Comunidad de Propietarios: Avoid Problems with Your Neighbours in Spain

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I believe the laws on the matter of swimming pools strictly for the Comunidad Valenciana are decree 255/1994 amended by decree 97/2000.

Some municipal (public) swimming pools do forbid the use of inflatables. Another matter is what communal pools within private gated communities agree on this. There's freedom on drafting the Internal Community Rules as per the article which starts this thread.

Unsurprisingly 12 children drowned in swimming pools in Valencia in 2008.

http://www.lasprovincias.es/valencia...-20090709.html

Yours faithfully,

[Unregistered]

Nobody has ever been able to produce the relevent decree banning li-lo's in swimming pools-because there isn't one.

There is no law banning li-lo's from any pool private or otherwise. It is only kill-joy presidents and management companies who spread this nonsense.

It's an urban myth, similar to the non-existant law that says you can't wash your car outside your own house because it wastes water.

If you think about the irony in that, you cant use 50 litres of water once a week to wash your car but you can top your swimming pool up each day with 500 litres.

[Suzi]

Hi,
I´m new to this forum and live in Tenerife Canary Islands, Do ALL property laws that apply in Spain also apply to Tenerife?

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Hi,
I´m new to this forum and live in Tenerife Canary Islands, Do ALL property laws that apply in Spain also apply to Tenerife?

Hi Suzi,

Not all of them.

Spain is divided administratively into 17 autonomous regional entities as well as two insular cities (Ceuta and Melilla).

Each of these 17 regional entities can enact their own laws in certain matters besides the national legal framework.

So in Tenerife's case, besides the national laws common to all of Spain there will be additionally specific regional laws and even local regulation (from its Town Halls).

Yours sincerely
Raymundo LarraÃ*n Nesbitt

[Terry]

Apologies in advance for the length of this post, but it is not something that can be explained in a few words, and I did make a similar post elsewhere (that got no replies), when it would have been perhaps been better if I had used this Thread instead.

I live on a Tourist Board registered Complex on Tenerife, where some owners are permanent residents, and others live on-site for part of the year, and rent out their apartments for the remainder.
For a couple of years now there has been a power struggle taking place for control of the Community between, on one side the vast majority of owners, and on the other side the 'sole' Lettings Company.

To initially gain the necessary 50% + 1 number of owners to register with the Tourist Board in order to be able to gain their License, most owners signed up with a new Lettings Agency, even the ones who let “privately� or never at all. The reason being that owners wanted to remove the previous Lettings Company as they were paying over very little of the monies legally due to the owners who had let through them.

When signing up with the "new" Lettings Company, most owners didn't notice a clause in the document they were signing, which said the Lettings Company could use the owner's vote if they did not vote themselves. When this clause was spotted some time later the Lettings Company said they would never use that clause and would have it removed – but they have since “reneged� on this, and at the most recent AGM used all the “blank� proxy votes they requested be sent to them,to try and vote out all the existing Committee and also tried to register the votes of anyone registered with them, but who had not sent in a proxy form.

That meant the Lettings Company had almost as many votes as everyone else put together who attended the AGM, or had sent in a “completed� proxy form with their voting choices pre-filled in.

Using their block votes, the Lettings Company had only 2 votes short of a majority on every item voted on, and are now challenging the President's right to refuse those votes which neither she nor the Administrators had had sight of, but which they tried to use (those referred to in bold red above). They had one owner who was sympathetic to them stand from the floor for the Presidency on the day of the AGM, and if that person had been voted in, they knew they had would have enough votes to elect a new Committee from floor consisting of just themselves and their few supporters.

One of the "third" shareholders of the Lettings Company (who is not an owner themselves, and doesn't live on-site – only works there), had more than 50 blank proxy votes which that person then used to vote against the only nominated candidate (the existing President), and vote for the person they put up from the floor (who had no Presidential qualifications at all and would have been President in name only and purely the Lettings Company "puppet").

Many owners who couldn't attend the AGM were not aware of what the Lettings Company were planning, and because the existing President was the only person who had sent in a Nomination paper beforehand for the Presidency role, assumed she would be elected automatically, which was one reason they hadn't filled in a voting form, or had sent in a blank one direct to the Lettings Company.

When it came to light at the AGM what was going on, apart from the Lettings Company and their few friends there, everyone else (the great majority) were disgusted with the tactics they had employed, having kept their intentions secret until the AGM itself. The majority of owners said it must never be allowed to happen again, and quite a number of those who sent in blank proxy forms to the Lettings Company, have since written in “rescinding� the Lettings Company's right to use their vote in the future.

