Do you pay your President

 

I here of communities where the president get paid.

Do you pay your president or do they have the fees waived

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Normally, only communities that are small and have no professional administrator where the president has to keep the accounting records and do most of the work pay the president a fee. Otherwise, it is not so normal.

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Our president sacked the adminstrtor and took on the role herself. The community agreed to pay her a small monthly amount but within a couple of years it seems we are paying her as much as we paid the adminstrator..........

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 What is being referred to is self -administration. The Spanish LPH community law provides for the president to be the administrator when there is not a independent administrator appointed or a community member in this position.

I can not recomend this in communities of over 10 neighbours. There is the issue of funds not being independently audited or control systems in place in most situations.In addition the budgeting of annual spending is a specialist skill with the independent sourcing of maintence contractors .The ability to provide both transparency & bonding of the community funds is also not normally found in these situations.There is also no availability of a independent expert for mebers to discuss their concerns with.

If a president is to be renumerated then the community must vote their acceptance of the same at a AGM or EGM.It is common for presidents to receive a credit for their annual fees after each year of service.

The expert knowledge of community law is also a very important skill provided by the administrator which if not followed can lead the community into a situation of claims against it. It should also be noted the buck stops with all the members if the community can not meet it's liabilities.

The minimum control to protect the members & president in a small self -administration should be a community member to act as audit for the members & a outside auditor to produce the annual accounts.

Remember the community appoint the administrator not the president.

F. Parkinson. Jacksons Administradores Sl

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I have to take great issue with the last message from F Jackson the administrator but firstly I should say I have been mildly impressed with his other contributions in recent weeks.

I am the President of a large urbanisation ( more than 700 homes not apartments) and together with some 30 other owners run the urbanisation without an administrator and without any remuneration whatsoever, why do we do this.....because succesive committees driven by useless, dare I say corrupt at worst or incompetent at best, administrators took this urbanisation to the brink of disaster with a failing water supply, diesel generated electricity, an insolvent trading position with very large debts to past suppliers ( they just stopped paying previous suppliers and took on new ones that they didn't pay either) and private owner community charge debts running at a rate of more than 30%.

I think one of the most ludicrous statements is that about the need for specialist budgeting being required and the inference that the best way is through an administrator together with independent sourcing of suppliers... that is a real laugh in our case on both counts I'm afraid as the independent sourcng of our suppliers by our committee has saved the community more than €130,000 per annum to date, use your own judgement to understand one of the reasons ! 

Yes we have had some difficult times, we have had some claims from various sources but we employ a solicitor who works for us and OUR interests to defend OUR position... to date we have not lost a single case and bear in mind all of them were generated from the incompetance of the previous administrator. Has it been worth the considerable effort... you bet it has, we have a community that is not at war, we have very sound finances, we have almost eradicated the electricity problem, we have completed the water infrastructure, we have private owner community fee debt below 5%,  the urbanisation looks better than it has ever done and several more groups now exist and are very active within the urbanisation bringing social, gardeningand  help group activities enjoyed by very many people in the community.

I don't doubt that there good administrators around and you may be one of them Mr Jackson but there are sufficient numbers  of grossly inefficient and in some case wholly corrupt ones to sour the professions standing , of course gathering the hard evidence to follow that accusation is very difficult if not impossible, as one of our suppliers said to me recently...'cash exchanges are very difficult to prove'.

I have a bid problem with administrators in the sense that I have yet to see one that has empathy and interest in the community itself, they are unable to manage an urbanisation like this in an effiecient way and it seems that despite everything they quickly turn into dictators who operate the urbanisation and interpret HPL for their own benefit...

Mr Jackson nothing I have said here is meant to cast any doubt over you and your company but you will judge from the strength of feeling in this message what I think about the profession generally and I really think the time has come for it to be investigated for the sake of those within it that do a good job... we have also some experience of the professional association and frankly it is no different in the way it operates than the law society bodies around the world, criticism of its members is not welcome !!

Remember the Administrator works for and is paid by the community, being paid he should earn his money, be efficient, be honest and heed entirely the wishes of the community at all times.... that's what we do for free and the difference is remarkable because of the success we have had.

