They Still keep Coming

After paying out over 1000 Euro this week already in debts and fines incurred by the last Administration, I had the dubious pleasure of visiting the Post office yesterday to collect another two demands from the Social Security. These amount to Euro 3978 . 31, to be paid within 15 days.
Copies of the demands are attached.

A cursory inspection of the bank account since the A.G.M. last September reveals that we have had to pay out around Euro 30,000 (Thirty Thousand) in debts , fines and sanctions all of which relate to things Pepe did not pay. They include such items as Social Security, Tax, fines, sanctions, insurance and payments owed to the Administrators, and Lawyers. The really frustrating thing about all this is that the money was available at the time these bills were due, but Pepe would not pay them. We have had to pay a considerable premium for these bill not being paid on time.
There are still more to come yet, so more sleepless nights for me appear to be due.!!
Several Owners have expressed the view that it would take at least a year to sort out Mi Sol's financial problems, these predictions appear to be well founded.

AmendedMinutes

Here attached are the amended minutes of the Committee Meeting held on the 22/4/2008 as requested by Mrs P. Olive. You will notice the point she wished adding regarding the electric meters used by Pepe was in fact the last item mentioned on the original minutes published here.

Committee Meeting

Attached are the minutes from the Committee meeting held on the Bar terrace at 4.00pm yesterday afternoon. For the first time a dictaphone was used in addition to the written notes.

Updates

Just to keep you informed, the judgement given in the Court case in Elche on the 16th April 2008 is not expected for another two weeks. This is quite normal.

Mr Morans is still waiting for for the Insurance company to make payment to him. Until he receives it work will not start on renovating the Bar.

There has been very little mail coming through from the Post Office in recent weeks, however there was a large amount that has been laying about in the Office for a considerable period of time sent by Paco / Lavado to Owners , including certificate slips, all of which Owners have refused to collect. This was put into a large plastic bag, and with my consent, delivered to Paco personally by Vice President Mrs Pat Olive. On being handed the bag full of mail, he apparently said "it was all rubbish" and could be put in the bin. One wonders why they bothered to waste all that money sending them in the first place.

The Owner who was in hospital, is now back home again, which is good news. A collection has been made around Mi Sol for Committee member Mrs Lynne Jimenez, I understand about Euro 70 was raised, and some flowers also delivered to her. I have not heard yet when she will be allowed home.

Letters

At the Committee meeting held on the bar terrace 8th of April 2008, I was handed three letters, one from an owner published in a previous post, one from Committee member Mrs Ann Impey, and one from Vice President Mrs Pat Olive, which is attached here.

Unlike recent Committee meetings, there were not many owners in attendance to hear the proceedings.

I read out the letters from Mrs Impey and Mrs Olive, after which Committee member Mrs Carol McCarthy raised her hand and declared it seemed like an attempted assassination.

A formal written reply will be given in due course.

The fact of the matter is that legally a Community must have a President, an Administrator and a Secretary. The president can be all three, and often is in many smaller urbanizations and Apartment blocks. In our case we employ APYME as the Administrators, who are legally registered for the purpose, and bound by strict laws regarding keeping our accounts and other secretarial work such as taking minutes in Spanish at our Official Committee meetings.

As the President I am legally responsible for EVERYTHING that is done in the name of Mi Sol either by me or anyone else. Ignorance of things done by others in Mi Sol's name is not a defence in Spanish Law. The Community can vote in a Vice President if they so wish, but there are no specific duties attached to that position, unless assigned to them by the President.

The duties referred to by the Vice President are largely self appointed whilst a member of the previous Administration. I have now taken control of dealing with the Administrators, the meter readings, and cross checking the work of the Administrators. I gave my reasons for doing this to the Committee at an informal meeting held in the Office on Saturday afternoon 19th April 2008. There were some members of the Committee very unhappy about me taking this action. they are entitled to their point of view. I would simply refer you back to the first sentence of the previous paragraph. One Committee member expressed the view that I was just the same as Pepe, this is quite ironic given that the Committee have twice voted to sell some Community land at the bottom of the Park, despite being told after the first time they voted for it ,that is illegal to do so without the consent of the Owners at an Annual General Meeting. This is the very thing THEY have all been complaining about Pepe doing for years !! You might ask who wanted to buy this land, if you look back through the minutes of 8th January 2008, you will see it is the Husband of the Vice President.

