What is a Special Assessment in a Community of Owners and how much should You Pay?

What expenses must a community of owners pay?

This is where the concept and object of the word special assessment begins. Each neighbor or owner will be in charge of making a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual contribution of the expenses derived from the maintenance and expenses, both ordinary and extraordinary, that originate from the use of the facilities, common areas, etc. The extraordinary ones being known as special assessments.

What are the ordinary expenses of a community of owners?

All the natural expenses that are inherent to a building and that are known as fixed: electricity bill, water bill, basic maintenance of the property, daily cleaning of the community, management of the concierge, property manager. Community expenses that, as in any home, must be contemplated at a, let's say, neighborhood level.

What are extraordinary expenses or special assessments?

All those financial contributions that are not ordinary payments and that, therefore, will suppose an extra expense in the natural accounts of the community of owners. All these expenses, as is natural, arise from unforeseen events, exceptional situations or urgent needs that the community must face at a certain moment, for example, damage caused by rain, a fire, serious breakdowns in elevators or water pumps caused by some unforeseen incident.

These special assessments can be identified in building rehabilitation processes and the corresponding works. Such as, for example, the cases of aluminosis in some old buildings.

They may also derive from the legal costs involved in the claim of fees to one or more delinquent neighbors.

Even, for the compensation expenses that correspond to an owner who has been affected by incidents that occurred within the community of owners.

As is natural, these special assessments suppose, in most cases, enormous conflicts between the neighbors of the neighborhood community. And everything related, logically, to the lack of money or foresight of the community administrators.

If the community of owners has not raised enough money to undertake necessary works, it will become necessary to claim that money in a collection manner from the neighbors. This generally increases the level of suspicion among the neighbors who do pay their fees over those who do not, and, due to high delinquency, those who definitely comply with their obligations have to pay more amounts.

What is the maximum that can be demanded in a special assessment?

These special assessments can be general for all the neighbors or particular for specific cases according to the type of community and the situation that must be solved within it. All this because the special assessment can be determined by coefficients assigned to the use of common areas or by concept of proportionality or equal parts.

• If in the neighborhood community it has been decided to distribute the special assessment expenses in equal parts, without taking into account the particular use of the common areas (something that in urbanizations with a lot of influx of foreign owners is usually more complex), then the expense will be distributed among all at a proportional level.
• For the case of the option of a coefficient for use of common areas, this data will be extracted from the own title deed and will be established based on the surface area of the dwelling. Therefore, those who have dwellings with a larger useful surface will pay more than those who have smaller surfaces.

Finally, the period in which the community could judicially claim the non-payment of the receipts to an owner is, as of October 7, 2015, 5 years.