidad payments.

I have been president, on and off, for more years than I care to remember, and I can categorically say that I have NEVER been offered so much as a bottle of cheap plonk at Christmas. Does this mean people think I'm too honest, or the oppopsite?

During my tenure, I scrupulously check every last cent to the best of my ability. With our previous administrator it was virtually impossible to decipher his accounts, and there was always (inevitably) a minor discrepancy at year end which he conveniently put down as "cash", and I always ammended to read "error", but I was fairly certain this was due to simple incompetence rather than corruption of any sort. The amounts were too insignificant to lose sleep over anyway. Nevertheless, I found it hard to accept. Accounting is very black and white in my book. Our new admin. is better in this respect (he still makes things more compicated than need be, but I guess he has to justify his silly certificate on the wall somehow). However, it is entirely possible that the admin. could be getting some kind of kick-back on some jobs. But since any quote has to be approved by me first, if the accepted price includes his cut, who cares? It's not like we end up paying any more than we agreed to.

I actually doubt if our admin. does get anything in the way of commission on jobs for our community. It's too small really. But I know for a proven fact that a very well known nearby community has been haemorrhaging money for years to unscrupulous presidents in cahoots with the corrupt in-house adminsitrators, and even though it's a well known fact, continues to do so. The sheer size of the community (500 or so properties) makes it almost impossible for anyone to stop the rot. Anyone who has tried over the years to tackle the problem has usually given up before they find themselves sleeping with the fish, so to speak.

Two opposite ends of the spectrum. I think Silicone was justified in asking the question. Checking on the state of the community should be an integral part of any propoerty purchase, here in Spain or anywhere else I suppose. Perhaps a greater concern, particularly in the current climate, should be whether the community has a lot of debtors; to answer the original question, you could very well end up paying higher fees than you should be, just to make up the shortfall in funds resulting from non-payers in the community. In our little community, everyone is 100% paid up; in the other nightmare I mentioned, there are outstanding fees running into 6 figures, which obviously seriously compounds the problem of misappropriation of what funds there are in the kitty.

"I have an interest in 4 communities none now have debtors with more than one payment in arrears, whereas previously, they were many."

I'm sure there are others on here who would love to know your secret. Is it just that you're a very scary person and everybody pays up out of fear?

Luckily, I have no personal experience of trying to recover unpaid community dues, but from everything I hear and read about, it ain't that easy. Seriously, if you have any direct experience of solving this problem (and there can be no denying that it IS a problem for many, many communities) perhaps you could start a new thread (or revive one of the many older ones on the topic) to share your experience.

johnzx.............................your arrogance is appaling!!

Yes the HPL does say that but ANYONE who has been involved with Community debtors knows that before all that you have to take the debtor to court.

If you know anything about Spain you will also know, in practice, this proceedure can take anything upto 4, 5 or six years. Yes you will definately get a judgement but the word is eventually.

We have legal proceedures been going for 5 years, several with judgements some without yet. UK collection agencies can take over the debt but have not been sucessful as yet.

HPL is words.....................action is via the Spanish Courts and that action is severely slow.

elaineG.

I am not hiding behind anything.

If a posting questioning Roberto's knowledge of the HLP is made in such a sarcastic way I feel I have the right to post the facts of collecting debts through the Spanish courts, which I did.

Contrary to what johnzx stated it is very difficult and slow to collect fees from debtors if you are going to do it the legal way, which is the only way.

I apologise if you found my post offensive.

Thanks for the replies.

Would adding something to what a supplier charges not end up costing him money? If the real cost of a product was 100 and the supplier received 100, but the invoice showed 115 would the supplier not have to pay taxes on the profit made by charging 115, or am I being niave in some way?

It was made easier to chase debts through the courts a few years ago, but it may be that how busy and effective the courts are depends on where you are.

It is also true that a person with a small debt cannot vote at an AGM. People who can't vote can't vote against the status quo, and nothing distracts the decent fee paying owners like a debtors list. Or is that too cynical?

John....

