“All we need is love” - or better: Solidarity

When Costa Natura was established at the beginning of the 80’s of the 20th century, there were big plans in the air - nice apartments, a beautiful holiday resort and vacations for home owners, paid for by a reasonable rental income. The idea was great but unrealistic. Costa Natura, as we know it today, was a premature birth. Because the parent company went bankrupt, different foster parents became involved and they had different attitudes and goals in mind but never the wellbeing of the home owners. The final buyer of the whole property was a British money hunter who started different large projects - including a golf course and an airline - but who failed on a wide front. The owners in Costa Natura were left alone and a lot of their wellbeing depended on the President and Administrator who were in office. Anyway, all great plans were suddenly stopped - Costa Natura was frozen in a status quo which was sealed in 1995 by the rich investor and the President at this time, Mr. D. Cotterell. Nearly 200 apartments were constructed and sold - the majority to individual owners (which was a big advantage under legal aspects because one single address was responsible for all costs and expenditures of the purchased apartment). Unfortunately, several apartments were sold under the fashionable label of "partial ownership" - periods of 2 weeks were more affordable to many owners. Timeshare is something different and much better for all participants, but this insight came too late - we are still fighting for our rights concerning unpaid quotas and abandoned periods - only the Court and the lawyers have a profit from this model.

Between 1995 (when the contract with the British owner-President was concluded) and 2000, the situation was not really frightening but it became possible to try fishing in troubled waters. A first big change was tried in 2001, when several people were fired and a new regimen began which was ended by a solidarity action in 2005. It was a perfect mismanagement based on empty promises - nothing ever became true. There were debts which homeowners had to pay for although it was the exclusive mistake of the rental service; there were very high redundancy payments which owners had to pay because mostly all employees of the time before 2005 were fired without previous notice - it began a costly revival and a very hard time. Moreover, at this very moment the British owner of the plots and assets remembered that a big part of the territory was still his property. He suddenly decided to sell the land at the price of 20 million Euro to a new developer.

Thus, Costa Natura shrank; it remained with its limited rights and territory as it was fixed in the Cotterell papers - unfortunately, even this was not waterproof - the British owner claimed "his" property - a plot of land and buildings inside Costa Natura territory. This legal fight did not stop until today - "divide and reign" always works. There are three big shortages in the whole construct of Costa Natura - the completely outdated Statutes - which are even contradictory to European and Spanish Law, but their update was rejected in 2004 by 3 owners. Further, the absence of a permanent and structured Management - different Administrators were tried out - none of them was successful. The legally required Administrator was confirmed at the Annual General Meeting - but more for the form than for the achievements. The last and perhaps most problematic mistake is the transfer of Manager's tasks to the President.

The President is - according to the Law of Horizontal Property - to be elected annually. But this concerns Communities of Owners without any commercial branch. This person is not responsible for the daily leadership - for this task, a Manager with experience was originally foreseen (see Statutes) and is needed because he would grant continuity. However, the "Management" was split in 2005 into three- the Rental Service, the Restaurant and the Kiosk There was never a real replacement of the "Manager" (although one President tried to do so). The excuses for all refusals were the "high costs involved with such a function" although it might have saved us thousands of Euros in the future. Thus, we ended up with a variety of politics - from a kind of Western Democracy with free elections in 2005 and 2006, followed by a period of relative stability but also indifference or restoration. The separation of the Rental Service from the Community of Owners in 2005 was aimed to safe-guarding owners from possible losses made by the rental agency.

Unfortunately, the new ‘independent’ rental service was not based on knowledge but on stubbornness and laziness. So, two or even three services failed again and resulted in losses of thousands of Euros for owners who rented out through this service. Finally, the last group was fired and a new President, who tried to make a democracy for owners after suffering a self- sufficient dictatorship and several disappointing actions. He hired a commercial company called Time in Spain. This company took care of rentals with relatively good output - the first time after 2001 that we did not lose money but got some reward to cover our quotas. However, the President did not renew their contract and decided to take the rental service back under our roof as a task of the formally independent Association. This was a basic mistake meaning going back to the old and hazy past.

The new crew had to begin again from the scratch and started building clientele, staff and skills once more - although many others had started the same procedures in the past - and all were disappointing or failed - even absconding with all the rental money. This does not foster trust but makes owners with experience suspicious and steers new owners, who have no experience with the practices in Costa Natura in particular and the Spanish courts in general, into a trap. And here we go again...

The origin of the so-called Association was a tax reason - the Community is not allowed to have any incomes others than quotas -- thus, it needed an official tax address for some basically small monies. The Community of Owners and the Association are formally completely separate but they are interwoven - mainly by a personal union of the responsible people. Fortunately or unfortunately, the new Rental Service proved to be financially interesting: The new model made some money for Costa Natura by rentals since 2016. The idea was good but again, it did not work - it fostered greediness and there are always some owners who tried to redirect money into their accounts. The rental service worked increasingly well in 2018 and just before the AGM 2019, a group of owners suddenly came out of the Blue calling themselves New Generation. They sent unsolicited mails to mail addresses which they got from one of their members who had access to private email addresses disrespecting the Data Protection Law. At this very moment we felt again the absence of a skilled and independent Manager - instead of being able to protect owners, some well-known manoeuvres were allowed to start again.

A new ‘Cold War’ began - as the methods reminded of those times; nowadays, one can call it Trumpism or populism. New Generation expected profit and hoped to make their livings out of Costa Natura - which turned out to be wrong when Covid19 arrived in 2020. Since then, the New Generation tries to save whatever can be saved - unfortunately, a majority of owners is absent or withdrew from internal politics and left the stage to people who copy Trump's politics. We can only hope that owners will wake up.

Costa Natura is a beautiful place - even within its heavily reduced area. But it should never become the play ball of people who are selfish or distract from and/or hide our partly bitter history - it might become another expensive wake-up. Covid19 is a tragedy for all commerce but it has some advantage - it can separate grain from the chaff. Costa Natura has a big financial advantage - it is mainly owned by individual owners and as long as these people are able to afford their property, Costa Natura will survive - with reduced activities but with a perspective of revival when the crisis is over. By then, many hotels will have left the stage and we may tell past, present and future naturists: We are still here!

We should never forget: Costa Natura was never intended to be a milking cow for any owner. It was never intended to be a real-estate speculation object where people - even not being naturists - buy apartments to invest into something profitable. We hope Covid19 will correct at least some of these errors.