When a resident won't pay their fair share?

[SteveJ]

I have an apartment in Calis which is one of four with a shared pool. Three owners are British whilst the other is a Turkish guy.
We had some trouble with him in May because he was demanding £400 from each of us for garden improvements that he had made without our consultation or approval. He has also installed a large metal dog cage at the entrance, again without any consent and at one point had three dogs roaming the grounds. We had an acrimonious meeting with him and told him that he had to get rid of the dogs but we did (reluctantly) agree to pay for the garden improvements.

We (the Brits) have paid one third each of the annual maintenance costs for the shared pool but the Turkish guy is refusing to pay his share because he says "he can't use the pool when we are using it".
He lives at the apartment almost continuously whilst we are only there for a week or two at a time. He's being completely unreasonable but I suspect that it's just payback for our refusal to allow him to keep his dogs on site. Just to give you an idea of what he's like - he emptied the pool just before we arrived in May and refused to have it refilled until we paid him what he thought we owed him.

Is there anything that can be done to force him to pay his share? If not, what are our options? Banning him from using the pool would do no good because he'd just wait until we've left.

[Liz 101]

The only recognised route is to form a legal management committee that is registered with the notary's office. That way owners can be taken to court for non payment, which will cost 12% in legal fees. The only problem here is that with such a small site, is it worth it?

We went down this route on our much larger complex 2 years ago, so if you need any further info, pm me

[Jukebox]

It's storys like this that make delighted that we dont have a pool on our site with all the resulting aggro!

[LeeGlo]

This is a recurring problem here, Liz 101's advice is probably the only way, but would he take any notice of a court ruling? I doubt it. Only a suggestion but, if it's only a small pool, agree with the other English owners to fill it in and go to the beach instead, could work out a much cheaper option and cut out the hassle at the same time.

[SteveJ]

Thanks Glo - perhaps we could fill it with sand and have our own beach. I don't think that our grandkids will be too pleased.

[SteveJ]

I've just realised (and before some smarta**se mathematician points it out), the Brits have paid a quarter each not a third each.

[lmaddy]

Do you have a "descion book" or a management plan anywhere this is the legal book that governs your site. Legally if someone is not paying you can impose a 5% late charge per month & believe me this adds up. If they fail to pay up you can take them to court & have their house sold.

[Gorgeous_bird]

Steve let me tell you, you have got it easy. Most of the residents on my complex do not pay the £300 maintenance. There are only a handful that do. This year we have no security because there are only about 7 or 8 that have paid maintenance and I doubt it is enough to keep the pool and the maintenance staff. Next I suspect it will be the pool that will go. There has been an attept to set up a committee but this has collapsed as nobody can see eye to eye, we have some extreme characters. It's an absolute nightmare.

[lynne]

Go the legal route!  It DOES work and it is worth the agony!  We have an apartment on the same complex as Liz and thanks to a lot of hard work and legal advice and court orders, our non paying Turkish (and one British!) neighbours are now paying!

[col]

If you seek advice from a legal Turkish company, you may be told what have in the past. Unless you are in a complex of maybe 8 apts or more, to set up a comittee and take any non payer to court, it could well cost more (as well as a lot of hassle), compared to the remaining owners paying a non payers share. Unfair we know, but this was the advice I was given, just in case we had any problems with a non payer, but for us, we are lucky and have no problems.....as yet.