Last week we were instructed by a client to represent him and attend an Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the condominium apartment hotel at the Black Sea. The AGM was convened by the maintenance company, which claimed also to be the Manager of the complex. The invitation didn’t indicate any details, such as, who represents the maintenance company in its capacity of Manager or even how a third party, not owner, can be a Manager at all.
Legislation discrepancies are carefully kept away from condominium owners
After the discussions on the agenda topics began I had to bring the point on whether the condominium was registered with the municipality according to the requirements of COMA. The maintenance company representatives were clearly confused and surprised since nobody has ever challenged the information they have given without backing it up with documents.
It turned out that there are severe breaches of the legislation:
- The complex consist of three buildings, but the maintenance company claimed that the all three were registered under a single condominium
- The maintenance fees are charged per square metre of the owned apartment, whereas these should be charged per owner/occupier.
Despite making the above points, and quoting the respected articles of COMA I had to meet insults and unprofessional comments, ordering me to keep my comments to myself. It was clear that the maintenance company didn’t want the effective legislation to be known to the owners and thus keep the maintenance fees flowing to the maintenance company. Ignorance will cost fortune to the condominium owners in the future
Whether is is fear or ignorance, none of the owners paid any serious attention to my words. I have tried to explain that non complying the COMA regulations will lead to illegal AGM decisions. Consequently, any owner will be able to appeal the AGM decisions and request from court refund for any monies illegally collected from the maintenance company. Any owner could instruct a solicitor who will file a claim within one month period after the minutes from the AGM are ready. On the top of that if the AGM decisions are declared as illegal and thus void, by the court all other owners will be ordered to pay the claimant legal expenses (court fee, solicitor fee, petrol costs).