Spanish Horizontal Property Law

Law 49/1960, 21^st of July

CHAPTER I: General Provisions

Article 1. The purpose of this Law is to regulate the special form of ownership established in article 396 of the Civil Code, which is called horizontal property. For the purposes of this Law, those parts of a building that are susceptible to independent use because they have an exit to a common element thereof or to the public thoroughfare shall also be considered as premises.

Article 2.

This Law shall be applicable:

5. a) To owners’ associations constituted in accordance with the provisions of article 5.
6. b) To communities that meet the requirements established in article 396 of the Civil Code and have not granted the constitutive title of horizontal property. These communities shall be governed, in any case, by the provisions of this Law regarding the legal regime of the property, its private parts and common elements, as well as regarding the reciprocal rights and obligations of the co-owners.
7. c) To private real estate complexes, in the terms established in this Law.
8. d) To sub-communities, understanding as such those that result when, in accordance with the provisions of the constitutive title, several owners have, under a community regime, for their exclusive use and enjoyment, certain common elements or services endowed with functional or economic unity and independence.
9. e) To urban conservation entities in cases where their statutes so provide.

CHAPTER II: On the regime of property by floors or premises.

Article 3. In the property regime established in article 396 of the Civil Code, it corresponds to each floor or premise:

1. a) The singular and exclusive right of ownership over a sufficiently delimited space that is susceptible to independent use, with the architectural elements and installations of all kinds, whether apparent or not, that are comprised within its limits and serve the owner exclusively, as well as that of the appurtenances that have been expressly indicated in the title, even if they are located outside the delimited space.
2. b) The co-ownership, with the other owners of floors or premises, of the remaining elements, appurtenances and common services. To each floor or premise shall be attributed a participation quota in relation to the total value of the property and referred to hundredths thereof. Said quota shall serve as a module to determine the participation in the charges and benefits by reason of the community. The improvements or impairments of each floor or premise shall not alter the attributed quota, which may only be varied in accordance with what is established in articles 10 and 17 of this Law. Each owner may freely dispose of their right, without being able to separate the elements that integrate it and without the transmission of the enjoyment affecting the obligations derived from this property regime.

Article 4. The action for division shall not proceed to terminate the situation that this law regulates. It may only be exercised by each co-owner over a specific floor or premise, circumscribed to the same, and provided that the co-ownership has not been established intentionally for the service or common utility of all the owners.

Article 5. The constitutive title of the property by floors or premises shall describe, in addition to the property as a whole, each of those to which a sequential number will be assigned. The description of the property must express the circumstances required in mortgage legislation and the services and installations that it has. That of each floor or premise shall express its extension, boundaries, floor on which it is located and the appurtenances, such as garage, attic or basement. In the same title, the participation quota corresponding to each floor or premise shall be fixed, determined by the sole owner of the building when starting its sale by floors, by agreement of all existing owners, by award or by judicial resolution. For its fixing, the useful surface of each floor or premise in relation to the total property, its interior or exterior location, its situation and the use that it is rationally presumed will be made of the common services or elements shall be taken as a base. The title may contain, in addition, rules for the constitution and exercise of the right and provisions not prohibited by law regarding the use or destination of the building, its different floors or premises, installations and services, expenses, administration and government, insurance, conservation and repairs, forming a private statute that will not prejudice third parties if it has not been registered in the Property Registry. In any modification of the title and saving what is provided on the validity of agreements, the same requirements as for the constitution shall be observed.

Article 6. To regulate the details of coexistence and the proper use of common services and things, and within the limits established by the Law and the statutes, the set of owners may fix rules of internal regime that shall also bind every titleholder while they are not modified in the form provided for taking agreements on administration.

Article 7. 1. The owner of each floor or premise may modify the architectural elements, installations or services thereof when it does not impair or alter the safety of the building, its general structure, its exterior configuration or state, or prejudice the rights of another owner, having to give account of such works previously to whoever represents the community. In the rest of the property, no alteration may be carried out, and if they notice the need for urgent repairs, they must communicate it without delay to the administrator.