Barry

 

This message was last edited by Fighter2 on 18/05/2012.

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I know some presidents that get paid (five figures per year) even though they have an administrator.  In a way they become more answerable and HAVE to work for the community as the owners are paying for their time.

Remember that many presidents, like many administrators, are pretty crap.

As the old saying goes, "you get what you pay for".  When I was president of our communty it probably cost me money instead of actually getting anything for it but saying that I was probably one of those crap presidents 

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 Dear Barry ;

Firstly may I say my post was in reply to a contributor member of a community who was clearly disatisified with the self administration of her community. Hence apologies if you were offended in any way.

May I commend you on your success but perhaps more importantly the difference you have made with your team to both your member's lives in Spain & also the investment in their property . 

I undestand first hand what you have been through as this is sadly a common occurance I have found too often in communities I have been elected to as administrator.I must say it is very satisfying to me to see my job change for the better the lives of community owners when our firm has made progress in sorting out utilities that have been disconnected, sewage plants reconnected & community funds & accounts made transparent to members monthly with formal controls to protect & insure the client's monies. It also gives me job satisfaction to reduce annual insurance premiums were past administrators or native presidents have loaded the premium with commision for themselves ; I enjoy also the healthy financial effect of reducing contract prices from the introduction of new suppliers. For me I often have the added job satisfaction of being re-elected unanimously by the members .

I also have a very common shared interest in your opinion of the administrator's profession in this country.I have seen again first hand the traites of control & dishonesty with self interpretation of the HPL to suit themselves in a situation.I was a a highly regulated professional for over 15 years in the UK & the type of behaviour displayed by some administrators in this country would see striking off ;heavy fines & punitive barristor's fees imposed in the UK with possible criminal proceedings.In my 9 years in this profession in Spain I have only encountered 1 native administration company I would feel happy to instruct as a community member. I doubt there will be any further changes in the profession as it is only 10 years since Anzar deregulated the monoply of numbers through the coliagio de administadores of Spain. We choose to practice under my partner"s european chartered accountant's licence for these reasons.

Finally can I also congratulate you on bringing together a 30 person board as too often I have seen predominantly English speaking communities unable to agree amongst themselves of the same number of people.

Regards 

F.Parkinson. Jacksons Administradores SL

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Nothing to do with the title of the thread but my view of administrators is that a good one will provide a useful service...I don't want to confront neighbours who break rules or don't pay so having a prefessional to do all this sort of stuff is, in my experience, essential.

The question for me is: Should you pay your President? I am VP and yes it costs me a lot of time and a bit in petrol and phone calls but I am more concerened about about getting someone good to be President when the current one gets fed up. We have just over 200 apartments, our President is Spanish and fluent in English so keeps the community together. She works hard, taking annual leave to attend court hearings for the community and spends Saturdays buying materials for maintenance so that the community gets the trade discount rather than the maintenance company. 

She doesn't want to be paid but I think it might make sense to pay a retainer in the future as I don't see a queue of neighbours wanting the job. As Justin says a paid President has an obligation to deliver results whereas a volunteer can do as he likes

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Our community does not pay our President (at least no knowingly).  However I recently suggested to an owner who is a local lawyer that we should pay and his reply to me was that to pay a President a salary of say 20,000 euros per annum is not attractive when they often make more than double this figure when issuing large contracts.

We have a President and committee plus an administrator.  They are a very tight knit group who don't want other owners to join their group.  One of the committee members has served on the committee for 9 years (during which many serious problems arose) and yet when he was asked to stand down at the AGM he ignored it and the President insisted he remain a committee member.

The accounts are audited but we are not allowed to see the auditors comments.

The AGM this year was on 2nd April and today there are still no minutes distributed to owners!  I do not know whether the minute book has been updated and notarised.

I was told that we have an administator for efficiency and to ensure that the community acts within the law.  In our community the administrator is inefficient, continually seeks extra payments and we pay a lawyer a large sum each year to do little. This same lawyer has called EGM's and asked owners to vote on things which are illegal.

I try not to be cynical but I would have to be extremely naive not to be concerned about this state of affairs, particularly as the committee regularly announce capital expenditure projects when debtors are on the increase.

