Wall Painting

I am pleased to report that work commenced today on the painting of the front wall.

A coat of plastic sealing paint was applied before work began on the paintings themselves.

Around 15 young people were involved, even though they worked until after dark, it is expected to take several days to complete.

Photos will be posted here of the finished article.

Monthly Payments

From the 1st January 2008, Owners will be able to pay their Community, water and electricity charges by monthly instalments. A Spanish bank account will be required in order to take advantage of this facility.

Forms to arrange monthly payments will be available in the Office, or by e.mail to me directly at

misolpark@gmail.com.

The monthly payment system cannot be used to pay off existing debts, except by special arrangement with the Committee.

The water and electricity meters will be read three times next year, instead of the usual four, the bills therefore will be correspondingly higher. Research has shown many Owners would prefer to pay in monthly instalments, and it would help the Committee manage the finances better knowing regular income was going into the Banco Popular account

Merry Christmas

To all our readers, I would like to wish you all a

merry Christmas

and a

Healthy and prosperous New year

Bank Statement

Attached is the latest Statement from Banco Popular.

Cheque number 763 was to pay the Procurator, as mentioned in a previous post.

Cheque 766 was to pay the Administrators Apyme two months fees.

Cheque 767 was to pay a Suma bill (rates). This money will be added to the Owners bills for the plots it relates to.

Committee Meeting

18/12/2007

Official Meeting

Present: N. Stacey, P. Olive, J. Hanrahan, L. Foley, A. Impey, P. Whitehead, S. Shaw, J. Titterton.

Alberto the Administrator and his assistant Melanie.

Absent without apology L. Jimenez.

Neill welcomed Marco the graffiti artist to the meeting with his proposals for painting Mi-Sol’s exterior front wall, free of charge. - ~Work will start immediately after Christmas.

Alberto wrote a cheque to pay the outstanding SUMA bill of 76 Euros.

A Letter had been sent to Mr. & Mrs. Harris explaining that when they get a copy simple for the recently purchased 3 plots, the name on the account can be changed by the administrator, also a final decision can be taken about their wiring problem. Mrs Harris attended the meeting and the Administrator explained to Mrs. Harris that in all circumstances electric and water connections are only brought to the boundary of a persons land, the connection from the boundary to the house is the Owners responsibility.

The bar contract has been translated into English at a cost of 160.22 Euros plus I.V.A at 16%. This has been done so that everyone, English and Spanish can understand it. The lease in force is for 5 years. The rent should be paid by the 5^th of every month. The controversy over the new tiled floor is to be settled by a cash adjustment to the outstanding bill when receipts are provided.

So far 6 different contractors have inspected the pool. All have diagnosed serious problems, leaking pipework, bad grouting, porous cement , broken skimmers etc. A quote of 3850 Euros plus I.V.A at 16% on repairs and a quote of 580 Euros per month to maintain the pool in the future has been received so far. The pool is unnecessarily deep, and water could be saved if the depth was reduced. A vote was taken and it was unanimously agreed that the pool must undergo a complete refurbishment, and not a series of ad hoc, on the cheap repairs. The committee are still waiting for further quotes.

A list of Owners owing the greatest amount of money has been given to the Administrator who in turn will issue certificates to the Lawyer to instigate court proceedings during January 2008

Melanie was asked for a typed copy of the lst Official meeting (16/10/07) in Spanish and English.

For the past two months an advert has appeared every week in the Coastrider newspaper reading as follows: Mi-Sol Park Residents Association. Phone xxxxxxxxx. The phone number belongs to Committee member Lynne Jimenez who is quoted as saying she has nothing to do with the advert.. If anyone has any information or an explanation please advise.

Above are the minutes from the Committee meeting held in the Bar on Tuesday 18th December 2007. The next meeting will be held in the Bar on Tuesday the 8th January 2008 at 4 p.m.

I will expand on a couple of the matters raised in the meeting.

Firstly the Artist Marco showed us a book of proposed work, whilst the exact content will be left to him and his colleagues, it was agreed that nothing political, racist or generally offensive will be painted on the wall. It was checked and double checked that there will be no cost to the Community for this work to be carried out. They plan to start work immediately after Christmas during the holiday period.

It took me some time to acquire a copy of the contract for the bar lease, it transpired that Pepe did not use Mi Sol Lawyer, Rosario, to draw up the contract. I decided to have it translated into English by an authorised translator, so both Spanish and English owners can have the opportunity to read it. A copy will be posted here in a later post.

