What can be done if minutes are falsified in an AGM in Tenerife?

[mlun]

This year in February we had our AGM, and after the meeting the President sent out minutes from the meeting which were falsified and with direct lies. Two owners asked for a correct minute to be sent out, but the President has so far just ignored this. So the non-present owners has got a completely distorted and incorrect picture of what actually took place.

We then called for an extraordinary meeting (we have 34% of the quotas), and in the first attempt the President sabotaged this attempt to call for the EGM by simply hiding herself and not collecting the bureaufax from the post office. But in the second attempt she couldn't hide any longer, and finally had to call for the meeting.

We had written a precise agenda, including an attachment showing some alternative offers for administrators, the place and the time of the meeting. However, she has now completely manipulated the invitation, changed the Date from 2nd December to 3rd December and also the place. Also - of course - not included the important attachment.

What can be done in such a horrendous situation? Isn't she obliged to send out the invitation with the precise agenda we have written?

Must say, that I have never in my entire life met such an insane person. She struggles with all means, especially illegal, to maintain her position. Quite frustrating as we do not have contact informations for many of the owners. At least in Libya people knew that informations were falsified and could not be relied on, but here it is even worse, as people probably believe that what is written in a formal document from the President is correct.

[doreen]

At your forthcoming meeting, the Minutes of the last meeting will be read and approval sought - if you have attendance of or proxies for your 34% then you have a good chance of having the Minutes corrected.

Does the agenda sent out include at least a mention of change of Administrators - if yes, you can bring along who you recommend and ask them to address the meeting.

You don't tell us quite what the issue is with the Community, but if it is really serious, I suggest you club together and bring along your own lawyer to the Meeting (and pick one who is well versed in this area)

[René]

Sorry Doreen, but that is not correct.

According to article 18 of the horizontal property law you must challenge the minutes if you do not agree with a decisions taken.

The conditions to challenge the minutes are mentioned in article 18.1 and 18.2. In article 18.3 is mentioned that the action shall expire three months after the adoption of the agreement by the Board of proprietors, except in the case of agreements contrary to the law or the statutes of the community; in that case the action shall expire after one year.

It happens in some communities that in a next meeting the minutes are agreed, but this is of course completely useless as they are automatically agreed when the time periods as mentioned in article 18.3 have been elapsed.

You can find a very good translation of the horizontal property law on our website.

[mlun]

You can find a very good translation of the horizontal property law on our website.

Thanks René. I found the translation on your website, but there seem to be something wrong with the pdf. Have tried to print it using IE, FF and Chrome, but impossible. You can see the text on the screen, but not print it. Can you possibly fix it and reupload?

[René]

The English translation of the horizontal Property on our website is a protected PDF file and cannot be printed.

[mlun]

Here is a translation that can be printed: http://www.eyeonspain.com/spain-magazine/horizontal-laws.pdf
Just in case someone else need to print.

[René]

It is the difference between a translation once made by a translator and a well maintained translation by an administration office. In the translation you mention are some errors, the whole modification of the Law 19/2009 is not included as well as the latest amendment of article 10 and 11 of the horizontal property law (01/08/2011) is not included and will not be included either.

In our translation the modification of Law 19/2009 is included and the latest changes of article 10 and 11 will be recorded in our version before the end of this year.

The maintenance of the translation does cost us money and effort. This is no problem as we think that our clients and all other people interested do have the right to have a good translation, but to avoid misuse we have decided that people can only consult our translation, but not print or copy – paste the translation.

[Suej]

We had similar problems over a year ago when The meeting was adjourned by the President and Administrators but a few owners stayed behind including the builder who wrote up his own account of the minutes, these were circulated to some not all of the owners. The builder had not rectified defects and was obviously running scared. The biggest problem Communities face is lack of community support there never seem to be enough owners who will stand their ground and stick together to fight for their rights therefore the President and/or Administrators stay in power and nothing is resolved. Our Community is becoming very run down and is looking scruffy and neglected and I can´t see it improving for the forseeable future with our current President and Administrators. The fact is there are not enough owners who can be bothered to speak out or attend meetings in order to resolve the problems.