hello

Yes we did but as I say it is dived by 2 so it doesn't seem so bad.

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In our tiny community, at this year's AGM the one neighbour with a child (baby) requested that a spring be fitted to the gate into the pool and garden area, so that it shuts automatically and cannot be left open, because of the safety aspect with regards to his kid. What? 

At the risk of being incredibly un-PC - when did parents stop being responsible for their kids, and communities take it on? Thank God I'm no longer president, since as the legal representative of the community, I suppose I could have found myself locked up on child abuse charges if someone elses kid fell over and hurt themselves. Ridiculous.
Someone else mentioned that a spring return gate could potentially injure a child if their fingers were in the way when it shut. Good point. Where does it end? How about stair gates on all communal stairs? Child locks on the lifts?
The new president, who is averse to spending money (thankfully) decided instead to issue everyone with keys to the gate, and put up a notice asking everyone using the garden / pool to ensure the gate is kept locked at all times - just in case some errant parent lets their child go wandering around the communal areas un-supervised.

Ian, I'm still surprised that with all these regulations, you can get away without a lifeguard because you have CCTV. Are these new rules just for Andalucia, by the way, or across the board? And if they are the new Andalucia rules, do they still only apply to communities of 20 or more?

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Roberto with regards to the lifeguard also do not have one although a cost is in the budget. Whether this is because there is CCTV I do not know but i certainly feel we should have one as our pools are extremely deep (5ft. at the shallow end) which is something I do not like about the complex.

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It's the size of the pool that determines whether or not you need a lifeguard.

Ours is just under the limit so we do without one, although it would be handy to have one to control who uses the pool.  All the teenagers invite all their friends from the village and it becomes rather unusable for eveyone else sometimes...althought I am on the case!

Really great content on this thread.  Such huge differences in community fees but I think essentially you get what you pay for.  We pay very little so we struggle to keep eveything looking nice and working properly....and still people want us to reduce the fees!  Ahhhhh.

Justin

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Roberto

The CCTV was in place of a security guard not replacing a lifeguard.

Interesting that it is the size of the pool that determines if a lifeguard is required, anyone got the dimensions to qualify this story?

Exactly right on "you get what you pay for" after our AGM last monday i think that we are reasonably happy with what the committee achieved at the meeting 120000 to run the community -60apts.
Our new president has put a 3 year plan down on paper to tell the community what he wants to achieve in that time to make us a top community in our area.

One of the items is to consider solar heating of the pool for the winter period and garden/community lights. has any other community installed this recently and what were the issues and costs you faced?

Has solar been a benefit or just a hassle that doesnt work efficiently - any advice on systems or recommendations for suppliers.

Anyone know about this 50% goverment subsidy thats currntly available 

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Ian, the answer appears to be 200 sq.mtrs. (at least, for Andalucia)
Maria submitted a very useful article about pools on this site a while ago, just found the link: 
http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/pool-legals.aspx

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Going back to the dual themes of water usage and children in communities...........

As if it's not enough that Old Fart is watering the garden for fun, when we have a fully functional automatic system, today, Young Couple With Baby decided to bring a huge inflatable paddling pool into the garden for their little darling. What's wrong with that?  I hear you ask. Well, they're filling it from the hosepipe in the garden - communal water that I contribute towards. We have a swimming pool, for Gods sake. Strap some floaty things on the baby and chuck it in, I say.
They will either throw the water out at the end of the day, wasting more community water (funds), or leave it there on the grass, which will result in a yellow patch which Old Fart will then take it upon himself to tend to - with more bloody water.

I can't stand it anymore - I'm off to wash my car..........in the communal garage, using communal water. Why not?

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Roberto

Thanks for the link to the pools info, however thats the 2003 regulations. 
These new Pool legals come in on 1 jan 2009..... perhaps our friendly lawyer on this forum could give us all an update at some point.

With regard to "old fart" would you reccommend the use of community water to drown him in???

PS did you know its illegal to wash your car in your garages with a hose pipe....or so our new administrator advised us last week

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New thread started on the 2009 pools situation, so lets transfer any info to there to keep things clean.

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Roberto: 
What if after you have thrown the baby into the pool, the baby poos in the pool then it will be the water that is yellow not the grass. Paddling pool lesser of two evils.

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Fair point, Tinto. Let's just ban babies all together. 

The epedemic is spreading. I don't know if Old Fart has been canvassing neighbours, but another neighbour was out in the garden yesterday, and decided to water the one flower bed we have that doesn't get automatically watered every night. The developer only planted stuff that needs minimal water there, like cactus. These plants have done OK over the last 4 years with the gardener watering them when he comes once or twice a week. But I think Old Fart has been telling everyone to have a go at wasting water. A few hours later, I saw the wife of the new vice president watering the same flower bed. I mentioned this, as diplomatically as I could, to the vice pres. today; he said he had told his wife to water the plants, "because I am the vice president now". Further discussion revealed that he actually thought that being vice president makes him physically responsible for the maintenance of the community. Where on earth he got this idea from , I have no idea, but it does possibly explain his previous reluctance to take on the role. I had to explain to him in great detail the roles of administrator, president, vice president, gardener, cleaner, etc. etc. For all I know, his poor wife has been cleaning the corridors before going to work in the mornings (she works as a cleaner!) before our paid cleaner arrives.

I think it was Ian (Promedia) who said, when I announced that I'd resigned as president, that it would only be a matter of time before I became a grumpy old git, saying "you don't want to do that", etc. What a wise man!

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Our big problem is that the development is only half sold and the developer won't pay community fees for the properties they still own, so everything is on the shoulders of the rest of us. (Anyone else had that problem? Suggestions?) Looks like we'll have to take the developer to court. In the meantime there's not enough money for security or maintenance, a bit of gardening gets done and the pools cleaned. A great big chunk goes on the adminstrator! Our fees are €180 a month so when I see €340 a year I could weep.

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There is about a third of our properties still to sell but have to admit the developer (Grupo Reyal) pay their share, having said that it is in their interest with a show flat there they would want everything to be spot on.

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Lizh, we had that problem for a couple of years (your profile does not say where you are we are VIllamartin Costa Blanca).  My partner and now I, have had the pleasure (okay don´t laugh) of being the President of our Community for four years and for the first two one of us was always at the show house pleading for fees whenever a potential buyer turned up!  Worked for us try it.

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Check this one out:

Our community has two water meters; one is for the supply to the garden and pool; the other, is feeding one tap in the garage - that's all. Obviously, this tap is used very little (except when I'm washing my car in revenge for idiots filling their baby paddling pools in the garden!) but the bills for this one tap have consistently been as much as we pay for our apartment with two people living full time here. Why? 
Because the meter is on a domestic service tariff, it attracts a standing charge for basura (rubbish collection) of €38 per quarter plus IVA. Because we are on the padron, we get a big discount on ours (€29 off) but the community doesn't. The other meter, for the garden, also has to pay basura. How much rubbish does a garage produce???? 
We are now looking into cutting this supply off and cancelling the contract. When the garage gets cleaned once a month, the cleaner can run a hose down the stairs from the garden! We'll save €200 pa, which we can use to fill more paddling pools!


May be worth checking if your community is paying any unnecessary bills.

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Roberto
Just found this thread. Very interested to read about your VP thinking he had to take on responsibility for everthing. In our community loads of people seem to think that our VP is responsible for everything and contact him and his family at all hours - day and night for any little problem. So much so that he wants to resign as it's so much grief but we've told him he can't as he does such a good job just stop answering the door or phone! 

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