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View Full Version : Advice wanted about recuperating unpaid community fees on a Tenerife complex



ddoyle
22-05-2015, 11:24
I am looking for suggestions regarding unpaid community fees, we have a situation on our complex where a large number of residents / owners don't pay community fees. I was speaking to a member of the commitee recently who told me that community fees would be going up this year as we are not getting enough money in from the community. We find this pretty galling as we pay our community fees evey month as do a lot of other owners, we see the ppl who don't pay using the facilitys every day without a by your leave, nameing and shameing is not working as we have a debtors list every year and the same names crop up and their debt grows without any consequences.So can anyone suggest how this situation can be dealt with.:jumping:

cressrt
22-05-2015, 14:36
PM sent with some info

essexeddie
22-05-2015, 14:52
I believe that if the unpaid Fee's are older than four years they can't be forced to pay.
They should be denounced straight away as it takes years to take them to court.

tfs1
22-05-2015, 15:35
http://spainlawyer.com/guia-legal/la-vivienda/the-community-of-property-owners

from the above, regarding non payment, it goes on to say.........

If any of the members fail to pay the community fees, the President or the Administrator may claim the debt, previous authorisation of the community members, in the Court of First Instance from the city where the block of flats is located, and even have the property sold at auction to recover unpaid charges.

candy2411
22-05-2015, 18:59
I sympathise with the problem of owners not paying community fees and understand this is happening everywhere. It leads to resentment among owners as those who pay quite understandably feel they're subsidising the non-payers. Would it be possible to prevent the non-payers from using facilities such as swimmimg pools? This happens on my complex, but whilst it doesn't encourage the bad payers to pay up, it at least makes the pool area quiet and private.

essexeddie
22-05-2015, 23:35
Very difficult to police. Best is to take them to court and hit their pockets.

ddoyle
23-05-2015, 14:38
I would love to take them to court but we are told the community does not have the money to persue them through the courts.

essexeddie
23-05-2015, 15:02
I would love to take them to court but we are told the community does not have the money to persue them through the courts.


That's ridiculers, surely they would have to pay the charges? That cant be allowed to continue.

candy2411
23-05-2015, 17:11
I'm afraid it does continue though, if the bad payers withhold community fees there is no way they are going to make it easy to pursue them through the courts. There are debtors on my community whose bills run into hundreds and in some cases thousands of euros, the naming and shaming on the annual debtors list has no effect whatsoever it seems. It takes a long time and money to take the debtors to court and the community can usually only recover whatever is owed when the debtor comes to sell. The required certificate is then only issued when debts paid. Not sure about the 4 year rule in recovering debts, I thought that only applied to the taxes.

essexeddie
23-05-2015, 17:28
Looks like Tenerife need Bailiffs like we have in the UK. Soon sorts them out. Break in and sell all their furniture, then they cant use the apartment.
The Spanish are so slow with this sort of problem.

tfs1
23-05-2015, 18:41
I would love to take them to court but we are told the community does not have the money to persue them through the courts.

Our community had a similar problem, the apartment was sold by the courts and monies owed to the community were paid by the court from the proceeds.

There are likely to be solicitors who will progress these type of issues at no cost to the community as their fees and expenses are likely to come out of the proceeds of the enforced sale - of course that assumes the properties do not also have negative equity etc etc.

essexeddie
23-05-2015, 19:01
Our community had a similar problem, the apartment was sold by the courts and monies owed to the community were paid by the court from the proceeds.

There are likely to be solicitors who will progress these type of issues at no cost to the community as their fees and expenses are likely to come out of the proceeds of the enforced sale - of course that assumes the properties do not also have negative equity etc etc.


Yup! Our President runs a tight ship.


.

tfs1
23-05-2015, 20:38
Yup! Our President runs a tight ship.


.

Just what you need and as we both know, takes no bullship.