2. The owner and the occupant of the floor or premise are not permitted to develop in it or in the rest of the property activities prohibited in the statutes, which result in damage to the estate or which contravene the general provisions on annoying, unhealthy, noxious, dangerous or illicit activities. The president of the community, at their own initiative or that of any of the owners or occupants, shall require whoever carries out the activities prohibited by this section to immediately cease the same, under warning of initiating the appropriate judicial actions. If the offender persists in their conduct, the President, prior authorization of the Board of owners, duly convened for that purpose, may file against them a cessation action which, in what is not expressly provided for by this article, shall be substantiated through the ordinary trial. Once the lawsuit is presented, accompanied by the accreditation of the reliable requirement to the offender and the certification of the agreement adopted by the Board of owners, the judge may agree, on a precautionary basis, the immediate cessation of the prohibited activity, under warning of incurring a crime of disobedience. They may also adopt as many precautionary measures as may be necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the cessation order. The lawsuit must be directed against the owner and, where appropriate, against the occupant of the dwelling or premise. If the judgment is favourable, it may provide, in addition to the definitive cessation of the prohibited activity and the compensation for damages that may proceed, the deprivation of the right to use the dwelling or premise for a time not exceeding three years, depending on the gravity of the infringement and the damages caused to the community. If the offender is not the owner, the judgment may declare definitively extinguished all their rights relative to the dwelling or premise, as well as their immediate eviction.

Article 8. (Repealed).

Article 9. 1. The obligations of each owner are:

1. a) To respect the general installations of the community and other common elements, whether they are for general or private use of any of the owners, whether or not they are included in their floor or premise, making an adequate use thereof and avoiding at all times that damages or defects are caused.
2. b) To maintain in good state of conservation their own floor or premise and private installations, in terms that do not prejudice the community or the other owners, compensating for the damages caused by their carelessness or that of the persons for whom they must respond.
3. c) To consent in their dwelling or premise to the repairs required by the service of the property and to permit therein the essential easements required for the realization of works, actions or the creation of common services carried out or agreed upon in accordance with what is established in this Law, having the right to have the community compensate them for the damages caused.
4. d) To permit entry into their floor or premise for the effects provided for in the three previous sections.
5. e) To contribute, in accordance with the participation quota fixed in the title or what is especially established, to the general expenses for the adequate maintenance of the property, its services, charges and responsibilities that are not susceptible to individualization. The credits in favor of the community derived from the obligation to contribute to the maintenance of the general expenses corresponding to the quotas attributable to the expired part of the current annual period and the three previous years have the condition of preferential for the purposes of article 1.923 of the Civil Code and precede, for their satisfaction, those cited in numbers 3, 4 and 5 of said precept, without prejudice to the preference established in favor of wage credits in the consolidated text of the Law of the Workers’ Statute, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1995, of March 24. The acquirer of a dwelling or premise under a horizontal property regime, even with a title registered in the Property Registry, responds with the acquired property itself for the amounts owed to the community of owners for the maintenance of general expenses by the previous titleholders up to the limit of those that result attributable to the expired part of the annual period in which the acquisition takes place and the three previous calendar years. The floor or premise shall be legally affected to the fulfillment of this obligation. In the public instrument through which the dwelling or premise is transmitted, by any title, the transferor must declare to be up to date in the payment of general expenses of the community of owners or express those they owe. The transferor must provide at this moment certification on the state of debts with the community coinciding with their declaration, without which the granting of the public document cannot be authorized, unless they were expressly exonerated from this obligation by the acquirer. The certification shall be issued within a maximum period of seven calendar days from its request by whoever exercises the functions of secretary, with the approval of the president, who shall respond, in case of fault or negligence, for the accuracy of the data consigned therein and for the damages caused by the delay in its issuance.
6. f) To contribute, in accordance with their respective participation quota, to the endowment of the reserve fund that shall exist in the community of owners to attend to the works of conservation and repair of the estate and, where appropriate, for the works of rehabilitation. The reserve fund, whose ownership corresponds for all effects to the community, shall be endowed with an amount that in no case may be less than 5 percent of its last ordinary budget. Charged to the reserve fund, the community may subscribe to an insurance contract that covers the damages caused to the estate or else conclude a contract of permanent maintenance of the property and its general installations.
7. g) To observe the due diligence in the use of the property and in their relations with the other titleholders and to respond to them for the infringements committed and the damages caused.
8. h) To communicate to whoever exercises the functions of secretary of the community, by any means that allows having evidence of its receipt, the address in Spain for the purposes of citations and notifications of all kinds related to the community. In default of this communication, the floor or premise belonging to the community shall be taken as the address for citations and notifications, producing full legal effects those delivered to the occupant thereof. If an attempt at citation or notification to the owner is impossible to carry out in the place provided in the previous paragraph, it shall be understood as carried out through the placement of the corresponding communication on the community’s notice board, or in a visible place of general use enabled for that purpose, with a diligence expressing the date and reasons for which one proceeds to this form of notification, signed by whoever exercises the functions of secretary of the community, with the approval of the president. The notification carried out in this form shall produce full legal effects within a period of three calendar days.
9. i) To communicate to whoever exercises the functions of secretary of the community, by any means that allows having evidence of its receipt, the change of ownership of the dwelling or premise. Whoever fails to comply with this obligation shall continue to respond for the debts with the community accrued after the transmission in a joint and several manners with the new titleholder, without prejudice to the right of the former to repeat against the latter. The provisions of the previous paragraph shall not be applicable when any of the governing bodies established in article 13 has had knowledge of the change of ownership of the dwelling or premise by any other means or by conclusive acts of the new owner, or when said transmission is notorious.
10. For the application of the rules of the previous section, expenses that are not attributable to one or several floors or premises shall be deemed general, without the non-use of a service exempting from the fulfillment of the corresponding obligations, without prejudice to what is established in article 17.4.

