Bugbeetle

Hello

I am new to the forum and I am hoping you can give me some guidance.

I have an apartment in the Costa Blanca. The apartment is in a small building with 2 other apartments and we share a roof terrace and communal stair way. The other apartments are owned by the same Spanish family and one of them is empty in really bad condition and the other is rented out and has long term tenants in. My question is around community and the horizontal laws. We currently don't have any formal community arrangements in place with the other owners and never have. We don't pay community fees or have any AGM meetings. By law should we have a formal agreement in place? We have asked the other owners if we could put something formal in place and they all refuse saying it costs too much money. Because we don't have any formal agreement in place do we still have to seek permission from them to repair or alter any of the areas that are demeed as communal?

Over the last few years any repairs we have done we have paid for ourselves and not asked the other owners but these have been very minor, abit of painting, repair of tiled floor and of course they have never complained I guess because they haven't had to pay. However we have recently made some alterations to the terrace which we believe adds value and makes the terrace look better at our own cost. We have received an email from one of the other owners (who doesn't live in the apartment he owns and which is in poor state of repair) demanding we take the alternations down and restore to original status.

We are planning to speak to a lawyer but just wanted to hear other people's views/ experience particularly around not having a community and if that goes in our favour.

Many thanks

Rosemary

Hi and a warm welcome to the Spanish forum on BE. Myself and Fred James are the moderators for the Spanish forums whilst BEVS moderates Europe. Moderators are there to ensure that the site runs smoothly within the rules of BE. This is so that members gain the information that they are looking for and find their experiences on the forums to be friendly and worthwhile.

Problems and complaints should always be addressed to a moderator who will look into the matter and deal with it efficiently and fairly. Our members who post in the Spain Forums are usually friendly and helpful with a wealth of knowledge about the issues of living in Spain. I hope that you enjoy your time participating in the forums.

Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

Bugbeetle

Thank you Rosemary for the welcome

Rosemary

The hard truth is that no matter whether there is a formal community committee or not it would always be common courtesy to have discussions about any changes to communal areas before actioning. Did you mention it to them at all? Did you have the relevant licence from the town hall? Do you expect the other tenants to help with the cost?

They may have wanted to maintain the area as it was, they may be fearful of being asked to pay, they may know that a licence is impossible to obtain for some reason or other, they may be offended that you did not discuss it with them first. Talk to them first to find out exactly why they have sent you this message and see whether you can sort it out without legal action because once you go down that route your relationship with the other owners will nose dive and life may become difficult.

Rosemary

Bugbeetle

Rosemary thank you for your reply.

To be honest no we didn't speak to them before doing the work, the owners of the other apartments don't live locally and live 100km away, they never answer emails and our relationship has never been good with them not without the won't of trying. It's all about money for them they will speak to us if they want money for communal lighting etc but if we try and speak to them about repairs and paying their part they say no they can't afford it and won't pay knowing that we will do it anyway because we like the apartments and the block to look nice as this is our holiday home.

They don't speak English and our Spanish is limited so we have hired interpreters so we can talk to them about various concerns and they talk a lot and don't listen and are very unreasonable.

The problem is bigger than I first explained. The previous owner of our apartment( who were part of the family who own the other apartments) built a room on the terrace and was the only person who had access to it and sold the room as part of the apartment sale to my husband. The previous owner had permission from the head of the family to build the room but never had permission from the town hall so never declared it on his deeds. Stupidly when my husband bought the apartment over 15 years ago he never got this checked so of the course the room is deemed as illegal however we have been advised a few years ago by a lawyer that after 15 years of no objection the other owners can't demand that we take it down. They always mention that no permission was granted for the room when they speak to us but have never done anything formally about it. What we have done recently is build a roof terrace on top of that room with some railings and a non permanent staircase. We have had some other work done inside the apartment at the same time and we did have a licence and all of the work was project managed through a local architect.

We were aware we were taking a risk because of the legal issues concerning the room but the new terrace is there for everyone to use, we haven't altered the main terrace in anyway the stairs to the new terrace is a ladder effect so are not taking up any space as the ladder can be moved and we have asked for no money towards the cost. In our opinion it has enhanced the overall building. If the worst came to the worst would it be the other owners that would have to prosecute us and force us to dismantle the alternations or can the other owners ask the council to prosecute us? If it's the other owners I can't believe that they would pay ( deep down we hoped that was the case hence why we went ahead)

Apologies to everyone if you think we have been stupid and aarogant by going ahead and doing what we have done. We have done it with the best intentions and to be enjoyed by all and the architect said it was all ok to do

Rosemary

I am amazed that the town hall gave you the licence to put the terrace onto what is an illegal part of the building. Architects normally ensure that all of the normal legalities are in place before starting a project so again I am surprised that they did not refuse to oversee this project.

I know nothing about whether the other owners can ask the council to prosecute you but surely that is not in their interest because they did not do this when it was a family member so they have knowingly lived with part of the building being illegal for many years.

We did loads of things such as putting in new bathrooms in our house before we found out about licences but the town hall accepted our application retrospectively so we were alright. Maybe your town hall would make your extra room legal as it has been there so long and they have granted the licence for the terrace on top of it, egg on face for them really.

Rosemary

Bugbeetle

The Architect has been very clever and worded the works on the licence in a way that the works could cover a number of items and it doesn't exactly say which room the works were being done in or on and the council has granted the permission. We are heading to Spain in the next couple of days so we will speak to our Gestor. Thanks again Rosemary for replying it's very much Appreciated

Rosemary

To my way of thinking he has been too clever as this has now added to your original problem of the illegal building so that now you have an additional area that could well be deemed as illegal and action may be taken to have it all removed. Depends very much on how strict the town hall is on this sort of issue.

Rosemary

MikeJ

It sounds like there may be another agenda here. Perhaps the family were upset that one member sold off his share to a guiri - sounds like he was at odds with his family if he built a private room illegally and without their consent. Maybe they have seen a chance to force you out and regain ownership of the whole block.
You seem to have done things "the Spanish way" and now they threaten to use the law against you. Fairly typical hypocrisy.