HOA Horror
Let’s imagine an apartment building with ten floors, forty owners, a dozen service providers, and one HOA committee to deal with issues. The committee implements rules and bylaws that everyone need to follow. Not everyone likes them, of course. Conflict will arise.
Gazumping, Gazundering and Smart Contracts
Perhaps two of the most flamboyant words in the dictionary. Their meanings, well… you certainly wouldn’t want to find out when you are close to purchasing or selling property!
Reducing paper use in your urbanisation
Paper is used extensively in homes and around urbanisations for cleaning, printing, communication, packing and much more. But paper manufacture is a huge drain on the world’s forests, not to mention a high user of energy and a polluting manufacturing process. Using recycled paper and recycling the paper you do…
Changing your Administrator
Every community can decide to outsource the management of their community installations, services and book keeping to an Administrator. The Administrator therefore will be in charge of preparing the budget, managing the works, make payments and handling of all the accounts. While an Administrator needs to have a university degree…
Smart energy meters being introduced by Endesa
There have been a few new EU directives brought into effect regarding saving energy (Directive 2006/32/EC and Directive 2009/72/EC and most recently Orden ITC/3860/2007. The Spanish supplier of electricity Endesa has sent letters to their clients to inform them that in order to comply with these regulations they will be…
Recent loss of satellite TV channels Spain
Have you lost any TV channels on your urbanization? As a community president in Spain you are probably fielding all the enquiries from the owners so we thought we’d give you an update you can share. As the president of my community, I have been lucky enough that through our…
Rules for Community Postboxes
Not having post delivered, or mail going missing can cause big problems for Community Presidents and Owners. To protect owners there are a number of legislations which specify what kind of mailbox each community needs to have and where they should be. Below is an overview of the rules and…
Spanish Electricity Meter Scam
A number of Spanish home owners have recently received a rather surprising phone call from their power suppliers claiming that they have an outstanding amount on the account (sometimes thousands) which needs to be paid immediately – failure to pay immediately will result in the power being cut off and…
New communication channel for foreign residents
Following a recent meeting at the council headquarters in Malaga, an agreement has been made to create a quick communication channel to inform foreign residents on the Costa del Sol in the case of an emergency. Diplomatic representatives from 16 different countries, including the United Kingdom, attended the meeting and…
Bringing your AGM to order
With any community or urbanization there will always be practical problems which arise. Traditionally these are brought up at the yearly AGM to be discussed and if possible resolved.