Article 10. 1. The following actions shall be mandatory and shall not require prior agreement of the Board of owners, whether or not they imply modification of the constitutive title or the statutes, and whether they come imposed by Public Administrations or requested at the instance of the owners:

1. a) The works and repairs that result necessary for the adequate maintenance and fulfillment of the duty of conservation of the property and its common services and installations, including in any case, those necessary to satisfy the basic requirements of safety, habitability and universal accessibility, as well as the conditions of ornamentation and any others derived from the imposition, by the Administration, of the legal duty of conservation.
2. b) The works and actions that result necessary to guarantee reasonable adjustments in matters of universal accessibility and, in any case, those required at the instance of the owners in whose dwelling or premise live, work or provide voluntary services, persons with disabilities, or those over seventy years of age, with the object of ensuring them an use adequate to their needs of the common elements, as well as the installation of ramps, elevators or other mechanical and electronic devices that favor their orientation or their communication with the outside, provided that the amount spread annually thereof, once public subsidies or aids have been discounted, does not exceed twelve ordinary monthly payments of common expenses. The fact that the rest of their cost, beyond the cited monthly payments, is assumed by those who have requested them shall not eliminate the mandatory character of these works.
3. c) The occupation of common elements of the building or of the private real estate complex during the time that the works to which the previous letters refer last.
4. d) The construction of new floors and any other alteration of the structure or factory of the building or of common things, as well as the constitution of a real estate complex, as foreseen in article 17.4 of the consolidated text of the Land Law, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2008, of June 20, that result mandatory as a consequence of the inclusion of the property in an area of action of rehabilitation or of regeneration and urban renewal.
5. e) The acts of material division of floors or premises and their appurtenances to form other more reduced and independent ones, the increase of their surface by aggregation of others adjacent in the same building, or their diminution by segregation of some part, carried out by will and at the instance of their owners, when such actions are possible as a consequence of the inclusion of the property in an area of action of rehabilitation or of regeneration and urban renewals.
6. Taking into account the necessary or mandatory character of the actions referred to in letters a) to d) of the previous section, the following shall proceed:
7. a) They shall be paid by the owners of the corresponding community or grouping of communities, the agreement of the Board being limited to the distribution of the pertinent assessment and to the determination of the terms of their payment.
8. b) The owners who oppose or delay unjustifiably the execution of the orders dictated by the competent authority shall respond individually for the sanctions that may be imposed in the administrative route.
9. c) The floors or premises shall remain affected to the payment of the expenses derived from the realization of said works or actions in the same terms and conditions as those established in article 9 for general expenses.
10. Administrative authorization shall be required, in any case:
11. a) The constitution and modification of the real estate complex to which article 17.6 of the consolidated text of the Land Law, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2008, of June 20, refers, in its same terms.
12. b) When so requested, prior approval by three-fifths of the total of the owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas, the material division of the floors or premises and their appurtenances, to form other more reduced and independent ones; the increase of their surface by aggregation of others adjacent in the same building or their diminution by segregation of some part; the construction of new floors and any other alteration of the structure or factory of the building, including the enclosure of the terraces and the modification of the envelope to improve energy efficiency, or of common things, when the requirements to which article 17.6 of the consolidated text of the Land Law refers concur, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2008, of June 20. In these cases, the consent of the affected titleholders must be recorded, and it shall correspond to the Board of Owners, by common agreement with them, and by a majority of three-fifths of the total of the owners, the determination of the compensation for damages that may correspond. The fixing of the new participation quotas, as well as the determination of the nature of the works to be carried out, in case of discrepancy regarding them, shall require the adoption of the appropriate agreement of the Board of Owners, by identical majority. In this respect, the interested parties may also request arbitration or technical report in the terms established in the Law.

