If you own an apartment in Cyprus it's highly likely that you've seen the damaging effects of those owners in your building who don't pay towards the operation and management of your building.

My name is Russell Flick and I've been professionally managing communal property in Cyprus for over ten years and I'm the founder of the www.CyprusCommunalGuide.com in this video I cover four steps you can take to increase the income into your apartment buildings communal maintenance funds.

Your first step is to remove excuses the owners that are trying to avoid paying will generally look for some form of justification for their actions both to themselves and to others if you remove these excuses it makes it much harder for them to find this justification the most common excuses are a lack of accounts transparency no committee may be improperly electric committee may be you haven't had an AGM in the last 12 months or there's low levels of site maintenance or generally just a general lack of knowledge of the obligations

The second step is to provide a hundred percent transparency it's essential to make all aspects of the communal operations fully visible to the owners include accurate and clear monthly income and expenditure reports record to the AGM committee meetings breakdown of how the fees are calculated

The third step is to provide consistency even the strongest structure can be overcome by constant well-placed and steadily increasing pressure it may sound obvious but always chase an overdue payment as soon as it becomes overdue and have a set schedule of an procedure and make sure you stick to it every time you attempt to contact somebody you should provide a slightly higher level of pressure than the last time you contacted them and make sure to avoid any long periods where you're out of contact with these owners it takes time and effort so you should expect to make twenty to sixty contact that's a phone call email personal visit per debtor before you get a payment

The final step is to know your rights and obligations dealing with owners who don't fulfil their obligations is a difficult process and it's not something you'll fix overnight it takes time and consistency read the regulations and make use of your rights if you don't already have a copy you can get a copy of these regulations by clicking this link: Communal Property Regulations