Can anyone tell me of good administrators on the Costa del Sol and what they should be paid for a community of 250 to 300 homes?

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I have just received the minutes of our last AGM and found out that the president is to get a fifty per cent reduction in his community fees.  We already pay an administrator and our community is quite small with only a couple of dozen apartments so I can't say that I am very pleased.  The meeting was called last minute and later than it should have been and I suspect was pushed through with few of the residents there apart from his supporters.  I was away or would have attended though I gave my proxy to someone who I am sure would have voted against this having done the job as president for many years for nothing.  He had tried to get some remuneration once before by, I assume, organising the administrator to put forward the proposal but  I and others voted against it choosing instead to offer a small remuneration for telephone costs etc.  To be honest he isn't a particularly good president.  Difficult to approach and not very helpful once you do manage to contact him but now, even if we manage to replace him, the precedent has been set up and I can't see this being changed.  In fact I think we would now find it difficult to get him to step down. 

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Hi All,

Having read all the various comments re different Communities and Administrators,I do not feel so alone.

Our community is small and our Administrator just does her own thing,generally ignores us and our requests.Now that our last President has left we are gradually getting things organised and back on a more secure footing and are seriously considering "going on our own". I wont go into too many details but would you believe we waited 10months for our minutes this year,the cheque signatories have not been changed from day one and yet we have had three different Presidents.I know it sounds ludicrous but due to absentee proxy votes and a completely useless but dominating administrator it has been a difficult few years.We get to know nothing from one year to the next.The tide is turning however and there is light at the end of the tunnel now.I could be asking for guidance from you Barry as you appear to have "done that,got the T shirt and damn well succeeded".Very well done.

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None of the committee members of our community, including the president and vice president, receive any remuneration whatsoever. The only people who get paid are the administrator and lawyer, both of whom are employed by the community.

That's not to say eveyone in the community, particularly those who never attend meetings, believe that no-one receives any payment and are constantly throwing around accusations of corruption and people being on the take.

If more people got actively involved in the running and management of their community, they would see how much hard work is involved and what a thankless task being president can be.

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 The key to keeping community peace is transparency & communication  for a president.

If the members know what is going on & why with problems in their community & can see each month who has paid & what has been paid to whom along with how much is in the bank then they undestand & have the knowledge of what is happening with their money.

It is in my view the Administrator"s responsibility to provide this information by way of monthly visit to the the community ; use of a community website , the community notice board and formal  quarterly mangement accounts for the mebers to study.

F. Parkinson Jacksons Administradores SL

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Our community always posts information on the community notice board AND on a website, with all information in English and Spanish, with German, French & Dutch translations available upon request.

The problem is, not everyone bothers to read it and just form their own conspiracy theories about what's going on.

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 Yes I know the situation you are referring to.  The Administrator should  hold a 2 hour clinic for the members to see him / her  once a month on a no appointment 1 on1 basis which will clear up the misconceptions.  

F.Parkinson. Jacksons Administradores SL

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I was President of our Community of 50 for 2 years. We have a rather inefficient Administrator. Personally I wanted to sack him because he is useless and corrupt., his son in law works as an electrician and so all the contracts go his way.  However for the 3rd a year I felt it only fair, and that I would only do it, if  the President was compensated  E100 a month, or slightly less than the monthly service charge, as not a day past when there was not some demand made on me.  What really prompted me to be President was that none of the things that were agreed at the AGM's previously where ever implemented. However be warned, the President can be sued personally for any action he takes without the Communities approval.

 

This message was last edited by Crisco on 19/05/2012.

This message was last edited by Crisco on 19/05/2012.

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 A very imformative post and the content which is I have seen in many communities. I am supporter that the President of a community should have a credit for a full year of community fees at the end of each year of service. 

It is not just a President who is liable in a community but all owners are if there is a substantiated claim claim against the community. This is the reason for the name ; community of owners in Spanish.

Hence communities need to be cautious when electing their President & Administrator and all members need to make their vote count. Leaving it to another is like giving your investment to some one else to look after .

F.Parkinson Jacksons Administradores SL

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We do not knowingly pay the President.

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