Article 11. (Repealed).

Article 12. (Repealed).

Article 13. 1. The governing bodies of the community are the following:

1. a) The Board of owners.
2. b) The president and, where appropriate, the vice-presidents.
3. c) The secretary.
4. d) The administrator.

In the statutes, or by majority agreement of the Board of owners, other governing bodies of the community may be established, without this implying any impairment of the functions and responsibilities toward third parties that this Law attributes to the previous ones.

2. The president shall be appointed, among the owners, through election or, subsidiarily, through rotating turn or lottery. The appointment shall be mandatory, although the designated owner may request their relief to the judge within the month following their access to the position, invoking the reasons that assist them for it. The judge, through the procedure established in article 17.3, shall resolve directly what is appropriate, designating in the same resolution the owner who should replace, where appropriate, the president in the position until a new designation is proceeded to within the period determined in the judicial resolution. Likewise, one may go to the judge when, for any cause, it is impossible for the Board to designate a president of the community.
3. The president shall legally hold the representation of the community, in judgment and outside of it, in all matters that affect it.
4. The existence of vice-presidents shall be optional. Their appointment shall be carried out by the same procedure as that established for the designation of the president. It corresponds to the vice-president, or to the vice-presidents by their order, to replace the president in cases of absence, vacancy or impossibility thereof, as well as to assist them in the exercise of their functions in the terms established by the Board of owners.
5. The functions of the secretary and the administrator shall be exercised by the president of the community, unless the statutes or the Board of owners by majority agreement, provide for the provision of said positions separately from the presidency.
6. The positions of secretary and administrator may be accumulated in the same person or be appointed independently. The position of administrator and, where appropriate, that of secretary-administrator may be exercised by any owner, as well as by natural persons with sufficient professional qualification and legally recognized to exercise said functions. It may also fall upon corporations and other legal persons in the terms established in the legal system.
7. Unless the statutes of the community provide otherwise, the appointment of the governing bodies shall be made for a period of one year. The designated ones may be removed from their position before the expiration of the mandate by agreement of the Board of owners, convened in extraordinary session.
8. When the number of owners of dwellings or premises in a building does not exceed four, they may avail themselves of the administration regime of article 398 of the Civil Code, if expressly established by the statutes.

Article 14. It corresponds to the Board of owners:

1. a) To appoint and remove the persons who exercise the positions mentioned in the previous article and to resolve the claims that the titleholders of the floors or premises formulate against the performance of those.
2. b) To approve the plan of foreseeable expenses and income and the corresponding accounts.
3. c) To approve the budgets and the execution of all repairs works of the estate, whether ordinary or extraordinary, and to be informed of the urgent measures adopted by the administrator in accordance with the provisions of article 20.c).
4. d) To approve or reform the statutes and determine the rules of internal regime.
5. e) To know and decide on other matters of general interest for the community, agreeing on the necessary or convenient measures for the best common service.

Article 15. 1. Assistance to the Board of owners shall be personal or by legal or voluntary representation, being sufficient to accredit this a letter signed by the owner. If any floor or premise belongs “pro indiviso” to different owners, these shall appoint a representative to attend and vote in the boards. If the dwelling or premise is in usufruct, the assistance and the vote shall correspond to the bare owner, who, unless manifest to the contrary, shall be understood as represented by the usufructuary, the delegation having to be express when it deals with the agreements to which rule one of article 17 refers or of extraordinary and improvement works.

2. The owners who at the moment of starting the board are not up to date in the payment of all expired debts with the community and have not challenged them judicially or proceeded to the judicial or notarial consignment of the owed sum, may participate in its deliberations although they shall not have the right to vote. The minutes of the Board shall reflect the owners deprived of the right to vote, whose person and participation quota in the community shall not be computed for the effects of reaching the majorities required in this Law.

