One of the most strongly contested areas of Cyprus Communal Management schemes is the whole issue of fees. Not just who is responsible for their payment, but how much should individual property owners be expected to pay? In the following, we aim to bring some clarification to some of the issues surrounding the collection and payment of these fees.
Parting with our hard-earned cash has never been more scrutiny-worthy than in the wake of recent events and everyone wants to ensure that they are getting the maximum value for money. Poor management and hasty decision-making cost everyone in the end, so residents will always be keen to know whether they are getting the best bang for their bucks.
How your fees might be calculated
Broadly speaking, there are three possible ways to arrive at how your communal fees might be determined. They are; one flat fee for each dwelling, a calculation based on the number of bedrooms and fees based on the floor space of your apartment or villa plot size. However, according to Cyprus communal property law, only one of these methods is strictly legal and that is the latter one.
This is can be a complicated matter as before any charges can be calculated, the committee will need to prepare a budget based on the real cost of maintaining the communal assets of your complex. Only after budgets have been set and such things as the value of emergency (sink) funds have been established, can a viable figure be set.
Responsibility for calculating how much you need to pay
It is the resident’s committee that takes responsibility for assessing how much each resident/owner needs to pay based on accurately forecasting what regular ongoing and future expenditure is likely to be. This is no mean feat, especially for the uninitiated as there can be many unforeseen “bumps in the road” when it comes to costly and unforeseen issues, especially where apartment blocks are concerned.
The key word here is “responsibility” which can quickly turn to culpability when legal problems arise, as the committee members have put their names on a legal document. If only for this reason, committee members should ensure that they either fully understand what their responsibilities are or that a reputable management company is acting on their behalf.
How do these issues affect the communal fees that you pay
The fees that each property owner within a complex pays should be proportionate to how much their floor space or plot contributes to the total of that of all the dwellings added together. In other words, the total communal fees dived by one square metre times the individual’s floor space or plot size.
Only by making informed and accurate budget forecasts will your committee be able to ensure that the fees they levy match the real-world cost of running the complex.
While undercharging is a recipe for a dilapidated and shoddy complex in the not too distant future, overcharging is likely to lead to dissension and the slow or even none payment of crucial fees.
Making the payment of communal fees easy
Here at Lee Property Services, we have years of hands-on experience in all matters of communal complex budgeting and management. Talk to one of our expert team today on 23831194 and banish your Cyprus complex management headaches for good
