Cuota

 Is this right?

However, in order for the cost of the ‘general resort services’, i.e. security, swimming pool maintenance,communal gardens maintenance and irrigation etc, to be allocated amongst all owners on a fair basis, the administrators cannot use the Cuotas as set by the developer, because these Cuotas were calculated differently for each property type. For example, the Cuotas for the apartments are based on surface area, whereas the Cuotas of the villas and townhouses are based on the area of the plot of land each property occupies. While this is fair for the direct costs of each sub-community, it is unfair for the general resort expenses such as swimming poomaintenance, etc., which are common to all. In order to correct this, the administrators had to find a method of calculation that was common to all property types and, therefore, they currently apportion the general resort costs by the surface area of each property, irrespective of the property type.

community’s direct costs and of the overall resort general costs. The only exception to this is for administration and banking which is apportioned as a charge per owner as, of course, we all benefit from these equally.

This sounds really complicated! And expensive too. I am under the impression having asked our president about this very thing recently as our AGM is coming up, that community charges have to be paid based on the quota and that is the law. Horizontal Property Law I believe its called. On our community of 44 properties, of which there are 8 duplexes and the rest are a mixture of one and two bed apartments, the duplexes pay more than the rest with the one bed apts being the least costs. The quotas also include garages and storage space and it is worked out on square meters of ownership. So, basically, even though we all benefit equally from the pool, gardens, communal areas etc, we pay differing amounts dependant on our property size. We range from around €230 per quarter for the larger properties down to around €110 for the one beds per quarter. There are several members on here who are or have been Presidents so I am sure you will get other responses.

Hi All

Not quite completely true. It is up to the community how they charge for community fees. It is done on a majority vote. although most communities just continue with what was set up by the developers.

If you pay differing amounts as per cuota ie size of build/plot then your percentage of the vote is also the same. If you all pay the same fees regardless of size then you all have one vote.

Horizontal Property Law allows communities to change providing it is done by a majority vote. There lies the problem getting everyone to agree especially taking into consideration the paragraph above. Anyway best of luck in resolving this problem.

Cheers

Dave

That is very kind of you with the information,

At last years Genral AGM presidents of the sub-communities voted on the new way of calculating the community fees, but two presidents voted against this, some people are telling us this has to be a unanmious decision not a majority decision. Which one should it be?  It looks all back to front to me.

Over the last 18 months, a small number of owners have disputed the way in which the community fees for this resort are calculated. We have looked at this matter in detail, and based on the information we have seen, and the legal opinion provided by the administrators at the last AGM in April 2009, we believe that the administrators are apportioning the community fees fairly amongst all owners. This was voted on and approved by the presidents at that AGM and owners are now being given a vote to ratify this at their community AGM.

 Are you talking about one of the Polaris World resorts - La Torre?

The resort committee don't seem to know what they are doing.

They certainly don't know the law it seems.

Yes Lord Dave you can alter the fees so they are not inline with the cuota but you don't just do it to 1000's of owners with no discuss and then bully anyone into submission if they say this is not legal.

Now I hear they are proposing a vote to alter the votes of 1000's of people.

Voting to take away the votes of owners.

Whatever next?