Article 16. 1. The Board of owners shall meet at least once a year to approve the budgets and accounts and on the other occasions that the president considers convenient or requested by a quarter of the owners, or a number of these that represent at least 25 percent of the participation quotas.

2. The convocation of the Boards shall be made by the president and, in their default, by the promoters of the meeting, with indication of the matters to be treated, the place, day and hour in which it shall be held in first or, where appropriate, in second convocation, carrying out the citations in the form established in article 9. The convocation shall contain a relation of the owners who are not up to date in the payment of debts expired to the community and shall warn of the deprivation of the right to vote if the assumptions foreseen in article 15.2 are given. Any owner may ask that the Board of owners study and pronounce itself on any topic of interest for the community; for this effect, they shall direct a letter, in which they specify clearly the matters they ask to be treated, to the president, who shall include them in the agenda of the following Board to be held. If the majority of the owners representing, in turn, the majority of the participation quotas do not concur to the meeting of the Board, in first convocation, a second convocation thereof shall be proceeded to, this time without subjection to “quorum”. The Board shall meet in second convocation in the place, day and hour indicated in the first citation, being able to be held the same day if half an hour has elapsed since the previous one. In its default, it shall be summoned again, in accordance with the requirements established in this article, within the eight calendar days following the Board not held, with the citations being sent in this case with a minimum anticipation of three days.
3. The citation for the annual ordinary Board shall be made, at least, with six days of anticipation, and for the extraordinary ones, with whatever is possible so that it can reach the knowledge of all the interested parties. The Board may meet validly even without the convocation of the president, provided that the totality of the owners concurs and decide so.

Article 17. The agreements of the Board of owners shall be subject to the following rules:

1. The installation of common infrastructures for access to telecommunication services regulated in Royal Decree-law 1/1998, of February 27, on common infrastructures in buildings for access to telecommunication services, or the adaptation of existing ones, as well as the installation of common or private systems, of use of renewable energies, or of the infrastructures necessary to access new collective energy supplies, may be agreed, at the request of any owner, by one third of the members of the community who represent, in turn, one third of the participation quotas. The community may not spread the cost of the installation or adaptation of said common infrastructures, nor those derived from their subsequent conservation and maintenance, over those owners who have not voted expressly in the Board in favor of the agreement. However, if subsequently they request access to telecommunication services or energy supplies, and this requires taking advantage of the new infrastructures or the adaptations made to the pre-existing ones, they may be authorized provided they pay the amount that would have corresponded to them, duly updated, applying the corresponding legal interest. Notwithstanding what is provided in the previous paragraph regarding conservation and maintenance expenses, the new infrastructure installed shall have the consideration, for the effects established in this Law, of a common element.
2. Without prejudice to what is established in article 10.1 b), the realization of works or the establishment of new common services that have as a purpose the suppression of architectural barriers that hinder the access or mobility of persons with disabilities and, in any case, the establishment of elevator services, even when they imply the modification of the constitutive title, or of the statutes, shall require the favorable vote of the majority of the owners, who, in turn, represent the majority of the participation quotas. When agreements are validly adopted for the realization of accessibility works, the community shall be obliged to the payment of the expenses, even when their amount spread annually exceeds twelve ordinary monthly payments of common expenses.
3. The establishment or suppression of porter, concierge, surveillance services or other common services of general interest, whether or not they imply modification of the constitutive title or of the statutes, shall require the favorable vote of three-fifths of the total of the owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas. Identical regime shall be applied to the leasing of common elements that do not have an assigned specific use in the property and the establishment or suppression of equipment or systems, not included in section 1, that have as a purpose to improve the energy or water efficiency of the property. In this latter case, the agreements validly adopted in accordance with this rule bind all the owners. However, if the equipment or systems have a private use, for the adoption of the agreement the favorable vote of one third of the members of the community who represent, in turn, one third of the participation quotas shall suffice, applying, in this case, the cost spreading system established in said section.
4. No owner may demand new installations, services or improvements not required for the adequate conservation, habitability, safety and accessibility of the property, according to its nature and characteristics. However, when by the favorable vote of three-fifths of the total of the owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas, agreements are validly adopted, to carry out innovations, new installations, services or improvements not required for the adequate conservation, habitability, safety and accessibility of the property, not demandable and whose installation quota exceeds the amount of three ordinary monthly payments of common expenses, the dissident shall not be obligated, nor shall their quota be modified, even in the case that they cannot be deprived of the improvement or advantage. If the dissident desires, at any time, to participate in the advantages of the innovation, they shall have to pay their quota in the expenses of realization and maintenance, duly updated through the application of the corresponding legal interest. Innovations that make unusable any part of the building for the use and enjoyment of an owner may not be carried out, if their express consent is not recorded.
5. The installation of a charging point for electric vehicles for private use in the building’s parking lot, provided that it is located in an individual garage space, shall only require prior communication to the community. The cost of said installation and the corresponding electricity consumption shall be assumed entirely by the direct interested party or parties therein.
6. Agreements not expressly regulated in this article, which imply the approval or modification of the rules contained in the constitutive title of the horizontal property or in the statutes of the community, shall require for their validity the unanimity of the total of the owners who, in turn, represent the total of the participation quotas.
7. For the validity of other agreements, the vote of the majority of the total of the owners who, in turn, represent the majority of the participation quotas shall suffice. In second convocation, the agreements adopted by the majority of those attending shall be valid, provided that this represents, in turn, more than half of the value of the quotas of those present. When the majority cannot be achieved by the procedures established in the previous sections, the Judge, at the instance of a party deduced in the month following the date of the second Board, and hearing in appearance the contradictors previously cited, shall resolve in equity what is appropriate within twenty days, counted from the request, making a pronouncement on the payment of costs.
8. Except in the assumptions expressly foreseen in which the cost of the services cannot be spread to those owners who have not voted expressly in the Board in favor of the agreement, or in cases in which the modification or reform is made for private use, the votes of those owners absent from the Board, duly cited, who once informed of the agreement adopted by those present, in accordance with the procedure established in article 9, do not manifest their discrepancy by communication to whoever exercises the functions of secretary of the community within the period of 30 calendar days, by any means that allows having evidence of the receipt, shall be computed as favorable votes.
9. The agreements validly adopted in accordance with what is provided in this article bind all the owners.
10. In case of discrepancy over the nature of the works to be carried out, the Board of owners shall resolve what is appropriate. The interested parties may also request arbitration or technical report in the terms established in the Law.
11. The assessments for the payment of improvements carried out or to be carried out in the property shall be at the charge of whoever is the owner at the moment of the exigibility of the amounts affected to the payment of said improvements.

