Community Fees help please

 Hi, I am President of a small community only 15 townhouses and our fees are 1200 per year paid as two equal payments.

We have changed the payments at this years AGM to 4 payments of 300 to make it easier for people. We have 2 Spanish families, 1 Danish, 1 German and the rest English.

I have been told by one of the Spanish families our fees are too high, as their friends near by only pay 600 a year. Their friends live on a similar community but have over 24 houses so there are more people to share the fees.

I was President for 7 years and came back this year as President after a gap of 3 years. I have always tried to keep fees down and deliver good value for money.

We are a small gated community with electric gates, lights and a pool that we heat in the months either side of the summer months so the electricity for the pool is not huge.

Out of the 1200 each year 300 goes into a painting fund so we can repaint every 5 or 6 years without asking for cash, we have had spare money to replace the edging around the pool and replace the pool cover and we have 2 debtors out of 15.

My question is what are your fees, what size community and what facilities, lifts, security, how many pools, life guards etc.

I need to prove to my Spanish neighbours that we are doing well, I always speak to them in Spanish and I am happy to let them take over as President, I tell them this every year but they decline to take over.

Thanks in advance.

This message was last edited by manilvajl on 23/07/2013.

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Hi Jeff

You must be mad to take it on again, but I know what you mean, every year the Spanish owners have plenty to say at AGMs but never want to do the job.

I know that someone did some research sometime ago on Community fees on this forum but not sure if is still available. I do remember a massive variation in fees.
I know it is non comparable but to give you some idea, our Community is 288 apartments of 2 or 3 beds with coefficients of between 0.33 and 0.56 of total depending on sq metre age.
We have 26 blocks with lifts, 3 pools, not heated, fairly sizeable gardens, a budget of 350,000 euros per year therefore fees of around 1200 for 2 bed and 1400 for 3. Plus the Community is part of a larger Entity which contributes to resort security and clearance of bins adding another 400/500 per annum.
Our debtors are sizeable as the Community started in 2007 as the crisis hit and we are attempting to add budget items such as provision for bad debt and attempting to start a redecoration fund as this has not been done. We of course have a reserve fund as stipulated by law but most of this is currently represented by bad debts which we are doing all we can to reduce.

Largest budget items are lift maintenance, gardens maintenance, administration, plus utilities and general Community maintenance none of which are cheap anymore in Spain.

By way of comparison I pay approx £1200 pa on a 2 bed flat in UK with no pools to look after.

Happy to discuss in more detail if useful.

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 We are a smal community of 20 town houses & our fees are 300€ pa.  Most of the cost is pool maintenance, Community insurance & electricity.  Our insurance gives comprehenive property insurance to all the houses..  A nearby community of 15 houses as fees of only 250€ , but as only very basic Community insurance.

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This message was last edited by elaineG on 24/07/2013.

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It's imposible to compare community's as they vary so much. I too am a President and frankly many owners would not even be capable to do the role of the president. My advice would be to show all owners the costs of running the community on a monthly basis, they can then see how much things cost, some people just do not understand what has to be paid out. Ask them for some input and ideas and then they will understand what is posible what is not. good luck.

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Hi, Hugh

Thank you for your very comprehensive reply. I know it's difficult to compare communities but you can analyse the metrics to make comparisons.

I think I have enough information to show them we are running at about the right rate.

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People over 75 cannot be forced to be a President. I wouldn't recommend forcing anyone to be the president if they didn't want to willingly do it, your community could end up with all sorts of problems. It's not an easy job but if someone was forced into the role, they probably wouldn't do it anyway. You can give someone a title but how can you force them to do a could job for the good of all.

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Eileen G you stated...

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I think your message might give a very misleading suggestion that all Presidents are continually offered bribes when this is clearly not the case.

I think it happened with just about all the suppliers when I was president.  I really do not think it is an exceptional thing. Of course as I said, one need not accept them, as I am sure many non Spaniards don't.
 

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