presedent

our presedent gos away for three months every year  can he still be presedent

There is nothing as such in the law to say he cannot.

can the presdent stay away from the urbinisasion for as long as he likes 

I was president of our urbanisation in Vera Playa for 3 years & I live in the UK.

The president has to be an owner but they do not need to be resident.

Yes of course

Also, the community can ellect any owner to be President and they cannot refuse for any reason whatsoever.  So be pleased you have a volunteer as any owner, who does not want to be, may be ellected !!!!

If no one volunteers for the role of president, any owner can be chosen to fulfil the role.

If you have a valid reason & can persuade a judge that it is a valid reason, that is the only way that you can avoid taking on the role.

I'm a short term owner in Spain, and just starting to say things in the AGM, and I hope to take more of a comunity part as I get nearer staying full time, but asking around I find that our President, is paid, and claims all expenses, rightly, but we are only 54 dwellings, and 1000e a year to be president, not bad, is that the going rate?

 I recently stepped forward, as the only person willing to do the job as President of 290 apartments with a budget around 300,000 euros and I have not asked for payment or expenses, as far as I know none of my predecessors was paid, we were always told the byelaws did not allow for it.

Your Community probably agreed to pay the president that amount at a previous AGM. If that is so it is perfectly acceptable. You can challenge that at an AGM if you want.

There is NO joy in being President no matter how many dwellings there are.

Also hugh_man...................it is ridiculous NOT to claim your expenses as there will be some and being a President should not cost you money.

As far as I am aware there is nothing that prevents a President claiming out of pocket expenses with the proper reciepts of course.

I agree Karensun, it has always been our belief that genuine out of pocket expenses can be claimed with receipts of course.

Have never given it a thought to propose any other payments.

Interestingly we have just received an invoice from our previous President for the supply of light bulbs, dated February 2011, having changed Administrator it is not easy checking records and he was a bit p**d off at being ousted at an EGM for overspending, now he wants to set off his Community fees against this late invoice.

C'mon be fair, being p**d off is human nature - the only question is whether or not the invoice is valid.  It's not going to break the bank and surely if he did a reasonable job you re-imburse without question.

Hello, To carry on from the above, my husband has been President and I am VP (1 of 3) of our community, since we are here 99% of the time we have found during the past 2 years that we are Open house, if anything goes wrong it comes to us, be it no telephone, no water, no sky the people believe that as the elected representatives we should deal with these matters. We ofcourse do but we have certainly been out of pocket and have just started claiming expenses.

We have recently installed community WIFI in our communal library but before that all would come and ask to use our computer, we never refused. The computer is used 90% of the time for community use and now one of our owners has advised that the community should pay half of our broadband bill, we are thinking of accepting this as we do 4 Newsletters per year, answer any email queries, do the AGM minutes plus muc much more.

So yes I believe we should have expenses but not a salary.

Another question now and any help would be gratefully received. We have another Phase adjoining ours, we are twice the size of their Phase and as the communal pool is situated in their Phase have been paying 2/3rds of all costs associated with the pool. However, we have no say in the running of the pool and it is now looking very tatty, nor do we get any receipts with any Invoices just an amount to pay and whilst we have brought our own Phase's bills (water and electricity) down by using energy saving devices and keeping all irrigation problems to a minimum, the same is not happening on the other Phase. As our water and electricity for the irrigation runs through their Phase all bills are lumped together and we pay 2/3rds. As their President is also their Contractor and most of his owners bought for investment only, he has the proxies, the few caring owners who live here or come down regularly are unhappy with the state of their Phase but cannot seem to remove him as he holds all these proxies. So, my question is, is there any way to oust this man?

I look forward to any replies.

Many thanks,

Mo

Hello ; This is a frerquently asked question by many community members for different reasons some positive & others negatative.

The President needs to be a owner as rightly pointed out in one of the responses.In the modern day of technology a President can sucessfully run a community while spending time away from it.This is normally sucessful with a resident Vice president so any day to day site problems can quickly be resolved .Having a hands on Administrator is also a key ingredient in these circumstances to forming a effective team effort.

F.Parkinson ; Jacksons Administradores SL

anthomo16,

I am amazed that your husband is President and YOU are VP......................we were told that only one person in a house hold can be elected. You have one vote per househoñd or a coefficent but that waould not give you a double voting right or enable two people from the same house to be elected.

