miss sold insurance

we have just got a copy of our communnity insurance after 4years and we do not hae the minimum we should have by

law if anyone has an accident every house could have to pay.4000.00   euro.evry house is insure but we don't have liability the administrator automatically renews as he sold it in the first place.what can we do?

maggiepat

I do not recall any minimum limits of cover being specified under the Horizontal Property Act - please can you clarify what you mean.

maggiepat,

The first thing that I would do is to tell the community president that he/she is breaking the law, if nothing is done I would then follow up in writting, if that does not work I would then report him/her to the powers that be.

Sorry, breaking what law?

I imagine that it's the public liability element that is at fault, that is the only element that I can think is a legal requirement. 

yes it is public liabilty i think it should be 300.000 we only have163.000.all the properties that were sold are covered  surelly the owners should have that ? the president is now dealing with it and it will be on the agenda the next AGM

the rules hae been broken since we first started last year a gazebo was bought by the previous president its not

permanent as its at the pool so its tied to the fence not legal if i dare to disagree wiyh the administrator he shouts me down the thing is we don't who the powers that be are i have spoken to more than 1 lawyer but they don't do community law hanks for replying maggiepat

maggiepat,

If you know who the insurer is they will definitely take an interest, can you imagine a large claim being made and the insurance company being blamed for the shortfall in cover? I would have thought that a visit from their claims assessor/underwriter would help to clarify matters, however with you mentioning €300,000 I can't help but think that this is a blatant case of underinsurance, god only knows why.

Hephaestus,

You keep on saying that Public Liability insurance is compulsory for a community in Spain, but generally that is not the case.  The only exception might be if one of the 17 autonomous regions has it's own legislation on the subject, but this is unlikely.

The relevant legislation is the HPA which is not prescriptive and does not require a community to affect any Material Damage or Liability insurance.

Therefore I believe it is probably wrong to say that Maggiepat's community has acted illegally.  I cannot see why the insurer be interested in the allegation.

But why do you feel this is "blatant under-insurance"?  Why do you tell MaggiePat that their President is breaking the law?  And who are "the powers that be"?  I'm sure your intentions are good, but I'm far from convinced that your advice is soundly based.

Maggiepat,

You may be misreading your policy as a €163,000 limit of indemnity sounds unusual, so you may be best off seeking clarification from the insurer or from a local broker to whom you can show the policy.

acer,

You have managed to translate ' I think that public liability insurance is a legal requirement' into 'that public liability insurance is compulsory for a community in Spain'.

I'll butt out as you appear to know that there is no requirement for the community to have PL insurance, no harm done, but why does €163,000 sound unusual, my re-buildings figure is very odd, perhaps because of inflation linking. 

Hep,  Your very first comment on this thread was ..."The first thing that I would do is to tell the community president that he/she is breaking the law"...I did question this, but you chose to carry on regardless, so not really a matter of me "managing to translate" more you not listening.

Re your question - you are confusing Public Liability insurance with Material Damage.  Maggiepat's first post seems to say that their Community Insurance policy is without Liability Insurance.  Later Maggiepat states ..."yes it is public liabilty i think it should be 300.000 we only have163.000".  But that's hardly likely - if you look at any insurance policy the limit of indemnity will be a nice round number - 500,000, 1,000,000, 2,000,000 etc etc.  That's the way it always is, never ever odd numbers.

The inflation linking you refer to only ever applies to Material Damage covers and reflects the increase often applied annually to reflect increases in materials and labour costs to replace buildings, machinery, plant, stock etc.  Otherwise they would become under insured.

You say "no harm done" but that's not necessarily true either.  You told Maggiepat to confront the community President which was clearly bad advice and would make Maggiepat look silly.  Also I've attended several AGM's where I've seen Presidents who are trying their best to help a community being wrongly harangued by people who've got their facts completely wrong.  It's best to only give advice if you know what you're talking about, otherwise you can do more harm than good.

acer,

Yes I agree, particularly in respect of your last paragraph in respect of your good self, you are indeed a legend in your own lunch time.    

just proves a point that the best way tio get the accurate informatiion is go and see an expert.