The real reason (I and others believe) that the Lettings Company want control of the Communidad, is so that they can force everyone who lets an apartment to let only through them, but many owners are now not happy with who the Lettings Company put in their apartments, the charges they make, and the standard of cleaning etc., and choose instead to let out to only people they know and trust, mainly family and friends. Those that do let out privately have paid the Lettings Company an Annual fee of €100 each for the privilege (which the Lettings Company demanded) in order to be covered by their “umbrella� so to speak, but I am not sure if this is legal?.

The vast majority of owners are very happy with the current President and her Committee, and what they do, and do not want a change in favour of the Lettings Company and their few friends, who seem to want to take control of the Communidad and dictate to owners how the Complex is run.

The Administrators of the Complex are currently being bombarded with emails from just a few individuals who support the Lettings Company (and it is thought? have verbally agreed to take over shares in the Company when the present elderly owners retire). Lawyers are presently having to be engaged to look into and answer the questions that are being raised by these individuals, which is costing the Community time and money. The few owners that are sending in the questioning emails are also trying to get the previous EGM and the current AGM declared “illegal� so they can overturn the voting decisions that weren't in their favour {such as no owner of an on-site substantial organisation (such as the Lettings Company itself) can also be Committee Members of the Communidad}, and they are also challenging the right of the President to refuse the “virtual� proxy votes previously referred to.

Although the Community's own Lawyer is looking into all of the above, it would be nice/helpful to have a second opinion at least, especially on the question of the block use of votes by the Lettings Company, and their right to use owners votes who have registered with them, but didn't send in a completed vote form themselves.

One of my questions would be - Would it be “legal� say, to have a Communidad Rule that says if anyone doesn't send in a vote, and doesn't attend personally (an AGM or EGM), then their vote becomes “Null and Void�, which would stop others from using it.?

Regards

Terry

[Patricia]

Hello Terry

Following my answer on another thread, we will leave the question for someone else to reply, as we are unable to provide a more thorough answer at this moment.

Regards

[Unregistered]

I am president of a small community of 9 apartments whoo share a garden and pool with another community of the same size
The other community wants to change our garden and pool maintenance company. The alternative company will provide an adequate but not as comprehensive service but for about 30% less cost. They have a n 8/9 majority in favour. Our community are 6/9 against the proposal. My response to the presindent of our sister community is that we don;t have a majority in favour of change and therefore shoudl not change. She has taken advice and believes that as we share a pool and garden contract, for this contract we are a SUPRACOMMUNITY and therfore a decistion to change contracts can be made if there is a simple 50% majority across all 18 owners. This is a BIG issue for our community as our administration ( who also provide the existing garden and pool maintenance ) have refused to provide us with an Administration only contract and we really don;t want to move away from them.

Can our sister community force through a change of garden and pool maintenance contract .

We need to make a decision within the next 4 weeks as the contract is due for renewal at year end

[Unregistered]

Can debtors be stopped from using shared facilities eg. Swimming pool, TV reception etc? We have always been told that this is not the case, but have just found out that a new ruling would allow us to ban him. Is this the case? This is a member of our community who blatantly uses our pool even though he has never paid a cent into the funds for the last few years - we have a court action in process for debts - but we have no right to take the pool-key from him. Thanks for your help.

[Patricia]

Hello,


There has not been any new regulation in that respect. However, there is the possibility - based on recent court rulings- that the Community Statutes establishes a clause agreed unanimously, that bans community debtors from using swimming pools, tennis courts and communal areas only ( as they are not necessary services a community has to offer ).

Nevertheless, you need to be aware there is not any specific regulation or By-Law in this respect.

Regards,

[ShelleyS]

Hi I live on a small community of houses with a no through access road running between . "Supposedly" this road is just for accessing our own properties and driveways and not for parking (you can fit 2 cars down at a very tight squeeze) each drive faces the opposite house and if anyone parks outside it makes it practically impossible to put a car on your own drive. The community is currently in the process of obtaining vado permanentes for the bottom of the street to show it is a no parking zone, but in the meantime there are residents who constantly block a neighbours driveway meaning they cannot put their car on their own drive and have difficulty even opening their own gates. They have been told by the community president to either park on the drive or the street at the bottom which has ample quiet parking, but were told that it was too far to park and that their own car was too big to fit on their own drive, thus inconveniencing others for their own selfish sakes. My main question really, after all this background is can the police legally and correctly be called to deal with this, or is this wasting valuable police time and resources for a couple of ignorant individuals.? (hopefully the vado´s arrive sooner rather than later) Regards
Shelley