Buying a property on a Spanish urbanization or community

In Spain if you buy any property which is part of a community or urbanization, you will be involved with the "Committee".

If you are buying a totally individual property with no communal areas or communal swimming pool then the following does not apply to you but in all cases make sure your solicitor ascertains if the property you are buying is part of a Spanish urbanization or not.

URBANIZATIONS/COMMUNITIES

The urbanization/community will almost certainly have common areas which belong to the community, these have to be managed and looked after.

These areas are actually owned by all of the owners of the properties and as such, all of the owners have an interest to make sure they are looked after properly.

The amount of communal areas will vary with each urbanization but generally these will be the pool area, communal gardens and car parks and lifts etc. In some cases but not all, the roads will also belong to the community. This will normally be the case where the urbanization is totally gated, i.e. you have gates separating the community from the outside world.

THE COMMITTEE AND SET UP

Every community is required by law to have a committee (La Comunidad de Vecinos) to regulate how the urbanization is run and to comply with Spanish law. The committee has to be made up by owners of properties on the urbanisation, non property owners are not allowed to take part.

If you are buying say a resale in an established community, the committee will already be setup and the president will advise you on what is expected of you, the rules and regulations and community fees etc. In this case you will probably find you have to get to know other owners and see how things are run before getting too involved in the decision making.

If you are however buying off plan are are in at the beginning of the community them everybody is starting together in the decision making process.

To make things simple we will presume that you have just moved in with everybody else on a new urbanization.

As it is quite likely that nobody has actually bought a property on an urbanization before, so everybody will be in the same position and probably know nothing of what is expected.

ADMINISTRATOR

In a lot of cases the developer will suggest an administrator. This is your lifeline. The adminstrator is employed by the community and reports directly to the president (more later on the president). Although you do not legally have to have an administrator you are well advised to employ one, you can also change the administrator if you find them difficult to work with.

The administrator will advise and help the committee on all aspects of running the urbanization and any legal aspects. They will liase with you and all of the officialdom that you will come across and will of course be Spanish or speak Spanish fluently. Your administrator will charge a fee generally on each property and for an urbanization of say 100 properties his fee will be in the region of 5,000 to 6,000 euros per year. This money comes out of the general buget. The administrator is also professionally qualified.

So at your first meeting of the "La Comunidad de Vecinos" your first task is to elect the committee.

PRESIDENT AND COMMITTEE

The only legal appointment that must be made is the "President". It is normal practice to have also have a vice president and committee members to help the president and the numbers really depend on how big the urbanization is. Too many committee members should be avoided as then it can be the case of nothing being agreed.

There is no hard and fast rule on how the election is done. Some communities will have a rule that it rotates every year with every owner being the president at some time, some will just pick out a name from a hat. However some will say the best method is to ask for volenteers. This way you will get someone who is interested in the community and not someone who is doing it because he or she has to.

If there are several owners who want to be president then a majority vote is taken. The president’s term is generally one year but there is no limit to how many years a president can serve.

For practical reasons it is advisable to have a president who lives on the urbanization, at least most of the year. However if you are electing a vice president and committee then this is not so important as they are generally just helping the president but it is advisable to have at least one committee member in residence at any one time.

The same procedure applies to the election of the vice president and committee members.

So you now have your committee, it may be that each member of the committee has strengths in certain fields and so the tasks of running the urbanization can be easily delegated.

The first meeting is generally called once the urbanisation has been completely finished and the developer has handed over the "keys", so to speak to you.

After your committee has been elected, one of the first tasks will be to set the budget for the coming year. Obviously you will not know what this will be yet but your adminstrator will almost certainly have a similar urbanization and with his experience, he will guide you on how much the elctricity for the communal areas are likely to be along with water costs, cleaning of the pool and any maintenance of lifts etc will be. Once all the owners present are agreed on the figures then it is set and quarterly payments for each property are worked out.

