Translation of Community AGM agendas etc

[partygoer]

Question..
Do agendas and minutes of Community Agm's have to be translated into other languages by law?

Our community is predominantly German and we are charged,by the admin istrator, as a community,for English translations..

[marcliff]

Get them to email the minutes in word or other doc format. You can then translate it to any language you want if you use a browser like Google Chrome. Ours does.
Alternatively, copy the document and paste into Google translate.

[partygoer]

Thanks for your reply .
The documents are sent to UK residents in English..poor English at that.
The community is charged €300+ for this service by the administrator.

Our German neighbours moan at the cost but why should the minutes be in German anyway? Who translates the Spanish administrators notes into German?

[marcliff]

They probably do exactly the same thing, simply put it into Google translate and charge you for the privilege.

[jcee]

The only language they have to be in is Spanish, ANY other language is at the discretion of the community. I stopped all translations several years back as we have 11 different nationalities on my community. A line had to be drawn somewhere.

[partygoer]

Thankyou all for your replies.
We may aswell save the community 300 euros by sending them out in Spanish and letting us translate them ourselves.
Its just annoying that they are produced in German....I wouldn't mind if it was Spanish..

[JOHNNOBEV]

Has the law changed as some years ago they had to be in Spanish, English and German.
But as we know things change and we are not always informed.

[marcliff]

Flippin' foreigners. Come over here to Spain and buy up property, blag all the sun loungers and can't even speak English!

No, there has never been a law that states what language the minutes or, indeed, the meeting itself should be conducted in. The Supreme Court ruled some time ago that the Horizontal Property Law does not specify the language (this was from a complaint received by two Spaniards who said the meeting should be in Spanish despite them being the only Spanish on a community of about 300) but that an interpreter should be available for those who do not speak the language the meeting is conducted in. They ruled that it was perfectly acceptable for the meeting to be conducted in English (in this case) as the two Spaniards had an interpreter available.

It is, therefore, up to the community what language is used but interpreters should be provided.

Google translate is your friend.
(Our meetings are conducted in English. All the nationalities present, Dutch, German, Icelandic, Scandinavian etc, are happy about that. We do provide an interpreter for the Russians (about 7 or 8 property owners)). The two Spanish owners are also happy about that but, if they objected, having a Spanish interpreter would be easy peasy (the administrators are Spanish and conduct the meetings in English).

Minutes are produced in Spanish, English and Russian as are the signs around the community (pool rules etc).
Our Scandinavian neighbours are quite happy to use Google translate if they need to.

[partygoer]

It's not the method of translating that's the issue..
The issue is around the flack that will be flying when someone goes through the charges incurred and sees the ..English papers translations...costs.