Community quota calculated incorrectly in our apartment in Spain

[Unregistered]

Can someone please advise.

I would like to know how community charges are calculated on a mixed golf resort? This does not include the direct costs just the general resort costs. These figures are in my deeds. I am just trying to find out how I can confirm if my community fees are calculated correctly.

Our budget for the year is 3,000,000.00 (general resort budget)

Our Parcela cuota is 2,044019 %

Our cuota de partisipation is 11,204674 %

My apartment cuota is 4,307176 %

We have been told by our administrator that the fees are being calculated by this method:

there are two types of shares: one is the sub-
Community quota (based on the surface of the plot that a given sub-Community
occupies within the General Community); and another based on the square metres of the
property itself (living area).

In 2006, only the plot quota was used since most of the Resort was not completed yet. A
quota that still did not exist could not be used yet. However, the specific expenses for
the apartment blocks were assigned to each block, as it had to be done according to
Law.

At any rate, any comparison must use the same parameters. You cannot compare the
apartment surface with plot surface of the villas. There are expenses distributed
according to the plot quota, and others according to the property surface quota.

Six weeks ago, This document related the calculus of the shares with a document from the
Town Council, and this was like that because they coincide. However, our calculus is
not based on the Town Council documents but rather on the property deeds, where the
same square metres are collected as in the Town Council documents.


With regards to the sharing of the cost, I would like to a paragraph from article 5.2 of
the Spanish Law of Horizontal Property, which reads as follows:

“The quota of participation will be based taking into account the usable surface of each
property or unit in relation to the total of the building, its location interior or exterior,
and its location in relation to the rational use expected of the common services and
elements".

This Administrator has made an interpretation with respect to the Administration fees,
thus dividing them on equal shares to all, and this has been done for the following
reasons:

1.- Because it is already anticipated in the Law since the rational use of the
administration services is the same for an apartment and for a villa.
2.- Because the Law that applies to Official Boards of Community Administrators (the
sole profession specialized in Community of Property Owners administration) speaks
of one same price per property.
3.- Because this has also been established by rulings of the Spanish Superior Courts of
Justice.
4.- And most important of all: Because no one would accept that a villa would pay
eight times more than an apartment for the same 20 page letter issued by this
Administration, or for an invoice sent to the bank, or for a reply to an email

Sorry its a long posting, but can anyone help with this?



Thanks

Ian

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Is this a Polaris World resort you are writing of?

[Unregistered]

Yes,

Have you heard about it? Could you please give some advise.

We now have mini community AGM's in the next week, we have asked for contracts, quotes received and the administrator will not provide it, how can we vote on something we have not been able to see?

Owners have even been told to leave their proxy forms blank and the administrator will always act in their best interest.

We can't even change our administrator for our mini-community as they have distributed the administration fees equally by each owner @ 8.70 each per month, can you please help, we are being run by a committee and an administrator that block every door, is their a quick fix?

I thank you for your time and hope you can please help

[Lawbird Lawyer]

We have received like over 40 queries on PW within the last weeks. Always on the same point.- how they've changed the process of calculating the Community quotas.

In our opinion you should all group together and appoint a law firm to have the Community quotas correctly calculated and upheld before a law court if neccessary.

Everyone cannot pay the same, that's just not possible nor fair. Each of you will have to pay in proportion to your share in the Commonhold.

We have the suspicion that the rules have been amended so as to benefit the developer which still has a large number of units to offload.

We believe your administrators, appointed by PW themselves, are acting in the best interests of...PW.

[Unregistered]

Thank you again.

I will explain:-

Fistly Polaris were running the community with their chosen administrator No 1, they didn't perform, so administrator No 2 came in, they did perform, but the villa owners fees went up with administrator No 2, so they got with administrator No 1 and got themselves (villa owners mostly) voted on the committee and the administrator No1 was voted back in, along with the new commmittee (not Polaris)

Then in September this year, well it took them from April to September to work out how they could try and reduce their fees (villa owners), but the apartment owners fees went up and the villa owners fees went down, but they were didn't get that some apartment owners noticed that they were not distrubting the fees correctly as per their deeds.

The administrator will not provide by law the calculation of their fees requested by burofax within 10 days, they have chosen to not reply, but they can't reply as they have't been calculated as per the deeds, we have clear % cuota's and they have worked out to their advantage some odd method, using surface area, plot size, and then funny enough they have used the correct calculation for the direct apartment cost, using the % cuota.

So, can you tell me is it the administrator and president that we take to court not the community, how long could court action take, and can the apartment owners get compensation and their fees backdated correctly? Can the administrator be struck off the College of Administrators?

Thanks again for your assistance in this matter

Ian

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Dear Sir,

You will have to take legal action.

