This is a summary of the work carried out and being carried out by the interim owners association:
1. Currently we have 5 separate community boards, each of whom have appointed a Chairperson. At present ECM channel all communication to the Chairpersons and vice versa. The Chairpersons are then disseminating that information to their Boards. However, we are facing a key issue (which has been discussed at our most recent meeting) in that we have a complete lack of information that allows us to communicate with the other owners (i.e. no contact details have been given to us). Therefore, we have decided to publish updates through the Arabian Ranches community websitewww.arabianranchescommunity.com.
2. We are pushing very hard to get the JOPD drafted, and Emaar now tell us it will be drafted by end Jan 2012. The delay is not really acceptable but we have pushed really hard to get a commitment from Emaar on timing. We understand they have appointed external consultants to draft it. Over the course of this year an array of structures have been debated (i.e. multiple OA’s or just a single OA for the entire community) at length. However, now the priority to get the JOPD drafted has now taken precedence over the debates about structure as we can easily adapt the draft JOPD to the structure we want once it is drafted.
3. We have set up a committee to look at the financials. We are making progress on getting access to financials, but we are still not in a position yet to sign off the 2012 budget and previous years audited financials are not all available. There are some fundamental issues we want to discuss with Emaar which include a greater/equitable contribution to service charges by the commercial entities, as well as some of the planned expenditures next year which we don’t fully understand yet.
4. We are now trying to get access (or where they don’t exist trying to get ECM to draft) written procedures and policies to be applied through out the community for a variety of matters including tendering service contracts and the use of common areas including tennis courts and so on, and to address the current debate over use of these facilities by trainers.
5. We want to be actively involved in the tendering process of new contracts and we are therefore getting active in this area now and we are hopeful that ECM will give us full access to the information we need to ensure the process is above board and equitable for all participants and above all ensures we get value for money from service providers.
6. We are looking at community cards to be used to monitor/control access to communal facilities so that service charge defaulters can be excluded, as can residents from Sharjah and other communities in Dubai who think they can freely use our facilities. This will be a cost benefit decision, and we don't yet now the full costs to implement this.
7. We have a real issue with Service Charge defaulters and we are trying to get access to the actual list of persons so we can initiate proceedings for the recovery of these charges. The current defaulters are leaving a large hole in the SC budget and we need to address this as a priority.
8. All of the above are aimed at progressing full transfer of the community to residents as soon as possible. Obviously this is a learning process for Emaar. ECM and ourselves and after initial reluctance we are hopeful that the process with speed up heading into the New Year.
9. As we head into the new year, we are also focusing on establishing procedures and policies that can be adopted by OA Board members as well so there are guidelines in place for future OA Board members.
The Wall