Although forums can be a good start for research best take it with a pinch of salt and consult experts

Of course  there are good comments and good advice but then again there are the few who think they know a lot more than they actually do, claim to be lots of things to all men and consistently trip themsleves up. They write a good story but.................................it is always amusing though

so maggiepat go ask an expert

Just googled this.

http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/legal/community-owners-insurance-policies/

Saludos

Juan

we waited 10months for a copy of the insurance it was in Spanish as the insurance company sent a not e saying we couldn't have it in english they only used to do funeral plans according to other insurance brokers we have a gazebo thats tied to the fence near the pool and one couple have bought a bouncy castle that the kids slide down into the pool

we were told that only things that are fixtures are covered that was by the administrator so we are no further forward

i even contacted our M E P for this area no joy there either thank tou all for trying  Maggiepat

maggiepat,

I believe that you can translate your policy schedule into English on line, just try a google search, it would help if you could scan and send, I'm a computer nerd but you should find someone on the forum who could offer help instead of hinderance, but then again perhaps not. 

I used a particular word to describe my attempt to use Google to translate a Spanish insurance policy "Googledegook" - hope it works better for you than it did for me!

Good advice Tadd about consulting an expert, however, as I am sure you will know, and many of us have experienced, one can ask say 5 professionals, get 6 different answers, all of which are wrong. 

I often tell people, close the ‘expert’ you believe knows what they are talking about and stick to what they say.  Never ask another as it will usually leading to confusion.

-------------

Computer translations. 

They can be pretty good for very simple language (about an 8 year old’s standard)  but for anything more complicated, legal etc. they are all but useless.  And of course in Spain only the Spanish language version is the legally binding one.

If you want to test the translation accuracy, try translating into one language and then translating the result back into the original language.  But I suggest 'logging out' between attempts, as the computerised  facility sometime remembers the original.   Sneaky things !

My son has a an English version of his Will, produced by a Notary. it’s `pretty awful.

johnzx

yes you are right, but 5 professionals are far better than google searching none experts

I agree computer translations are vrey poor and only good for basics. reversing the translation is always amusing though and a good tip

IMHO the idea of doing a google translation of an insurance policy was not clever.  The fact is that only a very small percentage of people will ever understand an English policy, never mind a Spanish translation!

What's more Spanish policies are archaic, 50 years or so behind the UK.  The one I looked at a while ago was a 80 page Liberty Seguros for Household risks!  The translation threw up all manner of daft words where a layman would really struggle to ascertain the intention of the policy.

As Johnzx says it's also of limited value as the Spanish wording has precedence.

The best option for Maggiepat is to have a conversation with the insurer and ask for a synopsis of the cover, or speak to an alternative insurer or a broker.  But the insurance industry standards in Spain are extremely lacking and finding someone with the expertise and who speaks English is not easy, I know I've tried.

There are a few small English brokers/agents who advertise Community Insurance packages (a task google can do well) which may be an alternative, but I've only had limited experience with them no-one I could recommend.

Our son and his partner have recently completed on the purchase of a UK property, the lender's surveyor made reference to a problem with the attic bedroom, stating that it couldn't be classed as a bedroom. Well we've owned six properties in our time and have experience in reading valuers reports, but this one, although written in English, was totally unintelligable, I just thought, what if it had been in Spanish?

The answer was that the attic door was too close to the top step of the staircase, they only need it as an office/occasional bedroom, but their mortgage broker, who had managed to translate the surveyor's report, negotiated a £10K reduction on the basis of the property being falsely marketed as a 3 bed, she certainly earned her procuration fee. It sounds as though Spanish speaking/reading advisers like her would go down well in Spain.