Complex estates Responsibilities

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davea
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Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby davea » Fri Jun 24, 2011 3:28 pm

Our urbanisation complies with the requirements of the Law of Horizontal Property chapter 3 for complex estates comprising a mixture of, blocks of buildings made from reinforced concrete, a number of separate blocks made with concrete blockwork and about 80 detached villas totalling 502 properties. There is one set of statutes inclusive of participating coefficients for the whole urbanisation which have not been registered although the urbanisation has been up and running, paying taxes and with all services connected for 25 years.

The blocks that we are particularly concerned with are those that have a reinforced concrete frame and are built on a hillside. This concrete frame goes from the earth to the roof of the buildings and there is a basement void area that just contains the services to the blocks which is just a large empty space of sloping rough ground but with outside walls to prevent access other than for maintenance.

The problem we have is with deterioration of the pillars and beams within this basement void area, due to water infiltration and very poor ventilation over 25 years. These pillars and beams are part of the reinforced concrete framed block and support just those properties above apart from a communal path that runs through the centre and which is open to the air.

There is a cost associated with the repair of these pillars and beams that are individual only to the properties above and not associated with any other properties which are built some distance from the blocks affected.

We have found, in the cadastral and land registers, that these blocks are divided into a number of groups of properties (although each of these groups is connected by the common concrete frame within the main block) and that each of these groups has an escritura that indicates that each of the properties within a group has a quota that is also recorded in the property escritura and which states that this cuota is the share that those owners within that group have of the common area of the group i.e. not the whole urbanisation. Each property also has a separate participating coefficient listed in the statutes which is the share that each owner has of the communal ownership such as swimming pool, gardens, staff salaries and water etc.
My question is;
Is the repair of the deteriorating pillars and beams that are individual to and only support those properties in the various groups of properties within a single concrete framed construction the responsibility of those individual owners or the responsibility of all the owners of different types of construction and use in the urbanisation that may live remote from the block of properties?
I have read David Searls book on law is Spain which is clear on the requirements of apartments in chapter two but is not so clear on the problems on mixed property complex estates in chapter three.


I apologise for the length of the question but it is an attempt to give you as much background that I can.
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julian
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby julian » Fri Jun 24, 2011 3:34 pm

could you please explain the situation in more detail so we can give advice, thankyou.

davea
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby davea » Fri Jun 24, 2011 3:44 pm

julian wrote:could you please explain the situation in more detail so we can give advice, thankyou.
I have supplied a fair amount of info but if you tell me specifically what more needs to be explained or expanded I will send. DA

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chrissiehope
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby chrissiehope » Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:26 pm

Just ignore julian - he's being silly again :roll:
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julian
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby julian » Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:41 pm

can you give a 100% sure , legal answer based on that info chrissie?

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chrissiehope
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby chrissiehope » Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:31 pm

Absolutely :lol: :lol:
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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
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julian
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby julian » Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:51 pm

:thumbup:
go for it..I´m a bit busy watching the paint dry to be able to answer right now !! :wink:

katy
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby katy » Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:10 pm

Davea I don't know the answer to your query. Probably the owners of the block are solely responsible. There should be insurance, have you run it by them?

Apologies for the rudeness from some posters on a serious subject, someone may come along who knows more about it.

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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby davea » Tue Jun 28, 2011 7:20 am

Thanks Katy,for a serious answer even though it it does not help as Insurances do not cover this point. You are right it is a serious subject involving over a million euros in cost. We have taken some legal advice which is contradictory and I thought that maybe somewhere in Andalucia someone may live on a complex estate with similar difficulties in determining responsibilities. It is not just a matter of aopplying the HPL suggestion that anything outside your front door is someone elses responsibility i.e. the community. The columns in question hold up a set of properties and are individual to those properties so with a problem with the structure you would expect these to be only the responsibility of those owners affected not the whole urbanisation.

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DavidSearl
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby DavidSearl » Wed Jun 29, 2011 5:48 pm

FROM DAVID SEARL

FOR DAVEA

In fact, your urbanisation does not comply with all the regulations of the Horizontal Property Law. We shall see why.

Thank you for your clear and cogent explanation. It appears complex because the situation is complex.

To sum up:

1. It appears that your 502 properties, whether apartments or houses, have banded together to form a sort of Community of Property Owners, with payment quotas assigned to each unit. You note that this ad hoc organization is not registered legally.

2. This might be called a “Macro Community”. Except that it isn’t one. A Macro Community is a legal entity which groups individual Communities that have common interests, such as roads or sanitation. In your case it seems there are no individual Communities.

3. However, when you looked up the original title deeds of the properties, buildings and houses, you discovered that the basis for the constitution of individual Communities is already registered in the Cadastro and the Property Registry, as part of the original Registration of each building or villa. This registration assigns participation shares for the individual blocks of flats.

4. Now, properly, and according to Horizontal Law, each block of flats and each grouping of villas should activate their own individual Community, which, as you found, is already registered on paper. These Communities may then form a Macro Community to govern their shared interests, with the Presidents of the Individual Communities serving on the Macro Community Committee.

5. From the above explanation we see that a problem which affects one building only, such as the deterioration of the concrete pillars, is the responsibility of the individual Community of Property Owners legally constituted for that block.

I hope this answers your original basic question.

6. In conclusion, each of the blocks and areas of villas, in order to establish a legal personality according to Horizontal Law, should constitute its own Community, which can then form a Macro Community.

In even yet more conclusion, congratulations on your informal Community. It is little short of a miracle that it has functioned effectively so far. If you wish, simply carry on, but be aware that you are dodging Horizontal Law.

FINAL NOTE: You observe that You and the Law in Spain does not quite cover this situation. You are right. I can only say that the book discusses matters as they are supposed to be legally, not every possible shading that occurs in real life.

Good luck with it, David Searl
You and the Law in Spain

davea
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Re: Complex estates Responsibilities

Postby davea » Tue Jul 05, 2011 11:47 pm

Hello David
Thank you very much for your explanation which covers most points.
We are however in the position that probably about 130 owners in the blocks have the structural problems and no other properties on the urbanisation are so affected. We are not legally registered as a whole urbanisation and we are not legally divided into a number of small sub communities but the repairs have to be paid for soon.(circa 1,000,000€ )If we are not legal but have a single set of statutes and coefficients, who is legally responsible for the repairs of a structure that is holding up particular properties? is it just those that are affected or everyone of the 502 owners?
The flats that you mention are not in fact flats but 17 individually defined sets of properties (sub blocks) within about 8 individual independent blocks of reinforced concrete framed structures apart from the many detached villas. The division has been confirmed by a consulting engineer and these divisions match almost exactly the cadastral split.Could it be argued that a single property i.e. everything within the boundary of the walls is individual to the owner and and is his responsibility and that the structure above and below ground involving a number of properties is individual to those owners and is their responsibility only and that say the pool and the roads is not individual to any property and is the responsibility of all owners i.e. communal?

I hope that you can throw some light on this question

Many thanks again
regards

Dave


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