Some communities work this on on a pro rata rate depending on the size of the property, others just have a fixed fee per property and all pay the same regardless of the size of the property. It is up to the owners present at the meeting to agree on this.

A good way to get the budget rolling is to agree to put in say 200 euros each to start the communal fund. In a community of 100 this is 20,000 euros and this gives you a great start.

OWNERS NOT PRESENT AT THE MEETING

If any owner is not present then they do not have a say in what is agreed unless they arrange before hand for someone who will be at the meeting to have a proxy vote. This is an official form which allows another owner to vote on your behalf. You must make sure that the person voting on your behalf knows your views otherwise they will use your vote to vote their way.

One of the other first tasks the committee will do is to officially walk around the development with the developer. This is to make sure that you are happy with the handover from the developer to you and if not, to point out any repairs that need doing. This is known as snagging, if the developer is a good one then there will be no problems, however this is often a problematic time if the developer does not agree with your request for repairs. Again this is where your administrator earns his money and a timescale should be agreed for the repairs to be carried out.

WHEN IT ALL GOES WRONG.

Every community is going to have some problems. You cannot have a group of people where everybody agrees with everybody else all of the time.

A good president will ease these problems. He should not go around ordering everybody about, telling them what they should and should not do, this is not his role. Obviously there will be times when he has to take a firm hand and make a final decision on a matter but in general he should listen to all the facts and advise all parties.

During the first year, everybody is feeling the way and learning lessons.

The communal swimming pool will almost certainly cause problems. All pools in Spain have official rules and most of these are require by law.

SWIMMING POOL RULES

The swimming pool rules that will cause the most problems are:

People not showering before swimming, this is important to prevent sun tan oil from building up in the water.

People swimming with inflatables, someone could be trapped underneath.

People swimming out of hours and general rowdy behaviour late at night in and around the pool.

People having glasses and Glass bottles around the pool. This is a very important rule as if a bottle or glass is broken in the pool the pool must be emptied and cleaned. This is very expensive and will take the pool out of action for many days.

You cannot really stop people breaking the rules without causing a lot of bad feeling but a gentle quite word from the president or another owner , saying that what they are doing is causing concern to others will almost certainly be effective.

How much anti social behaviour you have will depend on the type of community. If the properties are only used by the owners and their families then you should not have any problems. The main problems are when people let their properties out as holiday homes. The holiday makers are just that, there to have a good time and they will be home again in a week.

So everybody has to keep this in mind and realise that it’s only for a couple of weeks in the summer.

Also it is amazing how many people who buy a property by the pool then go on to complain about the general noise. If you do not want to hear children screaming when they jump in the pool and generally having a good time, DO NOT BY A PROPERTY BY IT.

LATE NIGHT PROBLEMS

This will also be a problem in the height of the season, people both young and old like to have a good time on holiday and will quite often come back late at night full of good cheer. Many will then go on to put music on, bang doors and be generally very loud, many will also jump in the pool clothed or not. Again if this becomes a major problem the president may well have to step in and ask them to be quiet. He also has the local police on hand if need be and the Police will take a firm hand on trouble makers.

UNKEPT GARDENS

It may be that you have individual gardens on your community. These obviously have to be kept in good order. It is all too easy for an absent owner to forget about it. Gardens in Spain can grow at an alarming rate, Bourganvillas can grow a foot a week in the right conditions.

If you find you have a problems with private gardens, write to the owner and explain the problem and even send photos, most have email so this is easy to do.

If the owner does not respond then get the Administrator to also write giving them a period to get the garden in order otherwise the president can authorise the work and invoice the owner.

OWNERS NOT PAYING COMMUNITY FEES.

This is always an issue and almost every community will have owners who do not pay. This may be just because they have not topped up their bank account and normally a friendly nudge will solve the problem.

If however there is not money forthcoming from an owner then this is usually brought up at the AGM. It can be done in two ways, firstly each owner who is in arrears can be "named and shamed" or it can be simply agreed that anybody who owes money during the following year can be taken to court. This normally does the trick as they owe the money, so why not just pay up.

