Meeeting

An informal meeting was held on the Bar Terrace this morning, originally requested by the other faction, ostensibly to put forward their proposals for reuniting the Community.

It was attended by a large number of Owners, both English and Spanish, and included their Administrator. They supplied a young man as a translator who did an excellent job throughout.

Before the meeting commenced, I addressed the English Owners present to inform them of the significance of the judgement in the recent Court case held in Elche on 16th April 2008, and to explain some of my personal feelings on how we might move forward.

The meeting started by my asking their Administrator to inform us of their suggestions on how we might move forward, this he declined to do, explaining instead he would answer questions from the Owners present. This is how the meeting proceeded for a time.

To be perfectly blunt, it seemed to me, and many others present, that it was just a repetition of the same old things we have all heard before. It appeared that they did not know, or did not want to accept the recent judgement in favour of Pepe. The main thrust of their argument seemed to centre around wanting meetings between the two Administrators to compare accounts, and nothing to be done until the AGM in September.

Seeing that the Owners were becoming restless with the lack of progress towards the other side actually rejoining the Community proper, I explained that I had no problem with the Administrators examining the accounts of both sides, prior to September 2007, but that was a separate issue from us going forward from now on as a single Community.

I explained that there was now only one President and one Committee, not two as they keep trying to maintain, and that the only Bank account of the Community is Banco Popular. If they wanted to have influence on the way the Community is administered, they should pay their fees into Banco Popular, put forward their proposals at the AGM and have them subject to a Democratic vote.

To emphasise this point they were told that as the President of the Community, I will be calling the AGM in September, and that it will not be an open meeting for anyone to vote as was held last year, only Owners who have paid their Community fees to Banco Popular will be entitled to vote, as laid down under the Law of horizontal Dwellings. If they are serious about a settlement of the dispute and wish to rejoin the Community, this is what they must do. They had their chance to vote for a new President last year, but their representative declined to excercise that option on the advice of their Lawyer. From the reaction of some of the Spanish Owners it seemed that they were under the impression that the opposite was true. It begs the question whether or not the Spanish owners are being given all the facts. Several times I have spoken to Spanish Owners who have shown surprise when certain facts have been explained to them.

Their Administrator said they did not want "another Pepe" as President, I agree entirely, but it is interesting that the Committee and I carry out our responsibilities to the Community under their Spanish law.

They instigated a long discussion regarding the entrance gates being put back into operation immediately, their Administrator quoting from the judgement of last July, which said the gates had to be removed. I pointed out that to take the course of action he proposed it would have to be put to an AGM, and would require the agreement of 100 % of the Owners. He replied all the Spanish Owners did agree, however I pointed out that it was unlikely every one of the 200 British Owners would agree. Just one vote against would be enough to defeat the motion. I explained that judicial proceedings were already under way to have the gates reinstated legally on the grounds the original people who obtained the judgement to remove the gates are no longer Owners , the judgement was anticipated in the next six months. Once obtained this would have the advantage of not requiring a vote at an AGM because this action was merely an extension of the proceedings when the original decision was taken by the Community to install the gates, this was done in the days before the 100 % rule became law.

The only positive thing from the meeting was their acceptance that the meetings between the Administrators to examine the accounts of both sides, will take place without the presence of Lawyers. Tomorrow morning I will be asking APYME to start this process.

I would like to thank all the Owners who took the trouble and interest to attend the meeting, it is disappointing that at the moment we seem no nearer an amicable settlement, although it is clear that the majority of Spanish Owners do wish to put an end to this dispute. We will have to see how things unfold in the coming days and weeks.