Many people are astonished when the administrator says that there are no statutes in the community. Nevertheless, this is very common in Spain. In fact, the Horizontal Property Law ( LPH) is the one to resolve all the possible problems of a community.

            Before this LPH went into effect in 1960, the statutes were absolutely necessary for communities, but afterwards everything changed.

You should take in mind that this LPH is compulsory and obligatory for all communities so you are not entitle to approve any statutes that may be against the main regulation of this law. All you can do with the statutes is to regulate things that are not mention in the law. The statutes could be a complement but it can not be in contradiction to the law.

            The clause nº 5 of the Law establishes that: The title of the community will be able to contain, also, constitution rules and exercise of the right and dispositions, not prohibited by the Law, in order to the use or destination of the building.

            This means that you can only dispose about several things, so, for instance, you can not establish a different way to vote in a General Assembly, or a different way to have the agreements approved, or a different procedure to contest the agrement taken by the General Assembly, etc. This would be illegal, no matter what the statutes could say about it.

Everytime some articles of the LPH change, the possible clauses of the statutes that may become against this new articles will be consider null and void, so you may be obliged to change the statutes whenever the LPH changes. 

            This is the reason why it is not worth to regulate with the statutes things that are already said in the LPH. The meaning of the statutes is just to complement the law in possible aspects that are not regulated in the LPH or in those issues that the LPH specifically leaves open for the decision of the community.

            Some examples:

            Art. 13 LPH 7. “ If the statutes of the community do not dispose the opposite, the appointment of government bodies will be made for one-year term. “

            Art. 9 e) The owner is obliged to: “ Contributing to general expenses for the proper maintenance of the property, their services, loads and responsibilities which are not liable to be individual, according to the participation quota determined on the Tittle Deed or to what has been specially determined ( in the statutes)

Taking all of the above into consideration, some examples of the main rules you may find as statutes of the community are: a)  How to share the community cost among the owners (The owners of the premises and garages will not pay the cost of the garden and pool maintenance and will not have the right to use it. ); b) How to use and maintenance some communal elements ( The owners of the penhouses will have the use of the whole terrace; the owners of the premises will have the right to install air condition units or satelite dishes or solar panels, etc.); c) To approve the limitation in the use of private elements ( you are not entitle to use you house for commercial purposes; you can not change your premises into houses; you can divide your premises into several units without affecting the total coeficient in the community, etc. )

Having this in mind, you will understand why, apart from a few rules, it would not be very common to have full statutes of the community. In fact, I have observed that full statutes just generate confusion to the owners who will not know if the applicable rule is the one said in the statutes or the one is mentioned in the LPH.

Jose Luis Navarro.

Intercala´s solicitor and property administrator.