Owners who are in arrears are also technically void of any vote in the AGM.

So you can see a good, patient president, committee and administrator can usually solve most problems.

OTHER MATTERS FOR THE AGM.

There are certain matters that have to be agreed upon at the AGM by a majority vote and when we say that we mean a majority of those who turn up. If only 20 owners out of 100 turn up to an AGM then a majority would mean just 11. If an owner does not turn up and does not assign his or her proxy vote then they have no say in what is agreed at the AGM and they will then have to wait until the next AGM.

Most things that the committee want to implement in the community must be voted on at the AGM. This may mean taking owners to court for non payment or due to lack of maintenance to their property etc. or that they may want to spend on larger capital outlays for the community.

The committee does have the right to spend money without recourse to the owners when items need to be replaced such as the swimming pool pump or other urgent items.

It is generally also allowed to have blanket permissions in place but again these have to be agreed at the AGM. A blanket permission does not name any individual owner but any owner who does not comply with community rules.

As we said before, it can be that it is agreed that "any" owner who gets into arrears with community fees during the coming year can be taken to court. It could be that "any" owner who fails to look after his or her private garden has the work done by the community and the owner charged. However in all cases they must be given notice to comply and generally this is 15 days before the committee can take action against the owner.

THE FIRST AGM AFTER THE INITIAL MEETING.

At the initial meeting it will be agreed when the next meeting will take place, this does not have to be after one year although this is normal.

A month or so before the meeting and at least six days before, the administrator will send everybody by post or email, the date, time and the agenda of the meeting. He will have been through this with the president and committee and everything that has gone wrong in the first year may well be on this agenda. It will also contain the actual budget of the old year and the proposed budget for the coming year. This is now easier as you have actual costs and bills.

Although the meeting is technically presided over by the president, the administrator may take charge of the meeting. It is up to the president to say when enough time has been spent on any issue and to take a vote. This is needed as each proposal may go on for hours with everybody having their say and you would eventually run out of time to get through everything.

Generally the meeting will start again with the election of the president and committee and once this is finished the fun starts.

As this is now probably one year on from the first meeting everybody is more confident now in speaking their minds.

Not all meetings will be a problem but from experience the first one often seems to be the difficult one. It just depends on how the first year has gone.

I always think it would be better to elect the president and committee at the end of the meeting not the beginning. That way they can see what they are letting themselves in for.

THE PRESIDENTS AUTHORITY

The president in a Spanish urbanization does in fact have quite considerable powers. Remember the president is the main official of the community, not the administrator. The administrator only acts as an advisor to the committee and community.

The presidents powers include, evicting unruly holiday makers, authorising work on an owners property in their absent if the work is urgent. Taking an owner to court for non payment of community fees. In certain circumstances if the arrears become large the courts will enforce the selling of the property to pay these arrears.

The courts in Spain are now fast tracking this type of community problem.

However, the president is also accountable to the community as a whole and he or she must respect this.

URGENT MATTERS THAT CANNOT WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT YEARLY AGM

If an urgent matter arises that needs a community vote on, then "An extraordinary general meeting" can be convened. The administrator will, on behalf of the president contact all owners giving them at least six days notice telling them about the meeting and it is up to them to attend. Even if only a few owners attend then a majority vote of those in attendence is accepted.

The reasons for calling an extraordinary general meeting could be that the president wants to resign or the president may want to change administrators.

OVERVIEW

It may seem from reading the above that living on a Spanish Urbanization can be just a lot of problems and grief but if a group of owners want their urbanization to work, then it will. Living on an urbanization also have a lot of plusses.

The good thing about living in a community is that it is just that, "A community" you are not isolated in a detached finca miles from anyone else. This may be great for those "get away from it all" holidays but if you eventually want to settle you can be very lonely especially if you do not Speak Spanish fluently. A good community with have a lot of social events and generally be there for each other in times of need and of course they will keep an eye on your property.