1 – How much is it?
2 – What does that include?
3 – If it is a complex than how many other apartments have been sold. If only a small percentage has been sold then investigate further as you do not want to end up paying for all the maintenance costs.
4 – Is it the builder that is doing the maintenance or is it being opted out to a third party company?. If it is being opted out to a third party company then there should be a residential committee for that complex that organizes it all. Ask to speak to the chairman.
What does maintenance charges typically cover?
This is where people really get confused. The role of your estate agent is to deliver the property to you as sold, organize your water and electric meters if you have paid for this and deliver the Title deeds. If you have bought a new property straight from the builder then they are still responsible for a ten year structural guarantee and any internal guarantees that they gave. This is where it ends.
Maintenance covers mostly the following
– Swimming pool maintenance, 99% of the time this is for six months
– Communal water and electric
– Any on site caretakers / guards etc.
– any communal areas such as gym, sauna, Turkish bath etc.
So you see threatening to withhold your maintenance because the estate agent has not fixed your leaky toilet will just result in a tit for tat issue. If you don’t pay your maintenance then he will just withhold services and you can find yourself being on the receiving end of some very angry apartment owners. Officially by law continued lack of maintenance payments can also result in you being took to court by the complex committee.
The aspect of maintaining a complex is a separate law in Turkey called the Condominium Law. All owners of apartment on that complex have clear guidelines in this law as to what and what they can do as a complex together. One question that is often asked to me is will the maintenance costs be increased dramatically year after year?. The answer to this is if your maintenance provider does this then take your contract somewhere else. With a majority vote a complex can decide on which company they will use to do their maintenance thus forcing providers to keep their costs as low as possible.
