Community Charges

[Unregistered]

We live on a community which has two phases, the first phase has a central community pool which is surrounded by grass and gardens which has high maintenance costs. the second fase which we live on has much smaller pool surrounded by slabs which needs little maintenance as there is a road splitting the two phases we only ever use the smaller pool and have never used the larger pool in the 7 years we have lived here. The houses on phase two are much larger and due to community laws our community fees are considerable higher than those on phase one. Thus resulting in us paying a high proportion of the costs for a pool and garden area that we do not use. My question is can we opt out of paying for the phase one community area and give up our rights to using phase one? I am happy to pay for our own pool area and community lighting, water maintenance etc but as the owners around phase one pool are now requesting new lights, water system etc our new budget proposal shows a large increase to cover this, basically my money paying for something I have never and will never use. please can you advise.
Many thanks
Sharon
Costa Blanca

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Dear Madam,

Both phases are under the same Community of Owners?

In that case I'm afraid you will have to continue paying. Weren't you made aware of the running expenses when you purchased the property?

Yours options would be to set up your own Community of Owners, if at all possible, or else to change the way the commonhold quotas are calculated.

I suspect the other owners will turn down both.

More on Community of Owners in my article:

Comunidad de Propietarios: Avoid Problems with Your Neighbours in Spain - 26 Jun 2009

Yours faithfully,
Raymundo LarraÃ*n Nesbitt

[Unregistered]

Due to various problems with our developer we have jointly agreed not to pay our community fees until matters are resolved. He is now taking us to court for unpaid fees, we are 6 months in arrears, what can we expect to happen, how long will it take and what is our best course of action? Thankyou

[Lawbird Lawyer]

Dear Sir/Madam,

You have a whole section on this website dedicated to Community of Owners, neighbors & boundaries: Neighbors & Boundaries

Your main duty as an owner in a commonhold is to contribute to the community fees. If you fail to do this, the CO will place a charge against your property and may even auction off your property publicly.

I reccomend you read my latest article on Community of Owners in Spain:

Comunidad de Propietarios: Avoid Problems with Your Neighbours in Spain - 26th June 2009

Owners’ Duties

Section 9 rules them in detail. The main duty will be, of course, to contribute to the maintenance and financial upkeep of the Community of Owners.

Failure to pay the community fees will result in the Community of Owners placing a lien against your property and possibly auctioning it off. This legal procedure in Spain works surprisingly efficiently. You have been warned!



Not paying community fees to "punish" the developer is not an option and you will jeopardise your own property which may even result in its loss.

Whatever issues you may have with them have to be addressed in a different manner.

Yours faithfully,
Raymundo LarraÃ*n Nesbitt