One of the expenses that is added to the family budget each month is the maintenance fee, assigned to the condominium owners who reside in multi-family apartments, governed by the Condominium Law, which in the Dominican Republic dates back to 1958.
This legal framework obliges all residents living in a shared property to pay a fixed fee to maintain the common areas. Article four states, referring to the owners, that each one “shall be obliged to contribute proportionally to the expenses related to the conservation, maintenance, repair, and administration of the common property.”.
It adds that “In the absence of a contrary agreement, this contribution will be proportional to the value of the divided fractions of the property, taking into account its size and location. The percentage set in the regulations that must be registered when the property is subject to the regime of this law may only be modified by the unanimous agreement of all interested parties.”.
In our environment, typically in middle and upper-middle class buildings, maintenance covers the following payment items: concierge who in many buildings also serves as security, water, garbage, energy for common areas, unforeseen expenses, security personnel, administration, gardening, gas, among others.
In many condominiums, there is a system of allocating two fees per year to cover unforeseen events, since the monthly allocation is usually insufficient for the daily repairs that occur in the common areas of the buildings, such as gates, intercom, lights, water tanks, cisterns, and a long etcetera.
In some cases, the administrative work falls to a volunteer who performs the task without any remuneration and who also has to deal with the recklessness and intolerance of unreasonable neighbors who hold him responsible for the "burden" that they must pay out of their own pockets every month, which is everyone's obligation.
This week, El Inmobiliario has presented, and there are still more to come, several studies outlining the reality of this service that causes so much trouble in building coexistence, since residents are usually unaware that it is a legal requirement, while others, even knowing it, disregard this commitment, burdening the budget of those who regularly and religiously fulfill their responsibility.
Surely everyone reading this article has experienced a deadbeat neighbor who disrupts community plans, throws everyone off balance, and besides being a deadbeat, is the most arrogant, the best-looking, and the one with the best car. Oh, and the most demanding
I have personally experienced this reality of a deadbeat neighbor, a landlord, who has gone two years without paying a single cent, while the rest of us suffer the consequences of his irresponsible, inconsiderate, and abusive act, so it is up to all of us to fulfill our obligations from our own spaces with a payment that is regularly over-committed each month.
There is no right to disrupt the peace and quiet of a building for a service that benefits everyone equally, that is an integral part of its normal operation, that helps ensure the long-term viability of the investment, and on which people depend who provide us with support, like when we arrive with groceries and need a helping hand. Pay your maintenance fees and contribute to the peace and quiet.
