Would you buy a unit at Orilla del Mar, Cabarete?

There are many apartments for sale in that complex, does that answer your question?

Now why would a genuine new op to this forum begin his second post with an insult? - for no reason. I suspected this thread was not a genuine query. You are already an established owner at ODM, so you know very well the bad situation there and you have created this thread to test the market and opinions out there. You are also aware of what you did yesterday at the AGM of ODM, which caused a lot of owners to get up and leave. The dreadful death at ODM was dealt with by myself and kept quiet so as not to upset other owners, so how would a potential buyer know of this.
For the rest of forum members I will explain what happened yesterday at our AGM. About 90% of owners did not want the present committee to continue. Many good reputable RE agents will not show ODM for sale because of what has been happening there. The committee knew they would probably not be voted in again, so they made a motion that they must be voted back on as one or none would stand. There was a very angry response by owners and many walked out. As I and others were about to do the same, Mr Brea, the lawyer, who was present said if the remainder of us walked out, that wished to, then there would be no quorum and the committee would be able to continue. It was a very cunning move and will be remembered. When one owner asked for a break to discuss this with the other owners this was refused. In other words for the second year running at an AGM you controlled the vote. As many there were saying (or rather shouting) this was not democratic, but you didnt care as long as you got "the reins of power" again.
You know very well our generator has seen its days and is again in for repair, it has broken down about so many times in the last six months alone and because of the waste of a great deal of money by you and the rest of the board, all our $81,000 special assessment fees we paid last year, has gone and we still dont have a generator, we are paying $200-250 per week to rent a smaller one which has also broken down a few times. In fact this one was so dangerous one of the guards was scalded in his face when it overheated, as he tried to fill it with water w.o. waiting for it to cool.
The complex is well maintained???? here we are at the busiest season and owners and renters have about 8 beds and chairs to use between them. The toilets are filthy and broken, I could go on and on. Everyone is happy there??? PLEASE, so many of the renters have remarked they will never rent there again and the majority of owners are not happy at all and we are still having to pay out.
I own apartments there and am greatly saddened by the way it has deteriated this past year. As to your 4 apartments for sale, 3 of those are yours arent they? hence this thread testing the response, there are many more than that for sale, but good RE agents wont show all up for sale in one complex on their websites, as this is not productive for obvious reasons. Ask some of those owners why their apartments have been up for sale so long for a good price on a beautiful beach and they never seem to have viewings?? I have a feeling after yesterdays dreadful meeting there will be more up for sale. So you have bitten yourselves in the bum, and your investments will go down, its just sad you are affecting so many good decent people and their investments. See, once again your greed has got the best of you by making this thread. I wasnt going to post anything about the death, the robberies or the state of ODM, but your dishonest query caused me to reply. You dont even live in this great country, you dont know how it works, or how people on this forum that live here back each other up when they need help. All you see is money and power. Cant take that with you, as the saying goes, only your soul..... and boy is yours stained.

But never mind the gardens look lovely..... as you said.....

I want to thank a very good well respected poster on here for all his help and advice regarding this bad committee, before this AGM, and the other great people who did their best. He has lived and posted on here for many years, again thank you, it was greatly appreciated.

Touch? Ladybird another Bobbit(pine) loses a piece.

May be he is trying to bring values down to buy cheap?

Question is : "Would you buy a unit at Orilla del Mar, Cabarete?"

Answer is : "No!"

Reason is : "The owners cannot get it together to get a functioning and effective management committee together."

You guys should put your energy into fixing this thing instead of trying to fight it out here.

Touche to you gmiller, hes already been doing that in a very underhanded way with owners. Thats one of the reasons we tried to vote on a new committee. It would be interesting to know and to help other condo associations in the future, how we could have stopped them taking the action they did? Bear in mind the lawyer was present.

Chris,

The good decent owners all had quite a few meetings before the AGM to prepare, so we did try to get them out, but no way did we expect this very sly cunning move of theirs. I hope you dont close this thread before we find the answers as similar things have happened in other complexes and one board member has disappeared with a lot of money, so it would be a good advisory to other apartment owners in other complexes.

Too late to edit, but the board member that has obsconded was not ODM on that occasion!

I hope this thread continues and that we learn how things get resolved.

I do not understand what really happened: Did the meeting end because of lost quorum due to the walk out? Did the old management get voted in after all?

I am an owner at Cita del Sol where we also experienced failed management about three years ago. With help from Dr. Julio Brea, we have worked hard to bring the owners together to solve our problems. Dr. Brea was very helpful. We now have a new convention, we have implemented clear accounting, purchased a new planta, and the owners who rent are beginning to actually make some money. We have a few owners who have not paid their fees but we are proceeding against their units and will finally collect from the sale of these units at auction.

