Originally Posted by Mascara22 (Post 12336518)

Does anyone know the details of the new property management that has taken over from Gesproseur please? Anyone on Marina Esuri?
Or how I can get in touch with Barbara Trayer M4 please?
Many Thanks

Originally Posted by MikeJ (Post 12336893)

Where did this come from? There have been no announcements.

Originally Posted by Mascara22 (Post 12337115)

Dear owner,

During the last AGM the owners decided to change the administrator of your community. Now, the administrator will be one of your neighbours whose office is located in Huelva. He will contact all owners next week.

Best regards,
Mateusz

This is the email I received

Originally Posted by Mascara22 (Post 12337313)

Looks like it's only some Manzana, not all. Definitely M3, but not sure which other .

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12338166)

Whilst Gesprosur seemed to do an efficient job, I'm assuming they contract the gardeners etc. Speaking for M3 ONLY we are charged 1000 euros a month for the garden maintenance -( Labour). Fair enough - in summer he needs to test the pool water/ clean filters and keep it all tidy, but there still never seems to be enough work for him. I see him trim three or four inches off the tops of the hedges making one hell of a racket with a petrol trimmer. I see him mow ONE inch off the grass. Last Spring he built a mini wall along one side of the garden which IMO was totally unnecessary. In winter we only need a gardener once a week. Last winter he seemed to turn up for an hour or two every other day. Don't know why we pay 1000 euros for that.
THEREFORE, with my optimistic hat on, I'm hoping the new company will do a better and cheaper job. M3 is also the only Manzana that has never been totally repainted. Just bodged up by Fadesa. Our fees were increased by 25% last year to afford a fund for it, but again IMO any savings wasted on the garden maintce could be put towards this costly repaint job - Circa 40K I think.
I would welcome comments from all other owners to see if they think similarly. PS. I'm not really a grumpy old sod!!!!!!

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12338686)

Mike, I agree that a lot of what you say makes sense in that I would not want to see any part of ME deteriorate. The gardens are well maintained but my point was that they are manicured unnecessarily. The noise levels from hedge cutters and blowers are horrendous when you just want your breakfast on the terrace in peace. I just don't see the point of trimming 3 or 4 inches off hedges. The grass is so short it is full of moss. I have only owned the apartment since early 2014 and I have no idea who decided the frequency / specification of the maintenance, but I do see a gardener ( usually a different one) turn up scratching around trying to find something to do. It really needs reviewing. Whilst I have usually found Gesprosur very helpful I am hoping that the change might bring some improvements. Regarding the gutters - you need to avoid them at all costs. They have been a total failure !! On M4 many of the duplex and 1st floor apts suffered flooding during heavy storms soon after installation, caused by the guttering. Gesprosur - not the insurers - paid for repairs & redecorations. The gutters creak a lot and they drip like echo chambers after rain. Moreover the rain in Spain is invariably heavy not soft and hence the volume of water off the roofs overshoots the gutters rendering them useless. A less extensive network of downpipes from the terrace outlets would solve the problem of the ground floor apts having their patios dripping with water which was the original complaint. The installations to date have been overkill.

Strangely, the choice of management was not on the agenda received for the AGM. I am more than surprised to hear we have fired gesprosur.

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12341256)

To Mike J, I sent you an email via this system with info regarding the gutters.

......Keith BT.

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12341857)

Mike, I've just rewritten to your PM box.

Originally Posted by MikeJ (Post 12342397)

Thanks Keith - received and replied

Originally Posted by Jon-Bxl (Post 12343124)

Hi please can you pm me the info on the gutters please.

We have had a (lets say) very 'unsatisfactory' gutter installation and communication process in our manzana. So I'd like to hear other feedback.

Re caretakers I think having a good caretaker is like gold dust the M7 & M6 caretakers are excellent, & are worth paying a good price for. I dont know the others.

I have mixed feelings about Gesprosur, I've met the boss to discuss customer satisfaction - was made promises that haven't been honoured. BUT I dont believe changing for possibly a cheaper company will be a good idea, and agree with Mike on that. Gesprosur win for me, mainly as they have recruited great caretakers in our Manzana and M7. This is the main 'interface' for me - the rest is administration, and though it is not always satisfactory, I suspect its the best we can get. "Better the devil you know"

After over a decade in Spain, I also have no faith in choosing & giving business to any company who is a member of someone's family or a friend of someone etc.

So I am, in the end, all things considered willing to stick with Gesprosur.

Jon

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12343377)

WOW, THE MINUTES OF THE m3 AGM HAVE JUST ARRIVED, via MM abogados.
I am seriously trying to understand them, but the translation they used to english does not make a whole lot of sense. In essence, I think we have a new pres & vice pres and a company in Huelva controlling it all. It was overwhelmingly voted IN by 21 - 0, so my presence would have made no difference. Perhaps those of us on M3 need to have an open mind and hope that it is for the best. Only time will tell.