How long does it take?

It will depend if you reach an out-of-court settlement or not, if the First ruling is appealed or not etc.

On average at least 2-3 years until the ruling is final (can no longer be appealed).

can the apartment owners get compensation and their fees backdated correctly?

Regarding claiming compensation, I'm unsure. The whole point is to readjust the shares and have them calculated as they should as well as removing the current admninistrator from his post. This will depend on the judge and how long has this been going. As far as I know from the other queries it's only been like this only for the last 2 or 3 months.

I refer you to one of our articles (point 8).- 10 Reasons Why Your Case Against a Spanish Developer May be Thrown Out of Court

[Unregistered]

I am an apartment owner on La torre and I have been following this thread. What has happened here is that Polaris and their architects originally set up these quotas, in their own interests and to their own benefit. The result of that was that the town centre, owned by polaris including the hotel, the conference centre and the golf club were allocated a quota of 10%, the apartment owners had 17% and the villa and town houses the rest.

This state of affairs resulted in some villas paying 10 times more than apartment owners so the villa owners did not pay their fees. These villa and town house owners then got together and ousted the administrator and without any vote or consultation created their own method of fee calculation, which reduced their fees and more than doubled the apartment owners fees. Unfortunately this resulted in the apartment owners paying 50% of what the administrator terms general resort costs, 30% of the gardening costs and the majority of the administrators fees.The apartment owners still have only 17% of the vote. The apartment owners then stopped paying their fees. We now have a debt of 1.5 million euros on our community fees.

However this new method of calculation we have been advised is illegal. No unanimous vote has been obtained and no court order obtained to change the method of fee calculation legally.

Is it correct that these debts will not be able to be legally collected or enforced because they are illegally calculated?

If we took this to court would a judge be able under Spanish law to change this original quota distribution and apportion it fairly, including imposing greater charges on the commercial buildings?

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Dea Sir/Madam,

As you correctly write in your post, Spain's Commonhold law (Ley de Propiedad Horizontal) requires as per its arts 5 and 17 unanimity to change the assigned quotas. Any amendment to the quotas which hasn't been approved unanimously by all communers would not be legal.

If you were to take this matter to a Spanish judge he would assign fairly the quotas, yes, if they are blatantly unfair as it seem they are now to some of the communers. Art 18 rules this matter of challenging illegal agreements in commonholds before a judge.

[Unregistered]

Administrator no.1 was sacked by PW because they disputed bills being presented by PW and refused to pay them. Administrator No.2 were then appointed and signed everything off, i guess that is performing with the best interests of the community. PW then held an AGM behind closed doors, approved the accounts and the following years budget. Under admin no.2 community fees were 30-50€ a month for apartments and 400-500€ a month for villas, very fair, not, therefore the owners got together formed an owners association, open to all, held mini agms, open to all, and voted Admin No.1 back in.
The Mini community presidents then voted in the committee, this included aparment mini-presidents, so to say the villa/townhouse owners rigged it all is rubbish. All the owners are guilty of is mobilising the community to the fact we were being ripped off, from then on EVERYONE had a vote.

Since last April Admin No.2 has managed to decrease the budget by over 1,000,000€ per annum and are again disputing bills from PW. i would say that was performing.

Admin No.2 went to the college of administrators to check that the interpretation of the act they were proposing was legal before implimenting it.

Is it really reasonable to expect one resident to pay 10 times more than another?

Lawbird Lawyer :-The PW serving Administators were replaced last year on our PW resort

[Unregistered]

Administrator no.1 was sacked by PW because they disputed bills being presented by PW and refused to pay them. Administrator No.2 were then appointed and signed everything off, i guess that is performing with the best interests of the community. PW then held an AGM behind closed doors, approved the accounts and the following years budget. Under admin no.2 community fees were 30-50€ a month for apartments and 400-500€ a month for villas, very fair, not, therefore the owners got together formed an owners association, open to all, held mini agms, open to all, and voted Admin No.1 back in.
The Mini community presidents then voted in the committee, this included aparment mini-presidents, so to say the villa/townhouse owners rigged it all is rubbish. All the owners are guilty of is mobilising the community to the fact we were being ripped off, from then on EVERYONE had a vote.

Since last April Admin No.2 has managed to decrease the budget by over 1,000,000€ per annum and are again disputing bills from PW. i would say that was performing.

Admin No.2 went to the college of administrators to check that the interpretation of the act they were proposing was legal before implimenting it.

Is it really reasonable to expect one resident to pay 10 times more than another?

Lawbird Lawyer :-The PW serving Administators were replaced last year on our PW resort

oops, that should read Admin No.1 went to the college of administrators, and admin No.1 saved 1 000 000€ per annum.