The swimming pool is proving very problematic. Six different, experienced pool maintenance companies have now had the chance to examine it, so far only one has submitted any quotation.
We are trying very hard to get the best advice we can, before making any decision on what exactly needs to be done. On top of all the other problems there now appear to be cracks in the base of the pool. However it has become clear that the time has come after 25 years of wear and tear, to have the pool fully refurbished, backed by a guarantee of the workmanship.
On the cheap ad hoc repairs will not solve the problems on a long term basis.

The Committee have expressed their wish by a unanimous vote, that the pool should be properly refurbished.

I will continue to get advice and quotes for the work, discuss the matter further in the New Year.


For a couple of months now an advert has appeared in the local Coastrider newspaper and reads :- Mi Sol Park residents Association telephone xxxxxxxxx. The telephone number quoted belongs to Committee member Lynne Jimenez, she has apparently denied having anything to do with it. Unfortunately she did not attend the meeting, so we were unable to question her about it. Why it is advertised in the newspaper, and not on Mi Sol, which after all is where the Residents live, is a mystery.

Damaged Street Lights

The photo above shows all that remains of TWO street lights damaged by children a few nights ago.

A long stick was used to push the plastic outer globes onto the bulbs causing the plastic globes to ignite. It is the first time I have seen any of these lights catch fire before, yet we had two ignite within the space of 1 hour.

Not only is it very dangerous to the children involved, but potentially disastrous to the park, the dripping burning plastic took some considerable time to extinguish.

At the moment I am not able to say how much it will cost to replace the fittings and have them re-wired.

Committee Meeting

Attached are some notes from the Committee meeting held on December 4th at the Bar.

Debtors

As mentioned in a previous post the Community is owed over Euro 235,000 by debtors, this is not only unfair to the Community itself, but very unfair on those Owners who pay their bills on time, and especially those who have helped Mi Sol, by paying their Community charge for next year, in advance.

It is unacceptable that that such large sums of money are owed, when the Committee and I are struggling just to pay the basic water and electricity charges each month.

Because of this situation EVERY owner in debt to the Community on the 1st January 2008, will be taken to Court to recover the debts owed from 2005 - 2006 - and 2007.

Yesterday I signed the certificate for the first one, which will be presented to the Court on the 2nd January 2008. The Owner in question owes over Euro 7,200, this is more than the current balance in Banco Popular !!

The Administrators APYME are in the process of compiling the full list of debtors, and producing the certificates to give to the Lawyers, who will then present them to the Court.

Whilst the wheels of the Spanish civil Judicial system turn at a fairly slow speed, they are dogged and do not stop until the debt and the Court and Judges fees have been paid in full.

Swimming Pool

The new Committee are always striving to obtain 3 quotations for any work planned to be carried out on Mi Sol. However, this is not always as easy as it sounds, the Contract Gardeners, being a case in point.

The same situation applies to the Swimming Pool repairs, so far we have had 5 different contractors inspect the pool, not one of them has presented us with a quotation.

To be fair, one of the Contractors did say the job was too big for them, and recommended another company, who inspected the pool yesterday. I am hopeful this Company will provide us with a quotation.

After speaking with the various Contractors, it has become very evident that there are several MAJOR problems, mainly due to lack of maintenance combined with poor workmanship regarding the repairs that have been carried out over the last 20 years.

It is clear that a great deal of money will need to be spent in order to restore the pool back into a sound condition.

When we finally manage to get a quotation for the work, I will post it here.

Entrance Gates

You will remember that recently we received a Court Judgement ruling that we must remove the Security Gates at the entrance to Mi Sol.

On the advice of the Lawyers, I have instigated new proceedings to get this ruling overturned.

Attached is a copy of the certificate, which will be produced in Court showing that that none of the people who obtained the judgement to have the gates removed are Owners on Mi Sol any longer.

Bank Statement

Here is the latest statement from Banco Popular. There are a few points of note as follows :-

2 cheques "Al Portador" for Euro 500, these are for the cash float, the first covers August, September, October and November. A copy of the accounts for this period and the receipts for the money spent have been given to APYME. From now on the cash book account and receipts will be given to the Administrators every month.

You will notice an amount of Euro 100 . 03, this is an embargo on our bank account for non payment of Social Security. I am led to believe this is to do with Social Security non payment in June this year for the Gardener Steve. The administrator has been asked to investigate why we have been charged, and to ask the Accountant paid to deal with these matters, why he did not tell Pepe to pay it.

A cheque for Euro 1500, to pay the Procurator (Barrister), some of this bill should have been paid 2 years ago.

