On the 28th June 2013, Spanish Government approved a modification of the horizontal property law.
Many things have changed but not many people are aware that one of the changes has been the quorum needed in order to approve a modification of the configuration of the building, the structure or even the aesthetic.
According to the prescriptions of the previous law before the 28th of June 2013, any modification of the façade or any other alteration of the structure or cover of the building should have been approved by the unanimous consent of the owners.
To reach this unanimity you needed to have the favourable vote of all the people present in the general meeting and not receive any opposition in the following 30 days, from any owner who did not attend the meeting. As I have explained in other articles, the votes of the owners who were not in the meeting will be considered in favour for the approval of these agreements if they do not say anything on the contrary in the following 30 days from the notification of the minutes.
Needless to say that when we wanted to approve any change on the exterior of the community, it was quite common to find someone who went to the meeting just to say no to the proposal, making impossible its legal approval as according to Law it requires the unanimous consent of the community.
The government realized this situation and taking advantage of the modification of the HPL, the new law reduces the quorum for this kind of agreements from the unanimity required previously to a special majority ( 60% of the total of owners and coefficients) required now, in addition to the licence from the Town Hall authorizing the works. Even the possibility to close your terrace will not need the unanimous consent of the community but this special quorum of 60% plus the licence from the Town Hall.
To get this 60% of the whole community the procedure is the same as to achieve the unanimity, so the people that are not in the meeting and do not oppose to the agreement in the following 30 days from the notification will be considered as voting in favour of the agreement. Just as an example, in a community with 100 owners with a quota coefficient of 1% each, you would need 60 votes in favour, so supposing there are 15 people present or represented in the meeting and 10 of them vote in favour and 5 against and from the 85 owners that were not in the meeting only 5 people notified to the community their opposition to the agreement in the following 30 days, the other 80 people will be considered to vote in favour. In this example the result of the voting would have been: 90 owners with 90% coefficient in favour (10 in the meeting and 80 from the absentees) and 10 against, so the agreement has been approved.
This current regulation seems to have eased the problem.