What is the responsibility of a Community President?

The Law on Horizontal Property states that all communities must have a President and gives this individual certain duties, obligations and rights. Fundamentally he or she is the official representative of the community of property owners and responsible for dealing with individual members, community issues and legal matters.

A Community President must be elected at a General Meeting and the only stipulations to be considered as a President are that they must be over 18, have full legal competence and be one of the co-owners of the properties within the community.

The minimum term for a President is one year and during this time they have the following duties to perform:

–          Arrange and preside over the General Meeting

–          Take legal action approved by the General Meeting

–          Represent the community in relation to individual members and matters concerning third parties or companies

Many owners don’t want to take the role as it can be a thankless task and set you against other residents. However it’s not so easy to say no to being community president as you’ll see from our recent post. 

Thankfully you don’t have to do it alone, presidents are supported by the committee to help the community run as smoothly as it can. Together, the President and the committee must do the following:

–          Implement agreed actions

–          Make the annual budget

–          Ensure the administrator is performing their duties correctly

–          Take decisions which need to be made on a daily basis

–          Inform the property owners of decisions and changes. This can be done via notices, flyers, emails or a community website

–          Enforcing the rules of the community – this can be via legal channels as well as generally making owners aware of the rules and being on top of any infringements

Using technology correctly can help a community president become a lot more effective and reduce repetitive activities and improve communication between the president and the members. Our community website tool allows Presidents to send newsletters & SMS to owners, committee or defined groups, post past AGM documents and future meeting dates, receive online proxy votes, monitor all activity and view login statistics, create tasks and monitor jobs and connect to your administrator. To find out more visit www.urbytus.com