Community fees/Court action

To be honest, the two issues are separate and your community fees should be paid. End of. The sewage issue, obviously I can only advise based on what you say, so effectively only one side of the story, but my suggestion would be to take everything that you have in writing to a lawyer and deal with it that way if your president is being unreasonable. Playing devils advocate, are you certain that it is a community responsibility and not an owner issue? Presidents and management committees are there to oversee agreed budgets, not to be hotel managers, care home workers or nursemaids. Just be certain that you are correct and not trying to lay the blame on the wrong people before committing to legal expenditure...

Good luck.

Hi AndyP

Thanks for the reply. My apartment is a semi sotano. There are 5 apartments above mine. All the drains come down to my apartment then though to my patio. There is absolutely no doubt that the drains belong to the community. As stated before the property was a local. I sought a change of use to an  apartment all legal with architectural certification. This was in 2000 the President was totally against the planning consent from Town Hall. But after 5 years the community at the AGM  approved it. Since this time the president as waged war on me. The previous President even broke into my apartment at 2am and  physical assulted me.  

OK, but I'm not the person to be convinced as I have no influence. Question one for me would be are the drains actually community owned? Where do they originate? Do they contain rainwater from the roof or a terrace or are they from inside one of the five apartments? If so, which one, as the owner of that apartment is likely to be the person who is responsible. Obviously I can't answer any of those questions but that is where you need to go with this. If somebody, president or not, has broken into your apartment and assaulted you I'm assuming that you called the police and have a crime report as that is again a separate issue entirely and will be or should be pursued as such. The bottom line is that you can't just join everything together and treat it as one issue. Assault and drains need to be dealt with separately as do the community fees. You can't withhold them because there is a blocked drain that may or may not be community owned and certainly not because somebody, even the president, assaulted you. I have to be honest, it all sounds like quite a strange set up. If it were me and I knew I had a strong case then I would be talking to a lawyer if I couldn't resolve the problem(s) in a business-like and amicable way.

Good luck!

Sam you really need to talk to a lawyer here in Spain that speaks English.  I am not sure why you are asking the general public what to do in such a complex situation as the one you are in?

If you do not know of any lawyers then I can refer you to a couple.  Then you could talk to them and see what they will charge to help you out here. 

I do not see you will get off without paying someone for help now that your situation has gotten so dire.

Kerri