Forging distribution of common areas in apartment complexes

05 Apr 2012

We have been warning apartment owners that developers use incorrect calculation of common parts, in order to gain majority in the condominium General Meetings. Thus they set their own decisions about which will be the maintenance company and how much that maintenance company will be paid. It’s out of question that they form their own maintenance companies and get the maintenance fees.

For the past year we have been fighting such developer in Bansko. He had built three apartment blocks and have used only the initial common areas calculations for selling the apartments and consequently defining how big is the voting right of each apartment owner. The problem was that the plans of the building were changed 2 times during the construction. This inevitably changes the distribution of the common areas percentage and the subsequent voting rights. However that was never written in the table of common areas. This enabled the developer to “blackmail” the rest of the owners and outvote all General Meeting decision which were not in his own favour.

Hopefully the owners were wise enough to challenge the GM decision in the court. The court expert found the incorrect data and all GM votes counting. The court ruled that the GM decisions were illegal due to incorrect voting rights calculations.

If you are owner in a complex, whether it is in Sea or Mountain resort, be sure to check whether the same scheme is not applied to your property. If you are a victim of the same rip-off, be sure to challenge the GM resolutions in the court. Remember that the challenge need to happen within 7 days, as from the moment the GM has been attended or 1 month if the GM was attended by the apartment owner.