On 31 October 2017, the Urban Development Conservation Entity of Planes del Rei sent an information letter to all property owners.
Its content marks an important stage in the history of the development: the EUCC announces that it no longer has the financial resources required to continue its conservation activities and that its employees will cease working from 1 November 2017.
This decision comes just over a year after the ruling of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia of 21 July 2016, which had ordered the dissolution of the EUCC of Planas del Rey.
In simple terms: the 2016 court ruling had ordered the dissolution of the entity. By the autumn of 2017, that legal dissolution was beginning to have a very concrete consequence on the ground: the organisation that had continued to carry out part of the maintenance of Planas announced that it was ceasing its activities.
Financial reserves reduced to €3,927.51
In its letter, the EUCC states that, as of 31 October 2017, its available funds had fallen to €3,927.51.
According to its representatives, this financial situation no longer allowed the entity to continue the conservation and maintenance activities it had been carrying out within the development.
The EUCC therefore announced the dismissal of its employees and stated that they would no longer carry out maintenance work in Planas from 1 November 2017.
This represented a significant change for property owners: regardless of the legal debates that had surrounded the status of the development for several years, certain tasks that had until then been effectively carried out by the EUCC were coming to an end.
Unpaid fees cited as one of the causes
The EUCC also explains that its financial situation had long been weakened by difficulties in collecting fees from some property owners.
According to the letter, the procedures for recovering these unpaid amounts were lengthy and difficult.
Following the July 2016 TSJC ruling ordering the dissolution of the entity, some owners had also reportedly stopped paying their fees because of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the EUCC.
This is the interpretation given by the EUCC representatives in their letter. The document shows how they viewed the causes of the entity’s financial decline, but it does not, by itself, determine the respective responsibility of the different parties involved.
The 2016 dissolution and its consequences
The letter naturally refers back to the ruling issued by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia in July 2016.
The EUCC points out that, following that decision, uncertainty remained over the practical arrangements for its disappearance and the future organisation of Planas del Rey.
This distinction is important.
The 2016 ruling ordered the dissolution of the EUCC. It did not, by itself, mean that all the infrastructure and services of Planas del Rey were automatically transferred to the Town Council on a specific date.
By October 2017, the essential question was therefore no longer simply whether the EUCC should disappear — its dissolution had already been ordered by the courts — but how the period following its disappearance should actually be organised.
A letter that is also highly critical of the Town Council
Beyond announcing the end of its activities, the letter contains very strong criticism of the political handling of the situation.
The EUCC representatives particularly criticise Pratdip Town Council for not providing the response they had expected following the dissolution of the entity.
They also criticise disagreements between the different municipal political groups and consider that these divisions prevented a solution from being found for Planas del Rey.
The letter uses particularly strong language on several occasions and presents the situation as a political failure.
These assessments must be placed in context: they represent the position expressed by the EUCC representatives at the moment when the entity was ceasing its activities. They are not judicial or administrative findings.
The question of municipal revenue
In its letter, the EUCC also states that Pratdip receives more than €400,000 each year from IBI property tax relating to Planas properties and from subsidies linked, among other factors, to Planas residents registered in the municipality.
However, the document does not provide budgetary or accounting data that would make it possible to verify this figure.
This statement should therefore be understood as an argument put forward by the EUCC as part of its criticism of municipal policy, rather than as a figure established by the document itself.
What should be remembered
The letter of 31 October 2017 is an important document for understanding how the situation in Planas del Rey developed after the court-ordered dissolution of the EUCC.
It establishes several very concrete points:
- the EUCC announces that it has only €3,927.51 remaining;
- it considers that it can no longer continue its conservation activities;
- its employees are dismissed;
- the maintenance work carried out by the entity is due to cease from 1 November 2017;
- the EUCC representatives consider that unpaid fees and the uncertainty following the 2016 court ruling contributed to this situation.
In simple terms: 31 October 2017 marks the transition from a dissolution ordered by the courts to a much more concrete reality: the EUCC announces that it no longer has the means to continue the day-to-day management activities it was still carrying out in Planas del Rey.
However, the disappearance of the entity did not, by itself, resolve the question of who would from then on be responsible for the various tasks it had previously performed. This issue would continue to shape the years that followed.
Jim – La Tribune de Planas
Original document
Information letter sent to Planas del Rey property owners on 31 October 2017 by the Urban Development Conservation Entity of Planes del Rei, signed by its president, Christian Peuman, and its secretary, Marc Laloyaux.
