Stopping people from voting by including special payment on community fees.

In our community we have a very corrupt president and vice president and even the treasurer.   We have been trying for years to get rid of them but because they hold the proxies we can do nothing.  We have had two administrations in one year and everytime they seem to be doing too good a job the president kicks them out. 

We are an old building and it used to be a hotel so as such we have one electric bill which the community pays and because of this many people take advantage of using the electric like it was entirely free.   We voted to have individual meters put into the apartments so that the community fees would go down eventually and people would have to pay for their use of electric.  When we voted for this they said that the money would be paid over four instalments and two years and would be put into a separate account which was apart from the community fees as it was an extroadinary payment.

Lots of people did not like the way we were presented with this bill without having seen a quote and being denied the right to see the three they had taken into account.   They chose the most expensive.  Needless to say a lot of people (65% of the community) refused to pay these fees.   We wanted to have an extroadinary general meeting to elect new officers and had in fact accumulated enough votes to do this but the president declared that we could not vote as we had not paid for the new meters even though our community fees were up to date.  Is this legal is what I would like to know.  We have another meeting next week and would like some ammunition.

Thankyou for any help offered.

Jacquie

 Hi Jaquie

Maybe this will help you.

Horizontal Law Section 13.7:

The term of office for all governing bodies of the community shall be of one calendar year unless otherwise provided for by the community statutes. The persons designated may be removed from their posts before the expiration of their term of office by a resolution of the general assembly, convened to hold an extraordinary session.(EGM)

Also you can ask Maria de  Castro's Advice at   www.costaluzlawyers.es     

She regularly replies to Users on this Forum

Also found this Forum very informative. You can also register for free.  http://www.andalucia.com/forums/index.php

Good Luck

Regards

Hi Jacquie - If you are able to get hold of the contact details of the owners, then it is worth trying to contact those who automatically give their proxy to the current President.  If you can explain to them what your issues are with the current regime, then it might be possible to eat into their power base.  If you can´t get the details, then perhaps the Administrator would be willing to forward a message from you and the others who are opposed to the President.  Many people just give a proxy to the President because they don´t know what else to do.

I would also doubt that the President has the power to sack the Administrator without a meeting to vote on it, but others on the forum may know more on this.

Good luck!