Take the reality of collecting debts from those with experience of such an ordeal...Karen is correct, it takes years through the Spanish courts, it takes large amounts of time and it also commits amounts of money to the process.

We have old debts that are still  unpaid in the courts from more than 5 years ago, debts placed with the courts 3 years ago still await a judgement.

That is the reality regardless of the noble words in the HPL.

We have been incredibly successful by using the personal contact route AND depriving services whenever possible... an urbanisation of 750 homes ( not apartment blocks) now has private community debt below 5% which I am told by many is unheard of on similar urbanisations.

Enjoy your holiday, I am envious!!

Barry

@Johnzx: "Maybe we have just been lucky" - yes, I would say so. Perhaps you live in a rare Utopia, where simply quoting the law (Horizontal law, roundabout law or whatever) is enough to ensure everyone obeys, but if you really think it's as simple as that everywhere else, it would seem to suggest that you don't stray far from your four properties, or listen much to what anybody else is saying. You would have us all believe that a non-payer simply needs to be told that it is illegal not to pay - and they'll pay up. I would say you need a reality check.

 I have to agree with Roberto. We have been chasing bad debtors for years now, even using the courts and embargoes, but this has had no effect. One of the problems we have had is identifying who the correct owner is and where they live to send buro faxes. The bottem line is that the courts in Spain are too slow, with the honest owners being the lonly ooser.

Mike

Well, after reading these posts we are definitely NOT going to buy a property within a community.  I keep asking myself the question, 'Why are so many Spanish properties built within a 'community' when there are so many problems trying to get everyone with property in a community to pay for the upkeep of shared areas/facilities?'.   I have heard that many communities inhabited solely by Spanish residents have as many non-payers as those communities that were built with holiday homes for 'foreigners' in mind.

We have just bought a small, 2-bedroomed, place here in the UK within a 'community' - being a small estate consisting of 62 properties....and no-one pays a community charge.  We all look after our own gardens/parking spaces.  Are there any estates (communities) in Spain where this happens?  Am I right in thinking that Spanish community charges take the place of council charges (we all know that the Spanish equivalent of the UK's council tax is usually quite low) meaning the local councils don't have to include the upkeep of areas around houses...except for the main roads?

 maddiemack, just to be Devil's Advocate for a moment, if you don't buy in a community you will find it very difficult to get to know your neighbours.  There are loads of high walled, detached houses around us and it seems people come over, get behind the wall and never see anyone.  At least on a community you will get to know your neighbours and make some good friends.  We regularly sit on the balcony or the front garden and people wandering past pop in for a coffee or beer (depending on time of day).  I know it is quite difficult getting money out of some people, especially those who bought to make a profit and found they couldn't, but most people are very good and cough up the cash.

The community fees will pay for the upkeep of the pool, the communal gardens, the street lighting, the water used for gardens and pools.  It pays for maintenance of lifts if you have them in the flats.  In some communities, it also pays for the exterior redecoration of the properties now and again.  It can even pay for communal satellite TV if you wish, the upkeep of the TV aerials and repairs to roads and walls etc within the community.  On our community, it even paid for a security guard at night.  If you have your own, non-community, property, you will have to pay these for yourself.  Our community fees are quite reasonable but we do have problems with one Icelandic chap who bought 5 properties and hasn't been heard of since.   The original title of this thread is a bit inflammatory.  I've lived on 3 communities in the last 12 years and all have been well administered with no hint or sniff of wrongdoing.  

Considering my council tax here in Spain is about €140 a year and the community charge is €450 a year (which maintains 4 swimming pools plus extras) I think I'm doing quite well.  UK was £1475 a year in council tax and we didn't even have a swimming pool!  And, no, you can't have a community in Spain where everyone does their own bit.  Someone has to pay for the street lighting etc.

No, maddiemack, council tax, or rates, are charged by the local council just as in the UK. This is called Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles, or IBI. This is for the provision of council run amenities such as street lighting etc.