The water charges this month amount to Euro 1737 . 65 in total, compare this to July when it was Euro 5855 . 96. Even if we take into account that not so many residents are on Mi Sol at the moment as compared to July, it would seem to indicate that the Swimming Pool has been using more than double the amount of water than all the Owners of the Park put together !!

Not shown on this statement, but due to be paid shortly, is a cheque for Euro 2000 . 00 in favour of the Administrators APYME. We actually owe them Euro 6500.

This will leave around Euro 4700 in the Bank, provided we receive no more nasty surprises, which should hopefully be enough to see the Electricity and Water charges paid through to the New year, when the 2008 Community charges are due.

Gardening

The Committee have been investigating the best way to keep Mi Sol neat and tidy with regard to the employment of Gardeners. Everyone agrees that Mi Sol is too much for one Gardener to cope with on their own. It costs about Euro 12000 per year to employ one gardener, plus having to employ an Accountant to deal with the Social security payments, insurance etc.

It was decided to investigate the possibility of employing a Company on a contract basis, the feeling being that it would be better to have the Park given a thorough clean up two or three times a year, rather than employ one Gardener trying to cope on his own. The key here would be the cost.
Several Companies were approached with a view to acquiring at least three estimates. In the event only one Company put forward a quotation, which was discussed at the Committee meeting on the 20Th November.

Essentially the quote was in three phases. The first phase was to strim, weed and apply weed killer, and trim bushes throughout the Park at a cost of Euro 4500.

The second phase was to prune all the trees, which again was quoted at Euro 4500.

The third phase would be to again prune bushes, clear all areas that had been previously been sprayed with weed killer, and generally tidy up the whole site. This quote was for Euro 3600. As you can see this cost is fairly comparable with employing one Gardener full time.

Fundamental to the thinking of the Committee was that the common garden areas should be made almost maintenance free by either covering the ground with plastic and gravel, or planting "ground cover " plants or using the chippings from the tree cutting as a mulch to inhibit the growth of weeds.

Given that there were no other quotes available to the Committee at that time, and that the Company had agreed to wait until January to be paid, it was decided to to go ahead with phase one to see how the Contractors performed, before committing ourselves to the other phases of the work.

However in the period between that meeting and the last one on December 4Th, we received a quotation from the former Gardener Steve Foley, his quotation was also for phase one, the price being Euro 4380. During this period we also received bad news on the financial front, effectively reducing our Bank balance by over Euro 3500. In addition we still have no idea how much it is going to cost to repair the swimming Pool. ( More on this subject in a later post)

In light of this it was decided to defer employing any contractors until the subject has been discussed again in January. I have spoken to the contractors and explained this to them.

It is important we keep on top of the gardening, and improve on it all the time, however it is more important to pay the utility bills first. I am not happy for the Community to be committed to spending money that is not actually in the Bank to spend.

Committee meeting 20/11/2007

Here are the Minutes from the last Committee meeting.

20-11-2007

PRESENT: N. Stacey, P. Olive, J. Hanrahan, , L. Foley, P. Whitehead, S. Shaw,

A. Impey.----

ABSENT: L. Jeminez(Holiday) P. Whitehead (unknown) J. Titterton (England)

Alberto & Melanie (illness)

Neill read the minutes of last weeks meeting.

The graffiti artist attended the meeting providing pictures of his work, it was agreed he will correlate some ideas with his team for our wall and get back to us in the near future for approval. He needs a letter of authorization signed by the President.

The gardeners also came and submitted quotes for work needing to be done..

It was decided that the gardeners will start phase 1 of the operation to clean up Mi-Sol Park. A contract needs to be drawn up.

There are 2 skips on site and Brian & Teresa Woods, and their two friends have volunteered to remove some of the rubbish. This they did, finding bags of dirty nappies hidden in the undergrowth amongst other unsavoury objects.

A disclaimer notice is to be attached to the lamp post near Brian Woods Parcela warning of an electrical problem in the area. This is occurring due to wet weather.

An appeal is to be lodged against the judgement for the removal of the gates at the entrance, on the ground of security. A vast number of owners would like the gates to stay, however all owners that have been burgled and reported this to the Guardia need to write a letter stating this for Rosario to use as backup for the appeal.

The name on the Electrical account with Iberdrola had to be changed from Pepe to Neill. The engineer who did this was given a cheque by Pepe to cash immediately,

he did not do this, and is subsequently still waiting to be paid. We have asked for a factura for the amount owing (250.00Euros), which we have not yet received.

