El Hacho Action Group

 Over 300 property owners in the area known as El Hacho, Pto. De La Duquesa, Manilva, have formed a “Plataforma” (Association) to fight taxes imposed by a new Entity established by the Ayuntamiento of Manilva. 

The Association plans to take the matter to court if the Entity is not dissolved. 

This website has been set up to keep all Association Members and residents informed about developments. 

QUICK OVERVIEW

The Entity intends to levy new taxes to owners in El Hacho in addition to existing Rates (IBI) & Community fees which will mean up to a 70% tax increase (as much as €1,400 p.a.) for some owners.   

The taxes will be used to cover maintenance of the area including road cleaning, street lighting, sewerage & environmental activities such as maintenance of the flowerbeds etc. 

These activities should be covered by the taxes already paid by owners i.e Rates (IBI) & Community Fees.   

The Entity was set up in November 2006 with the agreement of the Ayuntamiento & selected individuals but without informing all the owners of El Hacho & inviting their comments as required by law.  

Additionally, the Entity has no termination date which is against the law; has no specific functions other than normal maintenance and can raise it’s taxes at any time – OWNERS BE WARNED!   The area of El Hacho, targeted for the new taxes, is also contentious in that it includes some, but not all, of the communities next to the golf course…...the burden of the additional tax payment will therefore fall to a few for the benefit of many!  

 WHY THE ASSOCIATION HAS BEEN SET-UP

The Association (Plataforma de los Vecinos de El Hacho) has been set-up to fight the EUC through legal procedures.   Lawyers have provided a 170 page report detailing why the EUC was set-up illegally and why we have the chance to take the matter to court. Our reasons for establishing the Association and fighting the EUC are:

1.     We already pay taxes to the town hall to cover maintenance of services such as street lighting, road cleaning, sewers, etc. via our rates (IBI).   The EUC charge is in addition to our normal local tax and our Community Fees - we are therefore paying twice for the same thing.

2.     Only some communities in the area of  ‘El Hacho’ are included in the EUC – so only some of us are paying for the services that are used by all of us e.g  The present limit of the EUC does not include Marina Duquesa (on the left of the port).  It is also not clear whether there are any other areas / urbanizations in Manilva which are being targeted in this way. This is clearly unfair to those of us in El Hacho.

3.     Developers have a legal responsibility to complete services to an acceptable standard at the time of construction.   The Town Hall then has a legal obligation to adopt the services once they have been completed by the developers. Only then can a EUC be formed.  In fact, in the area of El Hacho, these services have not been adopted and therefore the EUC should NOT HAVE BEEN FORMED at this stage.

4.     The EUC has been formed before it was necessary so that OWNERS will be charged FOR WORK THAT HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED BY THE DEVELOPERS.   

5.     The EUC, on our behalf, has agreed to ASSUME DEBTS AND LIABILITIES INCURRED BEFORE THE FORMATION OF THE EUC. Why?

6.     These debts include €396,000 for work claimed by developers BUT NOT PROVEN TO HAVE BEEN DONE as no invoices exist for the work claimed, in fact, it is not even clear if any work was done.

7.     The EUC can and will increase fees annually and forever. This is considered illegal in Spain as entites of this sort always have a finite time limit.

8.     The EUC will inform the Land Register that the owner of your property is committed to pay EUC taxes so that new owners are aware of their obligations. However this has not yet been done as the EUC needs to be formally registered as an ‘Entidad’ first.  This has also not yet been done - therefore the EUC does not officially exist!

9.     The EUC was formed “by and for the owners” but the owners were not informed individually of the meeting at which the EUC was formed by the Town Hall. Only some Presidents were advised.   At the meeting, all the officals of the EUC were elected and a budget accepted “on behalf of the owners”.  THIS HUGE INJUSTICE indicates the contempt in which the Town Hall views the owners. An ‘Entidad’ has been formed on our behalf without us being informed.

10.  The EUC has voted itself an initial budget of €648,000 which includes some €90,000 per annum in office and admin charges alone.

11.  We believe this ‘Entidad’, their budget and their charges to be illegal and that the maintenance of services should be covered out of existing local taxes which we already pay to the Town Hall.

12.   The only solution is to take legal action.  Our attempts to seek a more amicable solution and to dissolve the EUC have failed.If you feel as strongly as we do, join our campaign.  We will only have a chance of winning if we have as many owners as possible fighting with us.  So we would kindly ask you to sign the inscription form and to deposit in the Association’s account, the fee of €45 per property  (See Assocation Inscription).