The garbage bag leaks, people who do not own it enter the pool, the parking space is used as a pantry and the landing as a hall, the defaulters, the noise, the works without consent or smoking in the elevator. Neighborhood communities are an inexhaustible source of problems, conflicts, disagreements, reproaches and, sometimes, even physical confrontations.
There are endless issues that occupy and concern the residents, from the most logical, such as trying to control the rise in energy costs that drown their bills, to the most Martian. Many of these disagreements end up in court. In fact, the last important sentence of the Supreme Court, from the month of May, allows the communities to prohibit the use of the pool to owners of garages and premises that do not have a house in the building.
Property administrators are witnesses —sometimes punching bags— of the complaints and conflicts in those micro-worlds called communities of owners, where coexistence is not always easy. Among the main problems that give rise to the crash are noise. “It is a recurring theme, especially if students live or are tourist flats, because the rest of the neighbors have a work routine and it is annoying,” says Carmela Lavandeira, vice president of the Galician Property Administration Association. The works and the music are assured complaint. And the vice president of the Association of Property Administrators of Aragon, María Antonia Bielsa, adds the clashes between neighbors due to the noise made by the loose animals in the courtyards of lights.
Luis García, president of the Association of Property Administrators of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is well aware of the problems generated by vacation homes. “The high traffic of people outside the building causes discomfort, in addition to an overuse of common areas. In some cases, the placement of boxes for receiving keys is usually regulated within the statutes in order to achieve better maintenance of the property, even determining a higher fee.
The noises are difficult to solve. If they are for a tourist flat, the only thing you can do is check that you have the authorization to carry out the tourist activity. There are those who have grown older. Lavandeira remembers a neighbor who built a bunker room with plasterboard and rock wool, although in this case it was because of constant drinking in the area. Others decide to sell the house and put land in between. The rest have no choice but to continue complaining, day after day, to the annoying neighbor or neighbors and to the property manager.
The pool, a source of conflict in summer
A classic of every summer are the problems related to the swimming pool, a private element of the urbanization. Sometimes “children’s birthdays are celebrated in the pool and 30 children appear,” says Lavandeira. “It’s annoying and there are a lot of complaints and, besides, it’s not allowed,” she insists. It is common in farms with small pools where it is not mandatory to have a lifeguard who can control who accesses the premises. In fact, this is another of the most frequent doubts among neighbors: Is it necessary to have a lifeguard in the community pool? There are no state regulations, but rather each autonomous community dictates its own regulations. In Madrid, for example, if there are more than 30 homes, it is necessary to have a qualified lifeguard service.
Luis García points to non-consensual works as another source of conflict. In addition, “due to its complexity and cost incurred, it is an issue that usually ends up in court,” says the also president of the Canarian Council of Colleges of Property Administrators. Paying spills also drives the neighbors crazy. It is not for less, although they could avoid it if they attended the meetings. Lavandeira realizes that fewer and fewer people attend these calls in which the agreements are adopted and the spills that bind everyone are approved, also those who do not show up. “In the last one I had there were 12 neighbors and there were only 3″. The pandemic has accelerated this trend.
The elevator is another magnet for problems, especially when there are those who want it and there are those who don’t. In addition, the removal of architectural barriers is one of those issues that usually ends up in court. There are several cases. The Provincial Court of Tarragona, in a ruling dated February 24, obliges a community to install a stairlift that allows access and exit from the community pool. A community also went to court because the elevator did not reach the storage rooms or the basement and it was a problem for those over 70 who lived in the building.
Debtors without a pool
That there are delinquent neighbors who do not pay the community fees or the spills, but make use of the community facilities, such as the swimming pool, is something that annoys and irritates the majority. “Neighbors always tell you to cut off or limit common services and until now it was something that could not be done,” says Bielsa. The bill to promote rehabilitation contemplates that its use can be prohibited to defaulters. The board of owners can agree on dissuasive measures, such as the temporary deprivation of the use of services or facilities. Along with delinquency, another of the issues that most worries residents is illegal occupation, says García.
Among the recurring conflicts is the issue of garbage. “There are neighbors who leave it on the landing after eating and lower it into the container in the established time slot (at seven or eight in the afternoon) and that generates odors and sometimes it drips,” says the vice president of the College of Property Administration from Galicia.
Placing a shoe cabinet on the landing or a cabinet with vases and plants, as if it were the hall of the house, is another reason to discuss, more than anything because it is a common element and not private and they are evacuation exits. There are other neighbors who use their garage space as a pantry. “They put up a cabinet that serves as a warehouse to store bottles of oil or they leave mattresses and bed bases that are left over.” Some turn the storage room into a room for their son, a room to play drums or an improvised carpentry workshop, the hobby of one of the residents of a community managed by Lavandeira. The noise of the jigsaw reached the floors.
María Antonia Bielsa talks about the car parks in communities of the sixties or eighties, where the spaces have adjusted sizes. “The neighbors invade other squares, your car has to stand out and conflicts are generated”. And she rescues another conflicting issue: claims and breakdown repairs. “The neighbors insist that you have to call the community insurance to cover a leak when you know in advance that it is a private pipe and that it is not going to cover it, but that implies moving a professional and raising the premium” . In addition, she adds, “if they take time, it’s always the administrator’s fault.”
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