Buy a property with access to communal facilities and you’ll automatically join the community of owners. Know your rights and responsibilities.
Unless you are buying a detached property or a rural finca, when you buy a home in Spain there is every chance you will come across a comunidad de propietarios. This is the name given to the organisation comprised of all the owners who have an interest in the complex or development and whose task it is to manage and look after the building and the facilities that all the properties in the development enjoy. If you buy a property that has any kind of shared facilities (a pool, gardens, private roads and even the external walls of an apartment block), there will be such a community and you will automatically become a member as you will own a share of these areas and facilities.While you may not relish the thought of annual general meetings with presidents and treasurers and having to abide by rules made by the committee, it is a very useful and democratic means of managing a development and can even provide a lot of useful information to you before you purchase the property.
Sharing responsiblities
The Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, or Horizontal Property Law, governs such communities and it sets out exactly what is required and how the cost of maintenance and repairs is to be divided among the owners. The fi rst document you should look for before you purchase is the community’s master deed or titulo constitutivo. This will describe each property
that forms part of the complex, plus all the shared facilities. It will state what proportion of the cost is allocated to your individual home and to every other property in the community. These costs are decided by reference to the size of the property and any desirable features that may demand a premium. The master deed will also contain the community statutes,
estatutos de la comunidad, which govern how the community will be run, and the interior rules, normas de regimen interior, which govern the more mundane aspects of living in the community day to day.
When you purchase a property in a community it is essential to ensure, as far as possible, that there are no major repairs likely to be needed in the near future. While new properties will have a guarantee from the developer, older properties will not and the cost will have to be met by the residents. After the expense of purchasing the property you would not like to find that you have to contribute to repairs to an area that is not in the immediate vicinity to your own home and that was not mentioned to you by the agent! One way to avoid this problem and perhaps find others would be to ask to look at the libro de actas, which is a record of the minutes of the meetings of the committee. From this you should be able to see
what concerns the residents have raised with the committee of the comunidad de propietarios at meetings.
When you purchase a property your solicitor will need to obtain a certifi cate from the president of the community showing the status of your property’s account; if there are any arrears owing to the community from the seller, you will be liable for them up to a maximum of two years. Apart from having the legal authority to collect the community fees, the president also has the power to commence legal proceedings against owners who are in arrears and the courts have established an accelerated procedure to deal with such claims. Sanctions for non-payment can include an embargo being placed on the inscription of the property at the land registry (so you’d be unable to sell it) and the ultimate sanction is that it may be seized and sold at public auction!
Group decisions
Decisions about the management of the community are usually made by a simple majority vote, although any change to the statutes will require the unanimous approval of all owners. Often attendance at the annual general meeting can be a lively affair, with several different nationalities of owners trying to get their point of view across or asking for improvements
to the facilities that they feel would be of benefit. As with any democracy, you as an owner would have a say in the outcome of the meeting. You may only challenge those decisions that are considered to be illegal, contrary to the community statutes or that have such an effect as to seriously damage your interests in your property. In these cases you can apply to the law courts for decisions to be annulled. However, this right to challenge decisions is forfeited if you are in arrears with your community fees.
As with all aspects of your property purchase, ensure that your solicitor fully explains how the Horizontal Property Law affects your particular property and development. Make sure that you understand what the implications may be for your intended use of the property and that you understand what will be expected from you.