Article 18. 1. The agreements of the Board of Owners shall be challengeable before the courts in accordance with what is established in general procedural legislation, in the following assumptions:

1. a) When they are contrary to the law or to the statutes of the community of owners.
2. b) When they result gravely injurious to the interests of the community itself for the benefit of one or several owners.
3. c) When they imply a grave prejudice to some owner who does not have a legal obligation to support it or have been adopted with abuse of right.
4. The owners who have saved their vote in the Board, the absent for any cause and those who have been unduly deprived of their right to vote shall be legitimized for the challenge of these agreements. To challenge the agreements of the Board, the owner must be up to date in the payment of the totality of expired debts with the community or proceed previously to the judicial consignment thereof. This rule shall not be applicable for the challenge of the agreements of the Board relative to the establishment or alteration of the participation quotas to which article 9 refers among the owners.
5. The action shall expire at three months of the agreement being adopted by the Board of owners, unless it deals with acts contrary to the law or the statutes, in which case the action shall expire at one year. For absent owners, said period shall be computed starting from the communication of the agreement in accordance with the procedure established in article 9.
6. The challenge of the agreements of the Board shall not suspend their execution, unless the judge so provides on a precautionary basis, at the request of the plaintiff, having heard the community of owners.

Article 19. 1. The agreements of the Board of owners shall be reflected in a minute book certified by the Property Registrar in the form that shall be provided by regulation.

2. The minutes of each meeting of the Board of owners must express, at least, the following circumstances:
3. a) The date and place of celebration.
4. b) The author of the convocation and, where appropriate, the owners who have promoted it.
5. c) Its ordinary or extraordinary character and the indication on its celebration in first or second convocation.
6. d) Relation of all those attending and their respective positions, as well as the represented owners, with indication, in any case, of their participation quotas.
7. e) The agenda of the meeting.
8. f) The agreements adopted, with indication, in case it is relevant for the validity of the agreement, of the names of the owners who have voted in favor and against them, as well as of the participation quotas that they respectively represent.
9. The minutes must be closed with the signatures of the president and the secretary upon ending the meeting or within the ten following calendar days. From its closing, the agreements shall be executive, unless the Law provides the contrary. The minutes of the meetings shall be remitted to the owners in accordance with the procedure established in article 9. Defects or errors of the minutes shall be remediable provided that it expresses unequivocally the date and place of celebration, the attending owners, present or represented, and the agreements adopted, with indication of the votes in favor and against, as well as the participation quotas that they respectively suppose and is found signed by the president and the secretary. Said remedy must be carried out before the following meeting of the Board of owners, which must ratify the remedy.
10. The secretary shall safeguard the minute books of the Board of owners. Likewise, they must conserve, during the period of five years, the convocations, communications, powers and other relevant documents of the meetings.