The accounts held by APYME are forwarded to us on a regular basis, each time the meters are read and new bills are produced. The full accounts are produced at the AGM in September as required by law. Many of us may not understand them, but they are produced.
Mi Sol is not being left vulnerable as suggested by the Vice President, I would never allow that to happen. It is interesting to note that originally Simon as Treasurer and I obtained the consent of the Community to buy a computer to keep a check on Pepe at a time when he was acting as President and Administrator before the appointment of APYME.

With regard to the Lawyer, I completely refute that statement, after every visit to the Lawyers I report to the Committee and the Owners present at Committee meetings the outcome of the discussions.
There was one exception to this, it concerned trying to resolve the situation with Paco and his supporters, I was given the option of taking a course of action which might have helped. The Lawyer was insistent that I told nobody until I had made a decision for fear of putting the process in jeopardy. I do have a witness to this conversation. After careful consideration I decided not to carry out the option.

With regard to the remark "tough" it is perfectly true that is what I said. It was during a private conversation and sometimes when provoked, we say things we should not. I make mistakes just like every body else. However you can rest assured the next President will have far more information available than I had when I started, even if they only visit this Web Log and study the documents stored here.

I wanted to be President to try and make Mi Sol a better place for all of us, after all it is my home too, in five months time all the Owners will have their chance to elect a new President, if they believe I have let them down.

More Bills

Attached are copies of bills received this week from the Agencia Tributaria. These are for taxes we have to pay every three months for employing the Administrators APYME. The first one is the current bill, the second one is an embargo from 2004 because it had not been paid.
The total amount to pay is Euro 754 . 61

Court Case

On Wednesday 16th April the first of the two important Court cases was heard in Elche, between Pepe and Antonio Escedero. So far I have not been informed of the outcome, or any significance it may have. I spoke with Rosario's assistant on Friday morning, and she informed me no information had been received. It can take up to 3 weeks for the judgement to be handed down.
As soon as I am aware of the outcome I will let everyone know.

Best Wishes

It appears Committee member Mrs Lynne Jimenez suffered an accident last night in which she badly injured an ankle, so badly in fact it required surgery.

We also have another Owner in hospital at the moment.

I am sure you will join me in wishing them both a full and speedy recovery.

Bank Statement

Here is the latest statement from Banco Popular.
The amount debited by the Courts of 663 . 55 is to a Spanish owner who appealed and has been given his money back plus costs. Again that amount includes charges for water and electricity which he has used and the rest of us have paid for.

On a brighter note a couple of debtors have paid some money into the account, probably in the hope of confusing and stopping the Court cases against them for debt. The case against one of them will certainly continue, as the amount paid in is a small fraction of what is owed to the Community.

Anonymous

I received a comment recently which suggested I should not allow comments to this Web Log to be posted without the senders name attached. Whilst I agree it would, in a perfect world be desirable to take this line, in reality there are many different reasons why people wish not to reveal their identity. This does not make their views or their comments any less valid.

There are those who might, and probably will say, that I write these comments myself because they are not signed by name, this of course is complete nonsense. Through the use of special "tracking" software I know the email address of everyone who sends an anonymous post and can even pinpoint the actual computer from which it was sent. Naturally I would never divulge this information to anyone else without the specific written consent of the people sending the comments.

This Web Log is owned and operated by me, no connection to Mi Sol, or anyone else, this gives me the right to publish or reject any comment sent regarding any post. I have rejected 2 comments in the last 14 months.

I have attached an email comment I received today from an Owner, it´s content is self explanatory, the reason it was sent will become clearer in future posts.

When will it end ?

Following a long line of demands for payment from various Government agencies over the last six months, amounting to a considerable sum of money, we have now received yet another one from the Agencia Tributaria. Copies attached as usual.

