Obligations of the administrator, collection from owners and actions in the event of irregularities in a co-ownership

Attorney Nora Pabón Gómez answers questions raised by readers about horizontal property issues.

Considering that, as a new board of directors, we requested the financial statements, contracts, and other documents from the administrator approximately a month and a half ago so we could begin working as a board, she hasn't responded and has evaded us.

We can no longer continue with this person because he has been negligent, and at least some maintenance work still needs to be done. Can we as a Council terminate this service contract? How can we do it?

The functions of each of the administrative bodies are determined in the horizontal property regulations and in Law 675 of 2001. Although they are independent in certain aspects, in most cases they are interrelated to fulfill the objectives of the horizontal property legal entity.

According to the Law , the administrator is responsible for preparing and submitting to the Board the annual accounts, the report for the general assembly of owners, the income and expenditure budget for each fiscal year, the balance sheet for the previous fiscal year, the trial balances, and their respective budget execution. The rule also requires the administrator to maintain the accounting records of the building or complex under his or her authority and responsibility (Article 51, paragraphs 4 and 5 of Law 675 of 2001).

Thus, when the meeting was held, all these documents must have already existed and been submitted to the aforementioned Administrative Bodies, which means that they were already known to the owners and that they must also have been requested from the previous Board of Directors.

These circumstances must be taken into account when evaluating the administrator's work before deciding on his or her removal, in accordance with the type of contract signed with him or her. This will prevent unjust termination, which could result in financial harm to the legal entity of the Horizontal Property, which is made up of all the owners.

In any case, the appointment of the Administrator is the responsibility of the Board, and the Regulations must be consulted to establish the conditions for the removal and replacement of the Administrator.

If the building is new, the provisional administrator must provide the documents required by the Board of Directors for it to begin operating as such. To this end, the administrator may exercise the right to petition the Board, although, if the Board is unable to perform its duties due to a lack of information, it may call an extraordinary meeting.

In the complex where I live, the manager charged us proportionally to the apartments on the 8th floor of tower 2 the value of the gas regulator for said floor because it was damaged.

I believe this device belongs to the common areas and the cost of its replacement should be covered by the common expenses, which are under the administration's control.

Any charge made by the Administrator of a Building to the owners must be subject to the budget approved by the assembly, to the provisions of the Horizontal Property Regulations and to the pertinent norms, in this case, Law 675 of 2001 and the norms that regulate public services, both national and local, Law 142 of 1994, the Resolutions of the CREG (Energy and Natural Gas Regulatory Commission) and others that govern the Entities that provide this service.

It is necessary that the owners of the Apartments on the 8th Floor of Tower 2 request the Administrator to inform them of the origin and legal basis for this charge. If it is for equipment of a common nature and benefit, it would be the responsibility of the entire co-ownership, and if it is private and for individual service, the cost would be assumed by each owner, but directly before the Company providing the service.

Among other things, a qualified technician must examine the internal network to determine whether it is a collective or individual benefit, depending on its location relative to the meter, the apartment, or the common areas. Therefore, the administrator cannot arbitrarily and without legal and technical support make these direct charges from the equipment to specific owners.

Internally, affected users can report the incident to the Board of Directors or even to the Owners' Assembly for the purposes indicated. The situation presented should be analyzed with further information and a technical study, and the respective company should be consulted. The entities responsible for regulating and monitoring the provision of natural gas service are the CREG (Regulation of Natural Gas Regulations) and the Superintendency of Residential Public Services, respectively.

The co-ownership does not handle electronic or manual invoicing; in addition, it has not maintained accounting books, financial statements, or a statutory auditor or accountant for several years.

We've gone through two administrators, and a third has just been appointed. The Assembly has approved the start of the process without accounting support to approve management results for 2024 , and the budget for 2025 has been approved without any support, which is completely illegal.

This makes it clear that the administrator who served until March 20 handled finances as if they were pocket money and without legal support. Despite demanding extraordinary contributions, the balance is always in the red, and to top it all off, the Contingency Fund is never managed.

As the only one of 14 co-owners to demand, to review, and to not eat whole, I am the dissident who is neither heard nor respected and the conflictive one. Please, I need to somehow stop this illegality in the form of an attack on an untouchable entity.

There are already requests, rights of petition, protections, lawsuits for minor causes, but everything persists, and I need to know how I can stop this whole situation, which is becoming unjust and problematic within a framework of illegality that I need to report to the entities that regulate these matters under Law 675.

To date, no official entity has been legally assigned the role of overseeing and sanctioning administrators and boards of directors. There are several provisions in Law 675 of 2001, such as the right to challenge assembly decisions within the time limit established by the General Code of Procedure.

It is also possible to obtain, through the exercise of the right to petition, that the governing bodies of the legal entity of the horizontal property explain their actions to the owners in order to take the relevant action. As for the administrator, he or she is judicially responsible in accordance with the provisions of Article 50 of Law 675 of 2001. It is also possible to request the intervention of the fiscal auditor.

I suggest presenting the case to a horizontal property litigation attorney so that he or she can determine, through a study, whether the actions taken have sufficient grounds and what other actions could be taken, remembering that the owners' assembly is the supreme body of the legal entity, but it must act in accordance with each regulation and the law, and its decisions may be subject to review and annulment by judges.