2011 ACCOUNTS

Report on 2011 Accounts

Our monthly community fee income, if all was paid, should be €10,816.47 or €129,797.64 per annum. This monthly figure hasn’t changed since March 2008.

At last year’s AGM held on 25th February 2011 we budgeted to spend €121,760 in 2011. In other words we budgeted to receive at least €121,760 in community fees to cover our expenditure - as we didn’t have a lot of money in the community’s bank account.

As we all know, not everybody pays their community fees.

During 2011 we actually received €122,650.31 in community fees (€890.31 more than the budget although €7,117.33 less than it should have been). The amount received included some repayment of debt as well as payment of normal monthly fees. In addition we only spent €103,527.96 – €18,232.04 less than we budgeted.

As a result of our expenditure being lower than budgetted and our income received being above budget, the community’s financial position has improved considerably. At the beginning of 2011 we only had €5,865.14 in the general account with no Reserve account - even though by law we should have had one. At the end of 2011 we had €24,075.60 in the general account and €5,994.08 in a Reserve account (€30,069.68 in total). An improvement of €24,204.54 on the position last year calculated as follows:

€19,122.35 Excess of community fee income over expenditure (€18,232.04 + €890.31)
€ 4,800.00 Water surcharge paid
€ 282.19 Extraordinary income (mostly for keys and garage remotes)

Report on Owner’s Debts

The total amount owed by owners increased during 2011 from €38,919.30 as at the beginning of Jan to €55,849.99 as at the end of December – an increase of €16,930.69 or 43.5%.

The increase is accounted for as follows:

€7,117.33 shortfall in total annual fee income
€2,370.00 non payment of water surcharge
€5,183.11 10% penalty (as per our Internal Rules) that was charged on all debts over €500
€ 507.64 costs incurred in chasing debts
€1,374.62 legal costs
€ 202.86 bank charges for returning community fees
€ 153.32 adjustment for payment received in 2010 but not accounted for
€ 22.81 Balancing figure

As at the end of 2011, 45 out of 167 apartments (27%) have debts outstanding on them compared with 47 or 28% as at end 2010. Of the 45 apartments, 28 have debts over €500.

In 2011 the committee made the following decisions. Firstly that any owner owning more than €500 should be charged the 10% penalty provided for by our Internal Rules (but which had never been adopted) and secondly to have repayment of any debt over €500 chased through the courts. As at the end of 2011, there were 16 owners (out of the 28 with debts over €500) in the hands of GAE’s lawyer. Once all of the owners with debts over €500 have been processed then the amount at which court action will be taken will be reduced.

At the time this committee took over, legal proceedings had already been commenced against 8 owners and upon enquiry of the lawyers involved we established that these proceedings hadn’t been chased for some years. As a result some of the proceedings had lapsed and had to be restarted. As at the end of 2011, we were still waiting for the paperwork relating to 4 of these files to be handed over from the previous lawyer.

Please let me know if you have any comments on the above or would like further information.