electricity supply

Hi, hope there isn't another thread for this:

We have an apartment within a block of 50 and last summer we were phoned by people who were renting it to tell us that power and water had gone off.  It turned out that as the community had failed to pay the electricity bill, Ibedrola had calmly cut us off; water is pumped to the apartments.

What this highlighted was that  there is only one incomming electricity supply and this feeds both the communal areas and also the power to the privately owned apartments.  Without power, we had no lifts, no water to the apartments  etc etc.  I will leave it to the imagination to conjure up  a picture of the conditions there for the 36 hours it took to resolve the situation - namely, the administrator paying the community bill.

My question is, is this normal??  do all apartment blocks only have one incomming supply for electricity?

If the answer is no, can we do anything about it,

If the answer is yes, is there any way we as a community could get a separate supply for each apartment - we already have separate meters for each apartment and presumably, in the event that an individual apartment failed to pay its bills, they could cut just the supply to that apartment.

Sorry this is a bit convoluted, but that is Spain for you - and especially Spanish utilities.

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare!

Our complex setup regarding billing is the same, one bill for communal and flats, with private meters installed for each apartment.  The reason for ours being setup that way is because our complex comes under a "touristic licence" which means the utility company sees us as just one place, despite actually being  collection of apartments. 

Thought I would mention it in case your apartment complex has the same sort of designation - if you do find out it can be changed, do let me know! Ours is a very new community....

Regards

Funluvin

thanks for that,  do you actually only get one bill? or do you still get billed for individual apartment usage and a community bill for lighting in corridors, lifts, pool electrics etc?

I haven't a clue how to find out what is happening, and if there is any way to change, Ibedrola don't exactly put themselves out to handle enquiries from non-spanish speakers.  I think our first port of call will be to have a chat with our administrator when we are next out there.  if I find out anything I will post it on the general forum site.

Hi there Cooberpedy - there is an Iberdrola helpline and if you persevere you can eventually get an English speaking operator - I was trying to help a client get her bills delivered to her property and the man I spoke to was wonderful - it did take a lot of effort though.  I think the number is on the website.

You mention your Administrator in your post but what about your President?  The President should know exactly what the arrangements are for your meters and why the bill wasn't paid on time before.  It is usually easier to get in touch with the president than the administrator - at least in my development it is.

Good luck!

hi Claire,    I will find out exactly what the situation is when I am in Spain at the end of this month,  and talk to presidente and administrator  - I think the main cause of last year's problem was that we swapped administrator at about the time that the electricity bill was not being paid by the old administrator;  they told no-one what they were doing, hid most things from the president and generally probably robbed us blind.

Our new administrator inherited an almost empty community fee fund, so paid the electricity bill himself from his company's accounts until the community could raise more money.  The whole mess is down to the fact that  out of over  120 apartments only a small fraction are paying community fees, the rest are either not sold ( the developer now can't pay either) or won't pay and are now being chased down the legal path.  It leaves the minority, to pay for everything, which in the present climate makes for some very expensive community fees.

We are currently trying to find out how we can separate the private electricity supply from the community, at least that way the apartments won't be denied water and power through no fault of their own if they have paid their bill.  It does seem iniquitous that even though we pay all our billls on time, we can still be penalised by the loss of power ( and by that, water) if the community can't or doesn't pay their.

Well, we are in a not dis-similar situation to you......we have a small number of owners, lots of apartments owned by the developers that are not completed or sold and they aren't paying their fees as they have no money. 

We haven't had our first bill yet - but the understanding is that we get one bill.  We then look at the private meters and see how much each apartment has used, then the balance is the communal areas.  I think we will end up in much the same situation where we are all impacted if one person doesn't pay their bill...not looking forward to resolving those issues should they occur.

Well we haven't yet found our apartment  but the content of you guys posts doesn't surprise me. We saw a lovely apartment in a complex in La Fustera, just off the Benissa coast road, but it hadn't got it's own electricity meter. We now understand that each apartment does have it's own meter located somewhere in the basement of the complex. However each unit's supply comes via the complex's own supply and is charged out at a rate set by them. The complex has aparthotel status, is not fully sold and has unfinished facilities such as the indoor pool and gym, there are too many possible problems so we walked away from it.

Why is everything property related so complicated in Spain? We go out there, most of us abide by their laws (if we can understand or are aware of them), pay our dues and demands, create a lot of employment in their service industry and all that they offer us in return is complication after complication. Crooked officials appear to be the norm, they seem to delight in land grabs, what the hell is wrong with them?

A little off topic but why are the Guadia harassing folk in hire cars? Spot checks on the pretence of drink driving now leads to the driver having to show sufficient safety vests to match the number of seats, 2 warning triangles and a full set of duplicate light  bulbs, shouldn't this be a requirement of the hire firm to see that they are supplied? They are also operating on the spot fines if the driver does not have on him/her, driving licence, passport and car insurance certificate. My insurance certificate lives in the glove compartment but I'm damned if I'm going to risk losing or having stolen my passport and driving licence.

** EDITED - Please respect terms of posting **

[quote]

A little off topic but why are the Guadia harassing folk in hire cars? Spot checks on the pretence of drink driving now leads to the driver having to show sufficient safety vests to match the number of seats, 2 warning triangles and a full set of duplicate light  bulbs, shouldn't this be a requirement of the hire firm to see that they are supplied? They are also operating on the spot fines if the driver does not have on him/her, driving licence, passport and car insurance certificate. My insurance certificate lives in the glove compartment but I'm damned if I'm going to risk losing or having stolen my passport and driving licence. I have to produce these when I pick up the car, are they completely bloody stupid?

Bloody stupid Spanish, they don't deserve our patronage.  [/quote]

Only one comment...If you cant stand the heat stay out of the kitchen...