What I learned from our experience was the importance of assembling a group of owners able to look at the overall interest of the project as a whole instead of their narrow self interests. I was amazed at how difficult it is for some owners to see anything but their personal interests. And then there are the bitter personality conflicts that inevitably arise...

I wish the good owners at ODM the best of luck and urge you to work hard. There is light at the end of the tunnel!

Actually with all the unrest going on some might see this as a buying opportunity. Asking 70-100K for beachfront condo in disrepair is not bad. Eventually the committee will have to get their act together.

No disrespect to Orilla del Mar but I wouldn't personally buy a condo unit or any unit anywhere where I didn't control my own fate. Knowing that you are not master of your own destiny, that you have to work with the vagaries of other owners with different priorities (some resident so it is their home, some just in it for rental money or for resale), that you might need to work at motivating other owners to enable them to work co-operatively, that many of these owners are other foreigners (which is what we left our original countries to get away from)..............just seems like heaping up the potential hassle, which maybe is NOT what people moved here for.

Acquiring either a plot of land where you can build or a home already built and not requiring enforced co-operation with others seems to me a way of reducing the obstacles of other human beings. Why load up the scales with potential negatives when you don't have to? Sounds like too much hard work to me.

Having said that, I hope these people can work it out, whatever it is that is going on & it is nice to see the optimistic experience of Island777.

Orilla del Mar really is a lovely complex and will be once the problems are resolved. We will be having new armed security within a matter of days, thanks to Amber and staff changes and the generator is in for repair. The problems are not with the administrator, Amber. I have already explained well enough where the problems lie. I had a large property before and thought the expense/problems would be a lot less moving into one of my condos, but Lambada is right, you cant control you own destiny in a complex, and boy do I miss the privacy and peace and quiet.
But again Bobet, I dont believe you as to who you are, you have posted too many things that could only be known to owners. I think you have realised your mistake that you have damaged your own investments by your original post and are surprised at the response, it isnt what you expected. But then again you have underestimated the intelligence of both owners and folks on here, as you did before at ODM. You also didnt expect yet another owner couldnt be bullied by you. Thank you DR1.

Please enlighten me, why do you keep calling ladybird ladybug? lol ... What's up with this? Are you having fun or what?

As evidenced by the posts of persons involved in Orilla del Mar, I would certainly not invest in that place. There are lots of condos on the market, it is a buyers market. Besides price, you want to consider whether there is a good set of rules, whether they are enforced, and enforced evenhandedly, whether there is a good administration and whether it has the support of the owners, and whether there is harmony. Lacking any of those, and Orilla del Mar seems to lack several, I would not recommend to anyone to invest there.

None of these lacks are easy to repair. Go some place where you won't be confronted with discontent and political intrigue.

Ladybird said:

The dreadful death at ODM was dealt with by myself and kept quiet so as not to upset other owners, so how would a potential buyer know of this.

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I had that news in English on my website on November 30th. - a brief translation of this, the original source article
El Nacional, la voz de todos

so the OP (original poster) could have read it either in Spanish or English. Sorry, I didn't realise it was being hushed up. Nor did El Nacional.

IF the OP is real, then he asks a lot of questions and points out lots of real concerns. He/she may own or not but still has the same questions that Ladybird has/has not addressed in full.

Ladybird, not to attack but based on past posts, has not been fully upfront and forthcoming with all her posts and clearly has an investment and living situation that she wishes to maintain and better. Very understandable. But... with this current post and past; what ever happened to the "Papa B" post with the great shoot out last year? The one that YOU had to go get security more shells for the guns" Perhaps I missed it.. and most likely did. (After so many years reading DR1, I tend to skip a lot of.... stuff.)

FOR those that wish to buy/rent... The atty. mentioned, Dr. Brea is with DR1 recommended firm, is the man to retain.

BTW: Good post Ken.

Regards, Ringo

Ken said:

As evidenced by the posts of persons involved in Orilla del Mar, I would certainly not invest in that place. There are lots of condos on the market, it is a buyers market. Besides price, you want to consider whether there is a good set of rules, whether they are enforced, and enforced evenhandedly, whether there is a good administration and whether it has the support of the owners, and whether there is harmony. Lacking any of those, and Orilla del Mar seems to lack several, I would not recommend to anyone to invest there.

None of these lacks are easy to repair. Go some place where you won't be confronted with discontent and political intrigue.

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Well Ken, would you suggest a condo like El Neptuno? My understanding is that harmony at Neptuno is high, or is that highly lacking?

Oh heavens, I love it .. the north coast condo associations are duking it out! Come on guys, somebody needs to make some money on this one, or shall we start a 'condo association of the year' event?

Labybug, you seem to decide what to 'supress' and what to 'publish'. What do you think? LOL! Keep it in Harmony now OK. AlaninDR said so!