Hello folks. I’ve just joined this forum. I’m not an ex-pat but we have a second home in Gran Canaria and I need some advice.

First, here’s the background:
We bought a studio 2 years ago in a large complex (300 studios, approximately 200 owners). We knew at the time that the Quote (community charge) was high (over 170 euros per month) but I was told it was temporarily high due to some major repairs and I believed it. The rate is permanently high and now I know why it’s high.  The average quote for similar complexes in the same area is just 90 Euros per month.

The Administrator is an owner of several of the studios (that apparently allows him to act as administrator without any qualification) and he has had that position for over 20 years. He draws a salary of approximately 60,000 Euros per year (estimate based on the published administrative personnel costs (E108,000) split between Administrator and Accountant (the two administrative personnel).

The President, Vice President and the 3 other board members enjoy all-expenses-paid trips to Gran Canaria two or three times per year at our expense for their Board Meetings.

I don’t know what other financial irregularities go on but I know that the examples above are legal. The President and administrator are very secretive. They are crafty too. They announce the General Assembly with just a few days notice knowing that few will be able to get to the meeting. If there is any dissent voiced at the meeting, the minutes are written in such a way as to make the dissenter look stupid.

It is quite difficult to get to know who the other owners are, but I’m in regular contact with about 6 others. All of them say that they don’t want to get into the politics of the place, they just want to sell and to get out (there are an awful lot of these studios for sale currently - I was offered one recently for 59,000 Euros which is painful after we paid 82000 for ours). Nobody can sell because the problems of the complex are locally too well known. But I digress. Many of the owners are elderly, they have no idea that the quote is abnormal, they rarely visit and they give their proxy votes to the president.

I did manage to get to the General Assembly last year and 60 owners were present. That gives some indication of the level of dissatisfaction and yet the Board won all the votes because of the proxy votes.

During our two years, there has not been any election for president or officers. Nobody has put themselves forward. I suspect that’s mainly apathy and old age but also fear.  I have personally had two letters from the administrator threatening court action against me and I’ve received another two other threatening letters. Of the 6 other owners I’ve spoken to, 5 have also received threatening letters. I won’t go into details of the threats here but they relate to alleged infringements of the community rules.

What I’m planning to do
I need to get the owners talking to each other. To have a channel of communication. That way we can compare notes. We can reassure each other that we are not the only ones getting threatening letters. We can find someone to challenge for the post of president get a professional administrator. But we can only do it by acting together and currently, the corrupt administration have the upper hand because we don’t know who the other owners are.

I have therefore set up a forum (much like this one) and next week, I will present the administrator with a letter in 3 languages to be sent out to all owners, inviting them to take part in our online forum. I was recently speaking to the president of another complex and she told me that any member of the community has the right to write a letter to all other members.

The questions
I know that the administrator will attempt to prevent me sending the letter to all the owners. It is he who has the list of names and addresses. Can anyone refer me to the law governing this? If I have a copy of the law in Spanish to show him then it will be harder for him to argue. I presume that I will have to pay for somebody’s time and for postage. Any pointers to what would be a reasonable charge for this would be welcome.

And… I know that it’s going to be an uphill struggle to get the apathetic majority off their backsides. Any advice would be welcome. I need to make that letter really persuasive.