Community of owners in Spain: what happens at the meeting you never attend
By Home Kare · 8 min read · Owner’s Guide
Most owners meet their community of owners in Spain exactly once, on the day they complete. After that it turns into a direct debit, one annual email in Spanish, and a set of decisions taken by whoever happened to be in the room.
That arrangement works quietly for years. Then you land one summer and the pool is closed for works nobody told you about. Or the fees have risen by a third. Or a letter arrives about a payment approved eighteen months ago, while you were at home in Manchester.
None of this is unusual, and none of it is a mistake. Spanish law is very clear about what happens when an owner says nothing, and saying nothing is what most absent owners do.
Here is how the system really works, and how to stay inside it from another country.
A note on the detail below. Budgets, fees and community structures vary by phase at Hacienda del Álamo, so any figures here are approximate. The legal points are general and current at the time of writing. Check your own deeds, statutes and latest budget before you rely on any of it.
What a community of owners in Spain actually is
Buy an apartment or a townhouse here and you buy two things. You buy your own four walls, and you buy a percentage share of everything outside them: the stairwell, the roof, the pool, the lifts, the drains, the gardens.
That share is your cuota de participación, and it appears in your deed as a percentage. Almost everything else follows from it. Your monthly fee is calculated from it, your vote is weighted by it, and your share of any repair bill comes out of it.
The rules come from the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, which has governed shared ownership in Spain since 1960 and is available in full on the BOE. It is not a resort rulebook or a local by-law. It is national law, and it applies to your property whether you have read it or not.
Day to day, three roles run things. The president is an owner, elected annually, and the post is compulsory once you are chosen. The administrator is usually a paid professional who handles the accounts and the paperwork. The junta, or general meeting, is where the decisions get made.
At a resort, there are usually two layers
This is the part that confuses new owners here, and it is worth getting straight early.
Your block, phase or urbanisation has its own community of owners, covering the things immediately around your property. Above that, a resort of this size typically has a second, wider entity that maintains the shared infrastructure: main roads, street lighting, perimeter landscaping, and so on.
Two layers means two budgets, two sets of rules and, often, two separate charges. The exact arrangement depends on which phase you bought in, so check your own paperwork rather than assuming your neighbour’s setup is yours.
Whichever layer it is, the legal logic below applies in the same way.
The rule that catches absent owners out
Here is the single most important thing in this guide.
Under article 17.8 of the law, an owner who was properly summoned to a meeting, did not attend, and does not object within 30 calendar days of being notified of the outcome, is counted as having voted in favour.
Read that again, because it is not intuitive. Your silence is not neutral. Your silence is a yes.
So a decision can pass with a minority of owners physically present, and then be topped up to a comfortable majority by everyone who was in another country and did not reply. If you delete the email with the minutes attached, you have voted. If it goes to an old address, you have still voted.
The 30 days run from notification, not from the meeting. That distinction is the whole game for owners who are only here a few weeks a year.
What a meeting can decide while you are elsewhere
The budget, and therefore your fees
Every year the junta approves an ordinary budget, and your fee comes straight out of it. Costs rise, contracts get renegotiated, and the pool needs a new pump. Approve the budget and you approve the fee.
A derrama for works
Extraordinary costs get raised through a derrama, a one-off levy shared out by participation quota. Roof work, resurfacing, a lift refurbishment, a legal case against a builder: all of these arrive this way. Amounts vary enormously, and a derrama can easily exceed a full year of ordinary fees.
Whether you can let your property to holidaymakers
Since 3 April 2025 this has changed significantly. Under the reform introduced by Ley Orgánica 1/2025, an owner now needs the community’s express prior approval to run a property as a tourist rental. The community can also limit, condition or prohibit the activity with a three-fifths majority of owners and quotas.
Previously, holiday letting was allowed unless the statutes banned it. Now the default runs the other way. If letting income is part of your plan, this is a meeting you cannot afford to miss. Our guide to [Letting a property at Hacienda del Álamo] covers the licence and tax side in more detail.
The reserve fund
Communities must hold a reserve fund of at least 10% of the last ordinary budget, for conservation and repair work. A community that keeps it topped up absorbs surprises. A community that runs it dry sends derramas instead. Ask which yours is.
The debt that follows the property, not the person
One more rule deserves your attention, particularly if you ever buy again or sell.
When a property changes hands, the property itself remains liable for unpaid community charges from the current year plus the three previous calendar years. The debt is attached to the bricks, not to the person who ran it up. Buy a bargain with four years of arrears behind it and you inherit the problem.
Spanish law protects you at the point of signing. The seller must declare that they are up to date and produce a certificate from the community confirming it, and the notary cannot proceed without one. Never waive that certificate to speed up a completion. It is one of the few pieces of paper in a Spanish purchase that exists purely to protect the buyer.
If you are still at the buying stage, [Off-plan or resale at Hacienda del Álamo] sets out the other checks worth making before you commit.
What to actually do from another country
Five things, and none of them take long.
Register a Spanish notification address. Owners are required to give the community an address in Spain for official notices. Do not leave this blank, and do not leave an address you no longer use. If the community cannot reach you, notice can be served in ways you will never see, and the 30-day clock still runs.
Appoint someone to represent you. You can give written authority for another person to attend and vote on your behalf. A represented owner is not an absent owner, which means your vote reflects what you actually think rather than what the room decided.
Set up a direct debit from a Spanish account. Owners in arrears can lose their right to vote, and interest accrues from the moment payment was due. This is an unglamorous problem that solves itself with one form.
Read the minutes when they arrive, not in August. Get them translated if you need to. Diarise the 30-day window the moment they land, and object in writing, with proof of receipt, if you disagree.
Ask for the accounts once a year. The current budget, the reserve fund balance, and any approved or pending derramas. Three questions, one email. It tells you more about your real running costs than any brochure will.
What we would tell you
The community is the part of ownership here that most buyers ignore and most long-term owners eventually learn to watch. It sets a bill you cannot opt out of, and since last year it also has a say in whether you can let your property at all.
You do not need to fly over for every junta. You do need someone reading the post, opening the minutes, and noticing when the 30 days start.
Home Kare looks after properties at Hacienda del Álamo for owners who are not here all year, including the paperwork nobody enjoys. If you are not sure which community your property sits in, or what was approved at the last meeting, send us your address and we will find out for you.
→ Ask us about your community
This article is for general information and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Community structures, budgets and Spanish legislation change, and every property’s statutes differ. Check your own position with a qualified professional before acting on any of it.