Quick question: when was the last time you asked for three quotes for your urbanization's pool, the elevator, and the insurance? Exactement. Never. And that’s why your community fee in Calpe keeps rising relentlessly… not because of the sea, nor because “everything is expensive,” but because of inertia.
If your community hasn't tendered services in the last 24 months, you are paying too much. That's not opinion. It's mathematics.
You live or want to live on the Costa Blanca for a reason: light, calm, views, beach plan, and aperitifs. What doesn't fit into that picture is seeing charges that seem invented: IBI (Property Tax), trash, water, insurance, cleaning, gardening, pool, and elevator maintenance. And a high community fee in Calpe that “has always been that way.”
Let me tell you the story we see daily: elevator contracts on autopilot, pool pumps running as if it were August in the middle of January, contracted electrical power at double what is needed, policies with duplicated coverage, and an administrator who “does what he always does” because no one asks for anything else.
You pay €120 a month and nobody protests “to avoid complicating things with the neighbors.” The result? You pay for air: services poorly sized, without indicators, without comparison. And beware, in Calpe, buildings suffer from saltpeter, wind, and occupancy peaks. Translation: maintenance matters… but paying more for the same thing doesn't give you more security. It gives you expensive laziness.
If you're a buyer, you get an unpleasant surprise: you visit a perfect apartment and then discover fixed housing costs in Calpe that kill your budget: community + IBI + water + trash. Sound familiar?
In 2025, with energy and water costs fluctuating, sticking with 2019 packages is giving away money. “But the lifeguard is mandatory.” Yes, during the season and according to regulations. “But the pool needs X hours of filtering.” True, but programmed by temperature, not by custom. “But the elevator cannot be touched.” False: it can be renegotiated, audited, and measured by SLA (Service Level Agreement).
What if the expensive part isn't Calpe… but your passivity?
“It has always been this way” is the most expensive sentence in your community.
The trick is simple: hidden audit. What isn't seen in the staircase meeting, but what decides 15–25% of your annual budget. You're not going to cut services, you're going to subtract waste.
Focus where it hurts and where it saves: contracts, power, hours, coverage, and bad debt. Do it with data, not with opinions from the “brother-in-law” who lives in London but sends 6-minute voice notes to the WhatsApp group.
Goal: maintain quality without burning the budget. Ask the maintainer for curves by temperature: filtering by degrees, not by months. Winter with wintering and a cover reduces chemicals and evaporation. Consider a variable speed pump (30–50% electrical savings) and salt chlorination if suitable. Contract with SLA: clarity on incidents, maximum response time, and penalties. Include three offers and a comparison by tasks, not by “package.”
Audit rescues, breakdowns, and response times from the last year. If the history is low, renegotiate. Demand a closed offer with key included parts or price by component family. Replace fluorescent lights with LED, review maneuvers with a variable frequency drive and standby modes. And the obvious: 3 different proposals, not from the previous installer's cousin.
Review contracted power and load curve. If no one has requested a study in 12 months, you are overpaying. Switch to time-of-use tariff (2.0TD) and program pumps, irrigation, and lighting in off-peak hours. Presence sensors and LED with photocells in garages and entrances. Contract with a retailer without permanence and without “added services” you don't use.
Eliminate redundancies: don't pay for what another policy already covers. Request a comparison with the same coverage scope, clear deductibles, and limits. If the claims history is low, lower the premium. If it is high, manage the cause (downpipes, waterproofing) with the reserve fund and reduce premiums next year.
Seasonal plan: it makes no sense to sweep three times a day in January. Define measurable tasks (m2, frequency, checklist), not diffuse hours. **Drip and programmed irrigation, low water consumption plants, and mulching to retain moisture. Three offers, annual contract with quarterly review by KPI.
Request your history from the municipal company and install sectorized meters (pool, irrigation, garage). Detect leaks from nocturnal differences. Adjust watering to dawn/dusk. Check the municipal register that the trash tax and usage are correct and without duplications. And please: close hoses, install reducers, and don't water the wind.
The administrator works for the community, not the other way around. Ask for a monthly dashboard: defaults, incidents, contracts, consumption. If bad debt exceeds 5–7%, raise the surcharge approved in the Assembly and activate payment monitoring according to the Horizontal Property Law. Every euro that doesn't come in, you pay.
Check your cadastral value with Suma Gestión Tributaria, applicable bonuses for direct debit, and the option of installment payments without surcharges. Verify that the property's use and areas are correctly listed in the Cadastre; errors here are money.
Patricia bought an apartment with views of the Peñón. Community fee: €118/month. “It is what it is,” they told her. She didn't buy it. With the president, they pulled up contracts and data. Pool with fixed filtering, electrical power at 8.8 kW when 5.5 was more than enough, insurance with duplicated coverage, and cleaning “by hours.” The classic stuff.
Pool re-tendering with SLA and efficient pump (-27% cost), power adjustment and time-of-use tariff (-22% electricity), insurance with a reasonable deductible (-18%), and task-based cleaning (-15%). Bad debt controlled in three months with payment monitoring.
Result: fee from €118 to €95/month (-19%) without losing a single service. Same building, different management. And yes, now she shows off her community like it's her startup.
You wake up, open the terrace, and only think about the sea. No strange letters, no surprise special assessments, no endless WhatsApp arguments. You know your community in Calpe operates with data and smart contracts. Your fixed housing expenses are no longer a lottery: they are under control.
If you're going to buy, you see a figure and don't panic: clear IBI, trash and water reviewed, community with KPI. If you're going to sell, your building looks serious, with transparent costs. That increases interest and price. Peace of mind that's noticeable from the entrance.
There are two types of owners in Calpe: those who complain in the elevator… and those who lower the fee without losing quality. Choose a side.
Do you want help auditing your community and aligning your numbers with the reality of the Costa Blanca market? At Marina Digorn, we've been fighting for clear figures for over 20 years. We give you a cost audit checklist, review IBI, trash, and water, and if you're going to sell, we fit it into a 90-day sales plan (with commission reduction if we don't deliver). If you're going to buy, we prepare a property showcase with verified fixed expenses so the spreadsheet doesn't explode afterward.
Write to us at info@marinadigorn.com, call +34 619 89 16 85, or stop by Av. de Ifach, 4, 03710 Calp. Ask for the “Hidden Audit of your Community” and the fixed expenses checklist. Are you going to keep paying out of habit, or are you going to start getting the respect your numbers deserve?