I have no objections, to his expences, and as he is getting a pay packet too, he does get emails from me asking for help etc, while i'm not there, he is asking a other owner for advice on a contractor, I was just getting a feel of what is the norm.

I can not do it until I move out for good, even then not sure, so let him get on with it.

Thanks for the advice

Jont

Karen Sun

Believe you need to study not only the Horizontal Law but your own Community Statues. Yes only 1 v ote per house but we are joint owners, and have very successfully turned our community around in 2 years, from having no money to do works we now have a surplice to move forward on and have in 13 months with loads of help from a good maintenance guy , painted 3 of our 4 blocks have made the garden weed free by laying a membrane and bark, only for a couple of years til we get the painting completed. The only obstacle is the President/Contractor in the next Phase who does no work at all, has many leaks in his garden and we are paying 2/3rds, that is the help I needed, advice on how his owners, those whose proxies he doesn't hold, can get him out of office, by the way I have taken advice on my position and it is legal!

Jackson Admin

Hi You are quite right but after taking over here and having an open door policy we honestly don't know how other non resident Presidents manage.

Maybe we are too involved here but after years of neglect everyone can now see the place moving forward and keeping up with others on the market, even at today's prices, rather than going further downhill. Yes we have opened ourselves up to all and cannot complain that we are getting swamped, everything will be dealt with it just means being more efficient and here onsite for most of the time. Let's face it we would only be going out spending money and there is no chance of being bored.

We have had so much help from people on this site so now we say "Problems" bring them on as I am certain that someone on this site has experienced any ;problem that we may face and they appear only too happy to help.

Love this site.

Mo

 Hello to the community members with various questions which I am happy to help with as follows:

Paid presidents: This is a desicion for the members at a formal meeting ( EGM or AGM) to vote on. It is very common for Presidents to receive a credit for 1 year of community fees while in office.I have also seen compensation of similar amounts paid as a alternative.

President"s Expenses : These are often small purchases such as light bulbs but extend to copy paper & printing ink as well as mileage to visit court & other offices.The key to expenses is transparency in the accounts of the community so that they are clearly receipted & accounted for in the monthly account payment lists to members.These should also be shown clearly in quarterly & annual accounts to members.

Right of set off : The law in Spain does not allow for this so all expenses should be refunded as above & community fees paid by the president if this is not part of their renumeration.

Community wifi : This can be a great money saving tool for the members where by a community hub can be installed for members own personal  use & I have seen use of this as low as 4€ per month per member ; often saving them the monthly cost of their fees to the community.

Shared neighbour community facilities : This is best handled by a Mancomunidad ( a joint owned community by co-efficient reponsible for the payment of shared community facilites betwen more than one community). The member communities pay their share of costs to the Mancomunidad which is run on pre - agreed statues.

In the event of this not being available ;  the communities sharing should adopt to their own statues by formal vote the percentage expenditure to be paid by each for the facilities in question and which will be responsible for the payments.

Proxy voting : The best way to stop vote collecting is to use a democratic designed form which clearly shows the member  each agenda voting point & allows them to vote for / against or abstain.This type of form should be available to vote on line  & by fax or post prior to the meeting.

Owner officer appointments : Any owner ie joint or singular by law can be elected as president, vice -president , administrator or secretary  . Hence 2 joint owners may occupy 2 board positions.In terms of voting only the co-efficent of the property is entiltled to vote ie 1 property to vote by size.

I hope this is helpful.

F. Parkinson Jacksons Administradores SL.

Jackson Admin

Wow thanks so much you are much more erudite than me, it certainly clears up the point from the last member.

We have and want to put into practice so much of what you have said, however, the other Phases want to protect their "fiefdom" we could achieve so much more as a macrocommunidad.

Out original developer did put it into the statutes that we are a Communidad but this has never been regularised, not possible now as he went loopy and had to be escorted by police from the site 10 years ago. regular Peyton Place here. We have taken debtors to auction and won, have used the English debt agencies to collect communty fees that are outstanding and have put embargo's on other outstanding Spanish registered debtors.

Believe me since my husband became President we have relied on this site so much for information, such as on best painting products to having the site's solicitor Maria advise us on Autonomo's etc. we still have a hill to climb but I believe we are half way there.

Many thanks,

Mo