AGM or lack of it.

We have a holiday home on an urbanisation which is basically split in two.  One president, one administrator, two sets of accounts, separate electric and water bills and now two bank accounts, All this happened without the agreement or knowledge of some owners.  That's all history now but at the last AGM (in 2013) a new President was elected and the accounts were not accepted as they showed a balance of nil in both accounts. 

There has been no meeting since 2013 so what is the legal standing as far as residents paying their contribution is concerned.  Some continue to pay by direct debit but we always go to the bank to pay.  My view is that unless a budget is set and agreed at an AGM, how can anyone know how much to pay?  The Administrator was not reappointed and never came back with new accounts, does not respond to emails and seems to have disappeared.  The last elected president has been unable to deal with "paperwork" as the previous president is uncontactable.  

The "other" part of the urbanisation has had a visit from the water company as the water bills have not been paid even though many of them have paid their community fees so presumably there must have been money in the bank to pay.

Where do we stand legally as far as not paying our fees and obtaining copies of bank statements to see where money has been spent.

I'm not an expert but under the terms of the HPA (Horizontal Property Act) which legislation governs such things an AGM must be held every 12 months, per Section 16.

The impetus for this must come from the President.  Given the situation you outline I suggest you have a friendy word with he/she, remind them they must comply with the legislation, get the problems out in the open and at the AGM agree the way forward.  If a friendly conversation doesn't work, perhaps something in writing.

It's seems surprising that anyone volunteered for the job with the known problems.  But having stuck their neck out they cannot just sit on it!

I have a useful book in English which covers all aspects of the horizontal property law, but I'm in Spain and it's in England - I can send more info in a couple of weeks but I can tell you that it is possible to call an extraordinary general meeting if you can get together with sufficient owners to do so. Then you can sack the president and the administrator and vote in a new board. First you need to find a firm of lawyers/administrators who are willing to take on the task of requisitioning the accounts and taking over the bank accounts, we had to do this to get rid of the developer and administrator who were ripping us off. It took a few months after the AGM to get control of everything then we called an EGM to set a new budget etc. (We were about to call an EGM initially when the developer/president called the AGM and we were able to kick him out, he couldn't vote as he hadn't paid fees on most of his apartments).  The big challenge will be to fond someone willing to be President and put in the hours required to make things happen. If no-one stands then the President is decided by drawing lots but it doesn't sound as if that would be satisfactory in your case. We were lucky in having a Spanish owner who was angry enough with the developer to take the job on, and sufficiently well educated to get to grips with the law as it applies to communities.  Anyway, I can send on information about the book at a later date, it is worth doing the research to understand what needs to happen.  You need a certain number of owners (expressed as a percentage of the coefficients) to call an EGM and to publicise it e.g. put notices up around the urbanisation.  Only owners who are up to date with their fees are allowed to vote although any owner or indeed tenant can attend and speak at the meeting,  I wish you luck, it sounds as though things are in a bad state and possibly someone has been embezzling the fees paid by owners.  There is redress in law but you do need an administrator who is legally qualified, many administration companies are also lawyers.  Our developer tried to put fees partially paid against a lot of the apartments but we overturned the accounts as it was easy to prove that he hadn't paid a cent. Good luck.

I have a useful book in English which covers all aspects of the horizontal property law, but I'm in Spain and it's in England - I can send more info in a couple of weeks but I can tell you that it is possible to call an extraordinary general meeting if you can get together with sufficient owners to do so. Then you can sack the president and the administrator and vote in a new board. First you need to find a firm of lawyers/administrators who are willing to take on the task of requisitioning the accounts and taking over the bank accounts, we had to do this to get rid of the developer and administrator who were ripping us off. It took a few months after the AGM to get control of everything then we called an EGM to set a new budget etc. (We were about to call an EGM initially when the developer/president called the AGM and we were able to kick him out, he couldn't vote as he hadn't paid fees on most of his apartments).  The big challenge will be to fond someone willing to be President and put in the hours required to make things happen. If no-one stands then the President is decided by drawing lots but it doesn't sound as if that would be satisfactory in your case. We were lucky in having a Spanish owner who was angry enough with the developer to take the job on, and sufficiently well educated to get to grips with the law as it applies to communities.  Anyway, I can send on information about the book at a later date, it is worth doing the research to understand what needs to happen.  You need a certain number of owners (expressed as a percentage of the coefficients) to call an EGM and to publicise it e.g. put notices up around the urbanisation.  Only owners who are up to date with their fees are allowed to vote although any owner or indeed tenant can attend and speak at the meeting,  I wish you luck, it sounds as though things are in a bad state and possibly someone has been embezzling the fees paid by owners.  There is redress in law but you do need an administrator who is legally qualified, many administration companies are also lawyers.  Our developer tried to put fees partially paid against a lot of the apartments but we overturned the accounts as it was easy to prove that he hadn't paid a cent. Good luck.

I have a useful book in English which covers all aspects of the horizontal property law, but I'm in Spain and it's in England - I can send more info in a couple of weeks but I can tell you that it is possible to call an extraordinary general meeting if you can get together with sufficient owners to do so. Then you can sack the president and the administrator and vote in a new board. First you need to find a firm of lawyers/administrators who are willing to take on the task of requisitioning the accounts and taking over the bank accounts, we had to do this to get rid of the developer and administrator who were ripping us off. It took a few months after the AGM to get control of everything then we called an EGM to set a new budget etc. (We were about to call an EGM initially when the developer/president called the AGM and we were able to kick him out, he couldn't vote as he hadn't paid fees on most of his apartments).  The big challenge will be to fond someone willing to be President and put in the hours required to make things happen. If no-one stands then the President is decided by drawing lots but it doesn't sound as if that would be satisfactory in your case. We were lucky in having a Spanish owner who was angry enough with the developer to take the job on, and sufficiently well educated to get to grips with the law as it applies to communities.  Anyway, I can send on information about the book at a later date, it is worth doing the research to understand what needs to happen.  You need a certain number of owners (expressed as a percentage of the coefficients) to call an EGM and to publicise it e.g. put notices up around the urbanisation.  Only owners who are up to date with their fees are allowed to vote although any owner or indeed tenant can attend and speak at the meeting,  I wish you luck, it sounds as though things are in a bad state and possibly someone has been embezzling the fees paid by owners.  There is redress in law but you do need an administrator who is legally qualified, many administration companies are also lawyers.  Our developer tried to put fees partially paid against a lot of the apartments but we overturned the accounts as it was easy to prove that he hadn't paid a cent. Good luck.

Here's a link to the book. Look for the latest version, there were some changes to the law a couple of years ago.  Debts can now be reclaimed in court for up to 4 years, was previously 2.

https://books.google.es/books?id=nCRYZYFeXhoC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=book+horizontal+property+act+spain&source=bl&ots=V7In8oxMeu&sig=c-IzxXlEt2wbUR6eKkte4col8BE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yMByVcPbKcKwUdaygPAM&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=book%20horizontal%20property%20act%20spain&f=false