Article 20. 1. It corresponds to the administrator:

1. a) To watch over the good regime of the property, its installations and services, and to make to these effects the appropriate warnings and cautions to the titleholders.
2. b) To prepare with the due anticipation and submit to the Board the plan of foreseeable expenses, proposing the necessary means to face the same.
3. c) To attend to the conservation and entertainment of the house, arranging for the repairs and measures that result urgent, giving immediate account thereof to the president or, where appropriate, to the owners.
4. d) To execute the agreements adopted in matters of works and to affect the payments and perform the collections that may proceed.
5. e) To act, where appropriate, as secretary of the Board and to safeguard at the disposal of the titleholders the documentation of the community.
6. f) All other attributions that are conferred by the Board.

Article 21. 1. The obligations to which sections e) and f) of article 9 refer must be fulfilled by the owner of the dwelling or premise in the time and form determined by the Board. In case of contrary, the president or the administrator, if so, agreed by the board of owners, may demand it judicially through the monitorial process.

2. The use of the monitorial procedure shall require the prior certification of the agreement of the Board approving the liquidation of the debt with the community of owners by whoever acts as secretary thereof, with the approval of the president, provided that said agreement has been notified to the affected owners in the form established in article 9.
3. To the amount that is claimed in virtue of what is provided in the previous section may be added that derived from the expenses of the prior requirement of payment, provided that the realization thereof is documented, and the proof of such expenses is accompanied to the request.
4. When the previous owner of the dwelling or premise must respond in a joint and several manners for the payment of the debt, the initial petition may be directed against them, without prejudice to their right to repeat against the current owner. Likewise, the claim may be directed against the registered titleholder, who shall enjoy the same right mentioned previously. In all these cases, the initial petition may be formulated against any of the obligated or against all of them jointly.
5. When the debtor opposes the initial petition of the monitorial process, the creditor may request the preventive embargo of sufficient goods of the former, to face the claimed amount, the interest and the costs. The tribunal shall agree, in any case, the preventive embargo without the need for the creditor to provide bond. However, the debtor may enervate the embargo by providing a bank guarantee for the amount for which it had been decreed.
6. When in the initial request of the monitorial process professional services of lawyer and solicitor are used to claim the owed amounts to the Community, the debtor must pay, subject in any case to the limits established in section three of article 394 of the Law of Civil Procedure, the fees and rights that both accrue for their intervention, whether the debtor attends to the payment requirement or does not appear before the tribunal. In cases where there is opposition, the general rules regarding costs shall be followed, although if the creditor obtains a judgment totally favorable to their pretension, the fees of the lawyer and the rights of the solicitor derived from their intervention must be included in them, even if it had not been mandatory.

Article 22. 1. The community of owners shall respond for its debts toward third parties with all the funds and credits in its favor. Subsidiarily and prior requirement of payment to the respective owner, the creditor may be directed against each owner who has been a party in the corresponding process for the quota that corresponds to them in the unsatisfied amount.

2. Any owner may oppose the execution if they accredit that they are up to date in the payment of the totality of expired debts with the community at the moment of formulating the requirement to which the previous section refers. If the debtor pays at the act of requirement, the costs caused up to that moment shall be at their charge in the proportional part that corresponds to them.

Article 23. The regime of horizontal property is extinguished: First. By the destruction of the building, unless agreed to the contrary. It shall be estimated produced when the cost of the reconstruction exceeds fifty percent of the value of the estate at the time of occurring the casualty, unless the excess of said cost is covered by insurance. Second. By conversion into ordinary property or co-ownership.