Community fees are charged to individual property owners within any complex with communal areas and facilities that are not public. The same would apply to properties in the UK such as flats. These fees are used to maintain and run things such as the lifts, lighting, fire extinguishers, alarms, entryphone systems, communal tv antenna, gardens, swimming pools etc. All apartments (flats) will have some kind of community set up (unless there are less than 4 co-owners in the block) and this community is governed by the Horizontal Property Law (there's plenty about that elsewhere on the forum and an English translation somewhere on this site) There are also many "urbanisations" in Spain, similar to what you think of as a "community", where the whole area, including areas between individual homes, is private rather than public land, and therefore not the council's responsibility. Think of "unadopted" streets in the UK. In these places, even if you own a free standing detached house with a private garden you will still be part of a community and pay some sort of maintenance fee. If you were to buy a town house in a village you would not be part of a community (as far as paying fees in addition to your council tax). In my opinion, you're best buying an apartment in a building with nothing more than the lift and lighting to maintain and the stairs and entrance hall and corridors to clean. Your community fee will be quite low, maybe €30 a month, which will cover the above, plus building insurance and fire extinguishers etc as required by law. Once you start getting gardens and especially pools, there will be potential problems and escalating costs. And if you get a place near enough the beach, you don't need those anyway.

Hope this helps explain it.

Don't think anyone answered your earlier question re: tax on rented properties. Basically, if you own a second home in Spain (which if you are not resident here it will be assumed your property is a second home) you are assumed to rent it out for income, so even if you don't the govt. will tax you on presumed income from it. Have a search around the forum for threads about non-resident income tax.

Just read this thread: http://www.eyeonspain.com/forums/posts-long-15246.aspx

Presumably yet another ficticious account for johnzx to scoff at?

I don't see why people feel the need to gang up on someone who has had a different experience to them. I was a bit surprised to see johnzx's comments about dealing with debtors as I know they can be a problem, but if there are thousands of communities in Spain then there is no reason why someone somewhere should not have had some success because of an unlikely combination of factors such as size of community, attitude of administrator, general attitude of owners etc.

Why can people not just say that is not my experience without taking offence. It must be very frustrating if you have been involved in chasing debts for years with little or no success, but there is no need to take it out on someone who has had the good fortune to have bought in the right place at the right time with the right conditions.

I'm sure most people can see that if one person says they have found the process to be easy and four or five say it has been a difficult nightmare then it usually is a difficult nightmare.

Instead of slating him I would be asking what the conditions were under wich he, or should I say his community, had that success.

The link provided isn't really relevant to my original post because I was talking about completed communities rather than ones where the builder has gone bust. Besides, johnzx hasn't scoffed at anything.

My original post was not inflammatory. I know such things go on. I just don't know how widespread it is. I am sure there are communities where there is wrongdoing going on and the vast majority of owners are unaware of it.

One of the reasons owners are unaware of it is that they compare the cost of what they pay in service charges to council tax back home. I think every buyer does it subconciously when they are thinking of buying, but the two are not really  related.

"My community charges are so much less than my council tax back home that I can't be beiing diddled" is so lacking in common sense that I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever say it. But not only do people say it, there is probably a majority of ex pats on every community that think that way.

Say a pack of 20 fags costs seven quid back home and about two in Spain. Smokers wouldn't pay five in Spain just because they cost seven back home. But property owners cant apply that logic to what is spent on or by their communities.

If you search for "What does council tax pay for?" you will see why it costs so much more than communidad charges.

With all due respect, John, your posts here are not helping anyone. I have been posting on this forum for years, doing my best to help others based on my own personal experiences and knowledge, as many I hope will attest to. If you feel insulted by my previous post, or if anyone else thinks I'm "ganging up" on you, it's because I felt insulted by your naiive and frankly ridiculous earlier post, suggesting that non-payment of community fees is a thing of the past since the Horizontal Law states that it's now illegal not to pay. Silicone, as for "asking what the conditions were under wich he, or should I say his community, had that success", I did, but apparently the answer is because the law says so. Constantly quoting what the law says, and enforcing it by reminding us that he's an ex-copper, is not, I feel, as helpful as he thinks.

But that's just my opinion among many. I don't care who agrees or disagrees, and I care much less if John choses to ignore me.