19 Oct 2009 2:26 AM:
Hi Irene
Welcome to Eye on Spain. Yes I am afraid that non payment of Community fees is a very common problem and those of us who do pay on the dot end up subsidising those who rarely or indeed never pay. If you look on the Community section you will see many posts on the subject and the only saving grace is that the debtors do eventually get taken to court and in the worse cases end up having their property sold at auction to cover the debt.
If the issue with the problem debtors has been passed through to the solicitors via your Administrator then this will mean that your President has taken the first steps to bring the debtors to court which is good news. The bad news is that in certain cases this can take years although going by my own experiences many owners pay when they get the letter citing court action as they have to pay court costs on top of any outstanding fees if this goes ahead.
The fact that apartments are rented out and two are commercial premises will not make a difference to demanding payment if the owners do not/will not pay only the courts can make them. Sorry also to have to say, that you will not get any interest on payments made into the Community unless this money is in an interest bearing account but even then the interest would go back into the Community coffers and not be returned to individual owners. Yes you can stop future payments but if the extra charge was decided at an A.G.M.or E.G.M. you too could become debtors if the payments are not made so maybe this area should be looked into more closely before making a decision. Hope this helps.
Thread:
community charges for special repairs - help needed.
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