I live in an area called Santa Margarita in the province of Cadiz. In particular an community area of around 31 houses.

My husband and I bought a house there last August and were told the service charges were €75. In October the Management decided to charge everyone an extra €32 on top as they are having to recoup debt that had occurred. This means since October we have been paying €107 a month in Service charges which is appalling! Not only this they said that they would charge us this for six months ending in March and they charged me the extra €32 along with others in April. I emailed them and asked them why they are still charging and they said that the debt is still outstanding so they will carry on charging everyone, but this has not been agreed in any meeting.

When questioning them about the debt they give different reasons, but we all know what the reason is. There are two houses that at the time were in debt of €7,000 and they said that the debt is €7,000. Is this just a coincidence???!!

How do we stand legally on this as €107 is too much money. We bought the house agreeing to pay €75, if we had known about this debt from the beginning we would have never bought there. Can anyone help me with this?

Many thanks,
Jaimie.