CHAPTER III: On the regime of private real estate complexes

Article 24. 1. The special property regime established in article 396 of the Civil Code shall be applicable to those private real estate complexes that meet the following requirements:

1. a) To be integrated by two or more edifications or plots independent among themselves whose main destination is the dwelling or premises.
2. b) That the titleholders of these properties, or of the dwellings or premises into which they are horizontally divided, participate, with inherent character to said right, in an indivisible co-ownership over other real estate elements, roads, installations or services.
3. The private real estate complexes to which the previous section refers may:
4. a) Be constituted into a single community of owners through any of the procedures established in the second paragraph of article 5. In this case, they shall remain subjected to the provisions of this Law, which shall be entirely applicable to them.
5. b) Be constituted into a grouping of communities of owners. To this effect, it shall be required that the constitutive title of the new grouped community be granted by the sole owner of the complex or by the presidents of all the communities called to integrate the same, previously authorized by majority agreement of their respective Boards of owners. The constitutive title shall contain the description of the real estate complex as a whole and of the elements, roads, installations and common services. Likewise, it shall fix the participation quota of each of the integrated communities, which shall respond jointly for their obligation to contribute to the maintenance of the general expenses of the grouped community. The title and the statutes of the grouped community shall be registrable in the Property Registry.
6. The grouping of communities to which the previous section refers shall enjoy, for all effects, the same legal situation as the communities of owners and shall be governed by the provisions of this Law, with the following specialties:
7. a) The Board of owners shall be composed, unless agreed to the contrary, by the presidents of the communities integrated in the grouping, who shall hold the representation of the set of owners of each community.
8. b) The adoption of agreements for which the law requires qualified majorities shall require, in any case, the prior obtaining of the majority in question in each of the Boards of owners of the communities that integrate the grouping.
9. c) Unless agreed to the contrary of the Board, the provisions of article 9 of this Law on the reserve fund shall not be applicable to the grouped community. The competence of the governing bodies of the grouped community only extends to the real estate elements, roads, installations and common services. Their agreements may not impair in any case the faculties that correspond to the governing bodies of the communities of owners integrated in the grouping of communities.
10. To the private real estate complexes that do not adopt any of the legal forms signalled in section 2, the provisions of this Law shall be applicable, supplementarily regarding the pacts that the co-owners establish among themselves, with the same specialties signaled in the previous section.

Additional Provision.

1. Without prejudice to the provisions that in the use of their competencies the Autonomous Communities adopt, the constitution of the reserve fund regulated in article 9.1.f) shall adjust to the following rules:
2. a) The fund must be constituted at the moment of being approved by the Board of owners the ordinary budget of the community corresponding to the annual exercise immediately following the entry into force of this provision. New communities of owners shall constitute the reserve fund upon approving their first ordinary budget.
3. b) At the moment of its constitution, the fund shall be endowed with an amount not less than 2.5 percent of the ordinary budget of the community. To this effect, the owners must previously affect the necessary contributions in function of their respective participation quota.
4. c) Upon approving the ordinary budget corresponding to the annual exercise immediately following that in which the reserve fund is constituted, the endowment thereof must reach the minimum amount established in article 9.
5. The endowment of the reserve fund may not be less, at any moment of the budgetary exercise, than the legal minimum established. The amounts withdrawn from the fund during the budgetary exercise to attend to the expenses of the works or actions included in article 10 shall be computed as an integrating part thereof for the effects of the calculation of its minimum amount. At the beginning of the following budgetary exercise, the necessary contributions shall be affected to cover the amounts withdrawn from the reserve fund in accordance with what is signaled in the previous paragraph.

First Transitional Provision. This law shall govern all communities of owners, whatever the moment in which they were created and the content of their statutes, which may not be applied in contradiction with what is established therein. Within a period of two years, counting from the publication of this law in the “Official State Gazette”, the communities of owners must adapt their statutes to the provisions therein in what they are in contradiction with its precepts. Once the two years have elapsed, any of the owners may judicially urge the adaptation provided for in this provision by the procedure signalled in the second number of articles sixteen.

Second Transitional Provision. In current statutes regulating property by floors, in which the right of pre-emption and retraction in favour of the owners is established, they shall be understood as modified in the sense of leaving such right without efficacy, unless, in a new board, and by majority that represents, at least, 80 percent of the titleholders, it is agreed to the maintenance of the cited rights of pre-emption and retraction in favor of the members of the community.

Final Provision. All provisions that oppose what is established in this law are repealed. Given at the Palace of El Pardo on July twenty-first, nineteen hundred and sixty.