Many owners go to the administration office asking for an EGM, thinking that the administrator is the one to call for the meeting but, the horizontal property Law establishes that only the president, or a group of people who owns more that a fourth of the whole community, would be capable to call for a meeting. The president, or this group of people, will have the power to order the administrator the agenda of the meeting, the time and the place where the meeting would be hold.

The summons of the meeting will indicated two different times to hold the meeting, because in the first call it will be necesary to have in the meeting more that half of the owners and coefficients of the whole community. Should you do not get this assistance in the meeting in the first call, the meeting could be celebrated in the second call, half an hour later, without any minimum number of owners or coefficients as long this has been indicated in the summons.

            The administrator will comply with the instructions and will notify to all the owners with a minimum advance of 6 days for ordinary meetings. For extraordinary meeting the law only obliges to be received by the owners before the meeting.

            Once in the meeting, the owners could be represented by someone with his proxy and no matter if the representative is or not another owner. The representative will have a vote for every owner represented.

            Debtors cannot vote if they are on arrears at the time of the meeting. They will be consider a debtor even in the case that they give to the president or administrator a cheque or if they show a transfer made to the community but the money has not reached the community account yet.

            Every owner, presented or represented, will have only one vote, no matter how many properties they may have. People own more than one property could have a higher coefficient but only one vote.

            Depending on the kind of agreement the community wants to approve, there will be a different quorum required:

1.- Some agreements require the unanimous consent of the whole community ( modification of the statutes, quota coefficients, etc), but this does not mean that all the owners should be present in the meeting. It would be unanimous if everybody in the meeting agree and the absentee owners to the meeting do not notify officially to the administration their disagreement in 30 days time after knowing the agreement taken.

2.- For the agreements that does not need the unanimity ( most of them) the quorum required will be double, because the percentage in favour will have to be reached both in number of owners and coefficients. Two mains cases:

1. If the proposed agreement needs a special quorum ( for example 60% or 3/5 when the idea is to rent a communal element or having new services for the community or change the aesthetical configuration of the building, etc.), this percentage will be counted over the total owners of the community and not on the only ones present or represented in the meeting, but it will need the double majority of owners and coeffients, so if we get the majority in favour in the meeting but we do not get total mayority of the community, the votes of the absentee owners to the meeting will be in general considered in favour if they do not notify officially to the administration their disagreement in 30 days time after knowing the agreement taken.

• If the agreements need by law to be approved just by the simple mayority of the meeting ( this is the most frequent case) , this means that the majority of the owners, presented or represented, have voted in favour and all this votes sum up the majority of the coefficients presented or represented in the meeting. Should the agreement does not get this double majority it will not be considered as approved.

 When you get the majority in either votes or quota coefficient, but not in both of them, the judge, in a simple procedure, is the one to sentence if the decision is or not approved.