In my day by day routine as administrator, I have realized that many people are not clear about this simple question.

I have been usually asked whether the debtor can be elected president; if the president need to be an owner or could be a tenant, etc.

The article 13, second paragraph, of the Horizontal Property Law, establish: “The President will be appointed among the proprietors, by voting, on a rota system or draw.”

According to this, the general assembly is the one to decide who, from all the proprietors of the community, will be elected as president. From this statement, many doubts can arise: Can be president someone who only owns a share of a property in the community?

The answer would be, yes, because, the law does not oblige to be the full owner of the property to be president, so there would be no problem to be elected one of the co proprietors of a property.

For instance, when a flat belong to a British couple ( 50% each) either of the spouses could be elected president. Can be elected president who is just a tenant? The answer is no, because the H.P.L. clearly establish that the elected president should be proprietor.

Would it be possible to appoint as president to someone who has power of attorney from the owner of the property? The answer is no, because the law establish that the president should be the owner. What about when the property belongs to a company? In this case, the legal represent of the company can be elected president, because according to law he would be the one who represent the company.

Would it be possible to appoint a debtor as a president? This is one of the most common questions, and the general opinion is that there would be no problem to have a president who owes money to the community. The H.P.L. only prohibits the debtors to vote in the general assembly, but nothing else, so they could be president.

The problem would be when the community need to claim the money from him, because he is the one who legally represent the community, but this problem is solved by the law giving the rest of the owner the right to act against the president as a debtor or calling for an extraordinary general assembly to change president, but there is no legal impediment for a debtor to be appointed as president of the community.