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What are the maintenance and running costs of my property?
We very strongly recommend that you open a Spanish bank account when buying a property here; we will guide you in doing so and advise you how to make all the necessary arrangements. Your visits here may be sporadic, at different times of year and for varying durations. The best way to ensure that your affairs are being managed properly is to set up standing orders with your bank to make sure that if a bill arrives while you are away it does not languish in the mail box for five months. There is nothing worse than arriving from a tiring journey to find your water or electricity has been cut-off! We suggest that you open a “non-resident” bank account, which also gives you complete flexibility to transfer monies of whatever currency between Tenerife and your home country. You should make sure that there is sufficient money in your account at any one time to honour any bills which might be presented to your bank.
You will probably find that the expense of the up-keep of your property compares very favourably with what you might have experienced before. Most properties are part of a “community” of properties and owners. That is to say they form part of a complex of apartments, of whatever size which shares a communal entrance, passageways, gardens and extra facilities such as a pool and sun terrace. Each community is run by a committee composed of all the owners of each apartment and normally meets once a year to review the maintenance and development of the complex and to set the community charge. This is the fee which is paid by each owner towards the general costs of running the complex. This normally ranges between £400 and £2,000 per year, depending on the facilities which are shared and might be divided into monthly, quarterly or six-monthly payments – depending on each community. The committee of each complex appoints a local administrator which has an office here to manage its affairs. The administrator is responsible for collecting community charges, keeping owners informed of committee meetings and may also be charged with carrying out gardening, pool maintenance and general repairs. We will advise you where to find the administrators for your complex, who should be able to put you in contact with the elected President of the community. He should be able to answer any questions you have about your complex.
Some communities also make their own arrangements for the billing and payment of water, electricity and rubbish collection bills. Others expect these to be paid separately. We will advise you what is required in your case. If your property does not form part of a complex then everything
will be payable directly to the relevant company.
It is very difficult to give any more general advise about the up-keep and running of your property as each one is so different! We are always happy to provide a detailed breakdown for any specific property, on request.