Property administrators

Torre del Mar has eleven firms administering communities of owners, concentrated on Calle del Mar, Calle Santa Margarita and Avenida de Andalucía. They handle accounts, meetings, special levies and the maintenance of the building.

If you own a flat here, you are in a community whether you like it or not

Buying a flat in Spain makes you a member of the comunidad de propietarios automatically. It owns the roof, the facade, the stairwell, the lift and usually the pool, it takes decisions by vote at a general meeting, and those decisions bind you even if you were not there and voted against. This is the single thing most foreign owners here understand too late.

The words you will meet

• Cuota. The regular contribution, usually monthly, for running costs.
• Derrama. A one off levy for something extraordinary, a new lift or a facade repair. It is agreed at the meeting and it is not optional.
• Junta. The general meeting, held at least once a year. You can vote by proxy, which is what most non resident owners do.
• Acta. The minutes. This is the document that proves what was agreed, and the one to ask for.

Before you buy, ask for the debt certificate

The seller must provide a certificate stating that the community fees are up to date. Unpaid fees follow the property, so this is not a formality. Ask for it and read the last minutes while you are at it: they tell you about the levy that is coming.

Why this trade rates worse than any other here

It has the lowest public scores in the whole directory. Some of that is genuine, and some is structural: an administrator carries out decisions taken by a majority of neighbours, and the neighbours who lost the vote review the administrator. It is worth reading these reviews for what they describe, an unanswered email, an account that never arrived, rather than for the score.