On Tuesday I spent a long time talking, showing and explaining the problems we have with our communal pool to the Administration surveyor and the technical engineer and works manager from Quara.

The total lack of grout and softened floor is evident and I believe obvious that the original build was sub standard. The surveyor works on our behalf and is pressing Quara to take responsibility for the main fault of the floor and to get them to repair it or at least contribute substantially towards the repairs.  The people from Quara have taken pictures and notes and gone away to discuss but said they will need 7 - 10 days before coming to a decision.

However, it is still not clear where the leak is coming from and may in fact be caused by several factors.  The pressure test so far indicates that the skimmer pipes do leak, the fact that the water dropped to just below the lights indicates that there is a leak somewhere through those and the soft floor would indicate that that is not watertight.  I still couldn't convince myself of the logic of a leak through the skimmers because the water level continued to drop having fallen below those and so had no access to them and therefore I asked the surveyor to bring in his own specialist to test the pipes as confirmation and I managed to get them to do that late last evening.

This time the skimmers did hold pressure.  That means there is no leak through them and of course makes me lose confidence in our first team but at least it does make sense to me.  It also means that the side of the pool will now not need excavating and places the leak firmly inside the pool walls and maybe strengthens our case against Quara.  I will now investigate why the original team couldn't pressurise the pipes.

I have asked the Administrators to try to evaluate the chance of us successfully claiming against Quara and have been told that if they accept responsibility then the sub contactors are legally bound to make good the damage.  The costs are unpredictable at this stage because we are unsure of the extent of repairs required but I expect will be several thousand euros.

I have asked the three closest communities if they would allow us to use their pools during this period and it just happens that two of those are themselves policing their usage because of their own retiling.  The one opposite on Calle Rafal has said it may be possible through individual negotiation, one at the top of Calle Alicante has said no and the other has yet to reply.

So although I am moving things along as fast as I can, I'm afraid it's still not positive news.  Owing to the fact that this job has increased in size and these repairs will be very costly, it is my view that we do need to establish reponsibility and just what and where the problem(s) is (are) before we embark upon any excavation work.

However, I am being urged to move ahead very quickly so we have the choice of going ahead with repairs immediately which would invalidate any claim and the total cost would be bourne by the community, or to wait for the outcome Of Quara's deliberations, knowing that any contribution from them is not certain and knowing that if they can squirm out of it they will.

All of this is putting me under a lot of pressure and I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE THAT DECISION ALONE SO WOULD YOU ALL RESPOND WITH YOUR VIEWS.