Proposal for Community to supply phone, TV and internet.

At the moment, individual apartment owners have different suppliers. There  has been a proposal to get a company to install these services to al the apartments, but the company say they will only do this if they can bill the administrator monthly for the whole community and then the administrator will have to bill the individual apartment owners on top of the community fees. The contract would need to be signed for 24 months minimum contract.

I have a few concerns, will a simple majority vote at the AGM be enough to push this through? 

Another concern is when the 24 months is up, will individual owners be able to cease their contract, I suspect not but will ask of the administrator.

My other major concern is British TV, the proposers are Scandinavian so I presume do not have the same problems getting TV channels.

I am just concerned that we may get into a contract which does not fullfil our individual needs and not be able to get out of it

Antonio 1 ..my only concern would be how much it's going to cost per month ..I have a very small sat dish 150mm/ 6" in size the initial installation cost was 90 Euro to supply and install the equipment ..the monthly cost for the internet comes to 9 euros per month for unlimited IT via Teletech ..I am a holiday home owner so I take my TV fire stick with me to Spain and just plug it in and watch TV as I would in the UK via Sky and Netflix.

Windtalker it will be 18.15 euros per month for 300 Meg speed ion fibre ncluding landline and TV channels.

At the moment I have IPTV and broadband on a small dish similar to yours.I just get it connected when I go, but the service is not good, is forever going off and buffering plus no broadband on arrival. The last time I went in to complain, there was an elderly couple in front of me. They were saying they were fed up of watching the BBC quiz Eggheads, and getting the answer before the question.

I thought firesticks didn't work in Spain any more with UK channels?

Antonio 1 ..fire sticks  from the UK work fine in Spain.. if you are paying the subscription fee for the service you are watching ..a few months back they shut down the illegal fire stick TV in Spain ..I personally don't have any issues with my sat internet  connection ..we make telephone calls / brows the net / and watch TV with no buffering ..if you are suffering buffering you need a new fire stick with a larger buffer and download speed ..as for the elderly couple having to watch bad TV this can only be put down to being to tight to pay for Netflix's or Sky ...as for you having trouble getting it turned on every time you visit ..I don't have this problem either as I pay for the whole year on a monthly contract that comes to 9 euros per month ...I tend to visit my Villa every 6 weeks for 2 weeks throughout the year so it suits me to leave it connected for the IT security cameras I have connected to the system ..I can keep a eye on my property whilst being in the UK...but this is just me ..so what ever road you decide on I am sure it's going to be the right one for you.

Windtalker, you are correct, the internet speed I have is terrible. The TV is through a set top box and has a weeks catch up on it. Having had problems it has put me off having another system off a dish and have been thinking individually about fibre for a while. The problem I have come across is that some of the big companies will not install to one apartment only.

I don't have a firestick at the moment but it is something to think about. I have Virgin TV, broadband, and phone in the UK and prior to the Brexit fiasco I used to be able to access ithe TV in Spain. I want to go to a monthly contract though for interenet then it is just sorted for the whole year.

Going back to part of my original question.

Does anyone know if the community has the authority to enter into a contract which commits owners to a service they possibly do not want?

Antonio 1..if your community has a committee that runs the maintenance and so forth..they will hold a yearly meeting when they will vote on such matters ..if they get enough votes then the motion is passed simple as that.

Windtalker, I know about the AGM and that votes have to be in both numbers and sums of coefficients to get passed but am also aware that some things cannot be done without unanimous approval. I am going to suggest to the administrator that he make all owners aware before the meeting of the proposal and what TV channels will be available then those who don't like the idea can nominate a proxy if they are not attending the meeting. Then if it does get approved they cannot come back later complaining..

Antonio1, Section 17, paragraph 1 of the Horizontal Property Law states the following:

"The establishment or elimination of the lift, janitor and security services, or other common services or facilities of general interest, even where they involve the modification of the master deed or the community statutes shall require the favourable vote of three fifths of the total number of unit owners representing three fifths of the assessment quotas."

This is the qualified majority of votes required to pass the resolution you are referring to.

lobin, Thank You,

That is exactly what I needed to know. I suspect the AGM will not have enough attendees to approve so it may depend on proxies.

The administrator usually has proxies for some people. would he usually vote the same for all of them, or consider what would benefit each person?

A proxyholder is supposed to vote the way the proxygiver instructs him.  However, if there are no specific instructions, then the proxyholder can vote in the way he freely decides.    Accordingly, it could happen that the same proxyholder votes in one way in representation of a proxygiver that has instructed him how the vote should be given and in another way for a proxygiver that has not issued specific instructions.  Both votes would be vakid,

That makes perfect sense. I am anticipating even with proxies there may not be enough positive votes. As I said further down the thread I am going to encourage the person proposing to share as much information as possible in advance through the administrator to enable everyone to make an informed decision.