This demand is for Euro 268 . 49 regarding "Retention Trabajo Personal", which would appear to be some sort of tax payment regarding an employee of the community.

Enquiries made by Apyme on our behalf indicate that this payment relates to 2004 !!, but as is normal with these Government Agencies, the reason the money is owed is not given. Further enquiries are being made.

Pool Contract

At the Committee Meeting of 25th March 2008 held on the Bar Terrace, it was proposed that the Contract for repairing the swimming pool should be signed and the work commissioned.

The vote was 4 members in favour 2 members against the proposal, in view of this I have signed the Contract and work is expected to begin on the 5th May, if things go to plan the Pool should be open for use by the middle of July. A copy of the contract is enclosed.

It should be pointed out that I do not have a vote at the Committee Meetings, except in the case of a tie, when I then have the casting vote. I mention this because I have some reservations as to whether we can in fact afford this contract in the light recent unexpected and large expenses we have incurred, with at least another Social Security bill for Euro 4600 expected soon.

At least one Owner has similar reservations regarding this contract, and presented a letter to that effect at the latest Committee Meeting. A copy is attached.

As the elected President, I am the legal representative of the Community, and I have no intention of allowing the name of Mi Sol to be brought into dis-repute by unethical business practises. With this in mind I visited the premises of the Pool Contractors and explained there might be a possibility we may not be able to fulfil our obligations with regard to the payment dates. I asked them if this situation arose, would they agree to stop work, and recommence again when we had the funds available. They have agreed to this proposal and accepted the contract.

I will make every effort to ensure we keep to the contract, but if we are unable to make any payments, the work will be put on hold and completed when we do have the money.

An electronic access system is also being investigated, with the aim of preventing unauthorised people from gaining entry to the pool once it is completed.





Update.

I have received a comment to this post from Mrs P. Olive, Vice President wishing to clarify what she says was actually said regarding the payments to the Pool contractors. As I do not agree with her comment I am not posting it here, and have also removed the section referring to what I believe she said.

Social Security

As promised in a previous post, here is an update on the Social Security payments still owing.

You will remember that last week we had to pay Euro 3607 . 20 in Social Security and sanctions.
This is the first part of the Euro 8000 mentioned in previous posts. We are still waiting for the bill regarding the other Euro 4,300 outstanding. It is ridiculous that over six months after being elected, this Committee and I are still having to pay out large sums for debts from the previous Administration, putting our ability to pay for the rebuilding of the swimming pool in some doubt.

We are still trying to find out exactly why we are being charged all this money. Alberto the Administrator visited the Social security offices in Orihuela last week and was told that I must go in person to Offices in Alicante, taking with me the Acts Book, Passport, etc,. Only then would the information be divulged. However, on telephoning the relevant office in Alicante to make an appointment to visit, we were advised that it could be done by letter, if copies of the required documents are enclosed. This is now being done, and hopefully we will soon have some answers.

Watch this space as they say !!

Committee Meeting

Attached are the Minutes of the Committee Meeting held at the Bar Terrace on Tuesday 25th March 2008.

As is becoming usual, a large number of Owners attended to observe the proceedings. It is very pleasing that so many Owners are interested in what is happening on Mi Sol.

Bank Statement

Attached is the latest statement from Banco Popular.
As you will notice around Euro 12900 has been paid out in the last 3 weeks.

Euro 2000 has been paid to the Gardening Company, there remains Euro 500 to be paid on completion of the present contact.

Euro 400 for street light repairs, some more still need repair yet.

Euro 1000 to the Procurador for the legal costs in Orihuela regarding permission to reinstate the Entrance Gates.

Euro 4048 . 65 for the monthly electricity bill.

Euro 1799 . 87 for the monthly water bill.

Euro 3364 . 63 returned to a Spanish Owner who appealed the judgement for debt to the Community. It is particularly galling that not only did this include nearly Euro 900 costs, but of course it also includes water and electricity charges, which the Owner has used, and the rest of us have paid for. No wonder some of us have difficulty understanding the Spanish Justice system.

Euro 3607 . 20 claimed by the Social Security department, more of this in another post.