Financial review by John (D1)

Side, 12. February 2016

This Newsletter is provided by John Duffy (D1) after assisting the Control Board in early February 2016. This letter is a personal message from John to all homeowners.

1. Introduction

In agreement and cooperation with the Control Board I performed a review of Arcadia contract and financial position.  This report is not an audit but an overview of the situation and deals with the main issue raised. I flew to Side on Saturday 6th Februarys and spoke directly with Fritz Jensen of the management board, Meta Tanis from SPM and Mr Ertek who installed the Wi-Fi and by email to the other members of the management board. I have tried to keep this review short but would welcome any questions. 

2. Background

 2.1 The contract and finance.

The new contract was agreed at the AGM in May 2015, where it was agree that the cost would be 285 TL per month, which was made up as the following 225 TL and 60 TL for reserves to deal with unforeseen issues, for some reason this was not enforced by the management board and the invoice when out for 225 TL, which was 105 TL per month lower than we were paying the previous year.

Later in July it became clear that our previous management Lotus M had hidden costs they were about levy, including a water bill for the previous 2 years, garden tools, extra management costs and (what I believe is disgraceful) refused to paid the staff for the last month they were working for them. They had also failed to get unpaid fees from 2 residents. The total bad debt they passed to us was 17.500 TL.

More or less at the same time we instigated the installation of the Wi-Fi system for 6.900 TL, which cause extra pressure on finances.

Later on in the year, we had a major electrical fault in block C and emergency call out and repair cost us 4.900 TL.

It should have become clear much earlier that we could NOT management, without 60TL and charge should have been levied at the beginning of the contract or shortly after.

2.2 Remaining costs.

As I said in the summary this is not an audit, so all I have assessed is what remaining costs we have to deal with including everyday maintenance.

• Wages for March to June                        22. 000 TL
• Cleaning of pool (Grouting etc.)              2,.500 TL
•                                         Total                      24.500 TL

We have a small amount in the bank, there are still maintenance fees outstanding and some residents have not paid the outstanding 720 TL, therefore (if they pay) we should be able to meet our requirements this year.

2.3 Financial outlook.

If all or the majority paid the base fee and the reserve fee of 720 TL which is outstanding for most homeowners, we should be able to go into the next contract, with a small deficit. The good news is, we should be in better financial position because we have dealt with the bad debt we inherited from Lotus M and face no further costs for the Wi-Fi installation. Therefore we should not face a major increase from the 285 TL per month we are now paying. However, we have to install a toilet next year for the watchmen, however I understand that will cost approx. 3.000 TL, which should be easily manageable in next year’s budget.

2.4 Wi-Fi installation.

Mr Ertek was given a list of all Arcadia email addresses by a homeowner. Subsequently all Arcadia owners received a email from Mr Ertek on The 27^th January stating that Arcadia owed him 6.904 TL for the installation. A further issue concerning the Wi-fi installation is that many homeowners believe it has improved the signal from very poor to reasonable however at least one person said the signal did not improve.

I had a meeting with Mr Ertek where he accepted he made a mistake and the payment was made but logged against another site and he send a apology letter to the Management board, which is available on Web-site. Mr Ertek confirmed the signal had improved and will further improve when the Turkish telephone people do more work outside the site.

3. Recommendations. 

3.1 The management board should direct mail homeowners with the detail of their outstanding amounts owed and the householders should make every effort to paid ASAP.

3.2 The management board should try and give quarterly updates on income on the Web-site.

3.3 Homeowners should deal directly with the management board if they become aware of a problem, and should not pass on the Arcardia email list to them; so as to avoid the concerns and distress we all felt when we received Mr. Ertek e-mail.

Thanks, John (D1)