I have an apartment in La Manga Club, which is part of the Los Miradores community.  Over the years, apartment owners have made alterations to their properties and terraces.  In my case, I have two apartments above me.  One of the apartments has failed to maintain their terrace and the other has undertaken alterations that have affected the expansion joints.  As a result, I have water running down my interior wall when there is heavy rainfall.  There are many other property owners in the same position and in addition, communial parts of the buildings are also being affected.  The community engaged the services of experts to evaluate and identify the problems.  Originally, the community decided that they would repair the sources of the problems and charge the responsible individual owners.  For some reason, this was changed and the community decided to levy every owner to cover the costs.  Consequently, I am having to pay 1,000s of euros in levies to repair my neighbours unmaintained terrace and to put right another neighbours errors.  I have approached the administrator and president regarding this, pointing out that in my humble opinion the community are not allowed to affect property owners rights under the Horizontal Property Law.  In this regard, the HPL states that unit owners must not do anything that will affect other unit owners property and if they do, they have to put it right.  However, the response from the president and administrator is that the community voted to do it and therefore there is nothing I can do.  Any view will be appreciated.

You need to go to your ayuntamiento and make a denuncia.  My mother-in-law has had tons of problems over the years with her community and sadly, it’s the only way to get anything done.

Hi Rubi,

I understand that you are saying that I need to go to the Town Hall and make a complaint.  This is all very well but I really need to know if the community have overstepped the mark in this case.  If one looks at the very simple wording of the Horizontal Property Law, it would appear that they have, but as you probably know, the law is not that simple.  In addition to having had paid 1,000s of euros more in levies, I am concerned about the future.  For instance, if a new owner takes over a property and decides to put up a pergola on his terrace, which then causes damage and water ingress into my property, am I to assume that the community will continue to undertake repairs and charge all owners?