The test to cure the swimming pool problem for water loss failed. The pool has significant problems. The pipe work is seriously damaged and the grouting needs updating. Last year 2000.00Euros was spent on the pool but because of sub-standard work it needs doing again. Until the repairs are done the pool cannot be opened.

The 500 Euro float signed for last week has already been spent, catching up on overdue cash receipts dating back to August. A 2^nd cheque has been written and signed by Neill and J. Hanrahan to Portador.

The SUMA office have sent a bill that should have been paid in August 2007 totalling 840 Euros. Most of this money will be redirected to owners accounts, including fines and costs if applicable.

The lawyers have received a payment of 975.76Euros via the bank and court case.

There is a bill outstanding for the Proculator for 1500.00Euros.

Rosario has assured Neill that any owners taken to court in 2008 will be won by us. These owners will be informed by letter in January 2008

The minutes taken by Snr. Lavado at the meeting held by Paco on the terrace at the

same time at the official AGM were posted to Mi-Sol owners presumably by Snr. Lavado. Some of these owners no longer live on Mi-Sol Park, and some are deceased. This was a flagrant abuse of money collected by Snr. Lavado as the letters could quite easily have been transported from his office to the Mi-Sol Office by Paco at no cost whatsoever.

It has been reported that lock-up No9 rented by Susan Jones is being used by an unknown person to store paint and other building materials. This is clearly unacceptable and a letter asking for Mrs. Jones to vacate the lock-up will be sent out by the administrator.

MEETING CLOSED

Mi Sol Wall

As mentioned in a previous post an artist interested in painting the front wall of Mi Sol was invited to attend the last Committee meeting.

He did attend, bringing with him some examples of his work. He explained there would be no cost to Mi Sol as he was sponsored by other people, notably certain businesses in the town.

Discussions were held about what would be the most suitable theme for the wall.

A vote was taken, and it was unanimously agreed to let him and his friends carry out the painting, he was then given a letter of authority to allow him to proceed, subject to our agreement on the content of the work.

He has agreed to return after completing his current commissions, with drawings of his proposals.

Graffiti on the wall has been a perennial problem, but experience does seem to show that where walls are decorated by established artists , the vandal element tend not to deface it.

Finances

Whilst I would much prefer to look forward rather than dwell on the past, there are times when the past should be referred to, this is one of those times.

Since the 30th September this year we have had several nasty and unexpected surprises regarding unpaid bills from the previous Administration. Just this week we have suffered an embargo on our Bank account of Euro 100 . 03 By the Social Security regarding payments not made to them for Gardeners both Juan and Steve. I have asked our Administrators APYME to make investigations into why the Accountant employed to deal with this did not make sure Pepe made these payments. The first 6 months installment of the Insurance for the Park still has to be paid (due in June this year) amounting to Euro 440 . 25. We have had to pay a bill of Euro 1500 . 00 to the Procurator, some of which I am told goes back 2 years. A bill for unpaid Suma was received amounting to Euro 427 . 30. After a visit to the Suma Office, this has been reduced to Euro 76 . 89. We have also received a bill this week from the Administrators Apyme in excess of Euro 6500 . 00. To be fair Euro 2098 . 16 of this is owed to them for October and November which was not paid due to lack of funds in the Bank account.

A copy of the Banco Popular statement is attached.

In excess of Euro 4000 . 00 will be taken out of the account in the next couple of days for this month´s water bill. On the bright side, we did receive Euro 975 . 75 through the Court this week for a judgment against an Owner prosecuted for debt.

A study of the latest Owners accounts reveal that in excess of Euro 234,550 (getting close to a quarter of a million Euros) is owed to the Community. An unacceptable situation when we are struggling to balance the books, just to pay water and electricity charges through until Christmas. This is despite many Owners paying their bills on time, and indeed paying their Community charge for next year, in advance.

Many Owners stated they would not pay any money into Banco Popular until a new President was elected. It is now 2 months since the General Meeting elected me as the new President. There is no excuse now for not fulfilling their legal obligation to pay the amounts due.
Subject to the approval of the Committee at the next meeting, the Administrators will begin preparing the certificates to give to the Lawyers, so they may take the appropriate action to recover the debts to the Community

Comment

I have received a comment from an anonymous sender attached to the post regarding Gardening.
The comment itself was not about the gardening post at all.
Comments are always welcome, but I have rejected this one, because I believe that those making the comments should stand up and be counted by at least appending their name and plot number to the comment.