Brand New Community......

Hi all

I am now the president of our shiny new community recently formed, now given I have read so much on the EOS website about how much work it is I do wonder why I still stuck my hand up and volunteerd! So I am hoping that a few questions I have might get some assistance from sympathetic ex-presidents, then in a year I can join in the Room 101!

What do you do with your communal pool to keep the costs sensible?   Due to the economic climate, our completion rate is low so only approx 15 out of 83 have completed (and the developer has no money to pay for the rest..... so we are trying to get things setup to maintain the site for our reduced size at a price we can afford.

We have 2 communal pools, do we keep them both maintained? Do we drain (i think not from what I have read about walls caving in) or cover and forget one of them or accept we need to keep them maintained.  What is a rough cost for pool maintenance per month?? I am awaiting confirmation on the size of the pools, I don't have that at the moment.

For Building insurance, does this normally include 3rd party liability or do you generally get that separately??

Anyway any insights would be welcomed - and any advice (other than, you shouldn't have done it of course!!

Thanks!

Funluvin

Hi Funluvin99 and welcome to the mad world of El Presidente.  If I read that right you have only 15 dwellings sold out of a total of 83 and I am wondering if that is the case why you accepted the Community hand over.  Right so now you have so no turning back firstly you need to get the builder to pay the Community charges on the 68 properties he now owns.  This is usually done in instalments as he will argue (rightly) that if he pays a year/six months in advance and he sells in the meantime he is out of pocket.  We like you started off in the winter so were able to bill our constructor three months in arrears.  He held out for a while but my constant calling at the showhouse for money telling prospective buyers that we did not have enough in the kitty to keep the pool open soon made him change his mind!

We are not in the same area but pay 330 per month to keep our pool maintained rising to 380 high season when we have the tiled area around our very large pool cleaned twice a week.  We have an excellent team and have no complaints in that department.  I cannot advise as to empty the second pool or not but have heard like you that this can cause major problems and is something (as a President) that I would advise you all vote on at an A.G.M.  or E.G.M.  We have insurance that covers everything from Liberty insurance and the price is not too bad either for the cover we  have but we have yet to make a claim so that could be another story.

We have a community website if you are interested http://solgolf.blogspot.com

Hi Denise

Thanks for the info, believe me we are trying to get the developer to pay but they are in the process of being repossessed and have no money, currently making staff redundant etc so we are working on our worst case of being a small community for a while!  Hence questions on maintenance etc...

Any further info on 3rd party liability would also be most welcomed!!

Regards

Funluvin

 Funluvin (edited as I spelt your great sitename incorrectly )

There another President on EOS though she hasn't posted in a while (& we miss her great posts ).

Her name's Audrey & her website is http://www.freewebs.com/villasdeartenara/ It's actually in Fuerteventura.

Her EOS site name is On a mission !
 

She has posted on many aspects of being a new President & likely could be of great help to you.

Hi Funluvin,

• Has your community had the First occupation Licence granted?

• Did your lawyer recommend you to complete on the property? Regardless of the community not being completed?

• 15 out of 83 properties completed – Are the remaining 68 sold?

• Has an administrator been appointed for you by the developer?

• Have you had a meeting among the owners, or was the assembly called for by the developer and did the developer attend the handing over of the community?

I'm all burned out and of no further use to anyone. Sorry.

Last year I bought a trastero (storage room) in a new building just behind where we live. Yesterday, 27th Jan, I received by registered post, a letter from the developer, informing me of the first community meeting, to be held on Monday, 26th Jan. The letter was posted on Wednesday, 21st Jan.

Unbelievable! I hope for the sake of those who have bought apartments in that community, that things get better! Posting notification on Wednesday for a meeting on the following Monday? Ridiculous. Sending the letter by registered post, when everyone knows that that is an almost 100% guarantee that the letter will be delayed, even more ridiculous, especially as by requiring recipients to sign for the letter, you are giving them perfect proof that you didn't send the letter early enough! Jeeeez!

Edit: in case anyone else has experienced similar, I just checked, and the Horizontal Law (section 16:3) staes that 6 days notice should be given for AGMs. As for the crap postal service in Spain, you're on your own. Correos is a law unto itself!