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12343353)

Hi Jon, I will forward the PM I sent to Mike. I had no idea there was a move to oust Gesprosur as our estate managers. I am not happy with the situation, but if you do not attend the agm's then you can't complain too much either. I bought my duplex to use any time of year EXCEPT high season, and unfortunately our agm seems to be August every year. I'm afraid Ayamonte is way too busy for me in high season, too many people & nowhere to park. I did try August in 2014 and it just doesn't suit me. Too many people around / in the pool and quite noisy. Having achieved UK state retirement age, I just want a bit of warmth, good food, a good book and peace & quiet. I'm very able at doing very little whilst at ME as I still live quite a busy life in the UK. Too have to venture thru Faro airport in August just for an agm would not be something I would enjoy.

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12344271)

:goodpost: Thanks to Mike who has summed this saga up most eloquently. Hopefully, the remaining manzanas might elect for a more cost effective job as described by Mike trialing a network plastic downpipes. The only problem is that this would be quite cheap, hence not much profit for the installer. I've seen all this before in industry.

Originally Posted by MikeJ (Post 12338642)

I’ll try not to be contentious but you have asked for opinions and I assume you mean ‘warts and all’ ;)

Not quite sure what you are blaming on Gesprosur – they administer the Manzana on behalf of the owners; directed on a day-to-day basis by the community President. If you are paying €1000 pm to your gardener then that is because the community decided to do that (by agreeing to the budget presented at the AGM). If you wanted to pay more or less then that is when it should have been raised and changed. IMHO €1000 is not a great wage when you take out social security payments, tax etc.

In our Manzana, we pay a bit more than that for a dedicated concierge service. Our concierge has been with us for a number of years and has proved himself invaluable. He does an awful lot more than just gardening.
[BTW if you mow much more than an inch off the Spanish grass type you will expose the tender shoots to the hot sun which will burn them and kill them off and very soon you will have a waste ground. Little and often is the best bet. You cannot expect a bowling green lawn]

At one time there was a movement towards getting a cheaper solution. Some residents proposed (a friend from Huelva) to take over the management. On further inquiries, it transpired that the services would be provided by ad-hoc contractors on what we in the UK would recognise as a zero hours contracts. The implication was that we would have a series of nameless people having intimate access to the Manzana. Many of us thought that this was a severe security risk and had doubts about the quality of service we would actually get. We were happier with the continuity of a well-known and trusted employee on a decent contract which provides him with a living wage and a degree of loyalty in return. The work he does keeping the environment maintained is protecting our investment (who wants to buy a beautiful apartment if it is set in the middle of a waste land).

In the early days and in the period around the collapse of Fedesa the community charge was set at a level needed to support the community based on the number of owners. A little while later it became technically feasible to reduce the charge. At that time it was decided by the majority to keep the charge more or less as it was. This incremental amount which nobody really missed has allowed a contingency fund to be built up. The parable of the ant and the grasshopper springs to mind . This fund has allowed us to commission a number of improvements to the Manzana, including the complete repaint; relining of the pool; improvement of the pool filtration which will improve hygiene and reduce running costs in the longer term; landscaping and new planting which generally improves the attractiveness – and our enjoyment – of our Manzana, Next year we will be installing improved guttering and drainage. All this without having to make extraordinary increases in the community charge.

ISTM that Gesprosur is being blamed for the management failures of the community or bad or short term decisions in the past. You may be throwing the baby out with the bath water. I have no particular brief for Gesprosur but our Manzana has experience of the main management protagonists and effectively carried out a competitive tender to choose Gesprosur (based on value, not just cost) and they have performed well since then. It is telling that 5 of the 7 Manzanas and the Intercommunity are administered by Gesprosur. You may get cheaper but I suspect you are unlikely to get better - simple economics says that you get what you pay for (as long as you manage it !)

Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12344679)

I need to correct my earlier post on the 14th sept where I stated we pay 1000 euros a month for seemingly not very much for the gardener. It has been brought to my attention by PM that this was 2015 figures. M3 manzana has actually been paying 1550 euros in the summer months and 1200 in the winter months. Hence my consideration that it was poor value for what we received was worse than originally thought. Being a smaller manzana compared to M1,2,6 & 7 it would be difficult to justify a full time concierge but in retrospect I wish we could have shared a full time concierge with say m5 had this been possible. Again, in retrospect, it does not now surprise me that the Spanish owners got together and had a coup. It is just possible they were right.

Originally Posted by MikeJ (Post 12344695)

Though I would guess that nepotism trumped economy. What's the hourly rate for a contract gardener? Gesprosur would pay around the same as anyone else I would hazard a guess. You might like to look at the management fee rather than the jobbing gardener. In our experience the proposed new-entrant bid a very low fee but some of us fully expected that to be rapidly inflated once the contract was agreed. Our main criteria was VFM rather than simple cost.

Quote:

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Still, if you get organised next year maybe you can get Gesprosur back :rofl:

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Originally Posted by keithBT (Post 12346760)

GUTTERING - I note that since my last visit modifications have been carried out on M4. The water from the top gutters is now fully enclosed in a downpipe running over the duplex roof tiles and is forced into the gutter above living room. This would certainly overcome the lack of flashing leakage. Hopefully, this will prevent any further flooding. I remain thinking the gutters are a high ticket item for no obvious benefit. Money would have been better spent smooth lining the pool or connecting some solar panels to warm the pool water. Ours is getting fresh compared to the sea.