Antonio Flores’ Blog

The Government of Spain wants to give neighbours vetting powers over short-term rental apartments. If the proposed law changes are finally passed, the quorum required in Communities of Owners general meetings to prohibit holiday rental activities will be reduced substantially.

Currently, the required quorum to vet short-term or touristic lets is unanimity; this wants to be changed for a minimum of 3/5 of the voting rights.

The law also wants to define what is a “season or holiday let” as opposed to a “short-term or touristic let”: some of the proponents want to establish a minimum of 45 days for a rental contract to be classified as a holiday let, below which they will be classified as short-term rentals.

This legislative ammendment could deeply impact property investment trends by creating clearly segregated short-term rental buildings or areas, separate from those neighbourhoods that choose to stick to exclusive residential use (by banning letting use).

Real estate agencies selecting properties for clients, and lawyers acting for them in the conveyancing process, would have to ensure what the specifications of each neighbourhood are in respect to potential statutory prohibitions to do short-term rentals.

We are eagerly awaiting further news on this proposed law change.

Antonio Flores Property holiday aparments spain, Holiday rentals spain, LAU Spain, LEy arrendamientos urbanos, short term lets spain

Some days ago, a worried property owner wrote to us with a query relating to his “Community of Owners”, along with a photo of a resolution recently adopted by the President of the said community, in the municipality of Benahavis.

The text read as follows:

1. The President is then allowed to set fines between €30 and €600, depending on the important and seriousness of the matter, when breaching the above articles, regardless if any damage made has been restored: these amounts will be deposited into the Community’s bank account.

2. Penalties must be notified in writing to the owners committing the infraction, describing the specific infraction and penalty imposed, which will be charged directly to the owner.

3. The HOA (Homes Owners Association) reserves its right to take legal action against owners in violation.

After rubbing my eyes in disbelief, I hastily checked up our main source of legislative updates (www.vlex.es) in case I had missed this implausible new legal change that would give nasty and corrupt Presidents and Administrators jurisdiction to suppress dissidence within the community of owners; there was none of it, thankfully.

So, it the above prerogative lawful? Absolutely not. The Juridical Regime of the Public Administration Act 30/1992 grants the State the monopoly of imposing pecuniary penalties or similar fines, without exception, following a due adversarial administrative procedure. This is not to say that a Community of owners may not, following the appropriate procedure to adopt community resolutions, agree on a fixed surcharge for late payment of fees or even impede non-payers the use of communal elements (pools for instance). But never the prerogative to -arbitrarily- sanction specific conducts by its members.

A congress held in 2010 by an association of community administrators to debate Horizonal Property Law matters resolved that “it is not possible to fine owners for breaching internal regulations, even if this resolution is written into the Statutes or voted by a majority”.

Presidents and Administrators who despite the above insist on coercing owners into paying fines could face criminal action.

Antonio Flores Property Benahavis Country Club, Benahavis Hills, Community of Owners President, community of owners spain