If you own an apartment in Spain, you are automatically a member of a comunidad de propietarios. You did not choose this membership and you cannot opt out of it. It exists by force of law and it has real implications for what you can and cannot do with your property.
Many foreign apartment owners discover these implications for the first time when they try to do something and find they cannot without community approval. This guide explains the system before that moment of frustration. For a broader overview of what foreign buyers face when purchasing property in Spain, see our guide to buying property in Madrid as a foreigner.
What the Horizontal Property Law Is
Spain’s Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (LPH) governs the ownership and management of buildings divided into separately owned units. It was originally enacted in 1960 and has been updated multiple times since.
The law establishes the legal framework for: how private and common elements of a building are defined, how the comunidad makes collective decisions, how costs are divided between owners, and what rights and obligations each owner has in relation to the common areas and structure.
It applies to any building in Spain that has been constituted in horizontal property, meaning it has been legally divided into separate registered units with a common structure. This includes almost every apartment building in Spain.
Private vs. Common Elements: The Key Distinction
Your private element is the apartment itself, defined by its boundaries in the property registry. Roughly speaking, everything within your walls, including the interior faces of external walls, is private.
The common elements are everything else: the structural elements of the building, the façade, the roof, the entrances and stairwells, elevators, the building’s shared services and systems, communal terraces and gardens, and the structure of floors and ceilings between apartments.
This distinction matters for renovations because: anything that affects a common element requires community approval regardless of whether it is inside your apartment or not.
Practical examples: removing or modifying a load-bearing wall requires structural work that affects the building’s structure, which is a common element. This is also why open-plan renovation in Madrid apartments requires careful navigation of both the permit system and the comunidad. Enclosing a terrace changes the appearance of the façade, which is a common element. Modifying the building’s central heating system or shared plumbing requires community authorization. Installing air conditioning units that penetrate external walls or appear on the façade requires community authorization.
How the Comunidad Makes Decisions
The comunidad makes decisions through a Junta de Propietarios (owners’ meeting). These meetings are required to be held at least once a year, with the annual accounts and budget as the main agenda items. Extraordinary meetings can be called for specific issues.
Decisions at the Junta require different voting thresholds depending on the type of decision:
Simple majority (more than 50% of owners and ownership shares): required for ordinary management decisions, approval of the budget, and minor works.
Three-fifths majority (60% of owners and ownership shares): required for innovations, new services, or modifications to the building that affect a minority of owners, and changes to the building’s rules.
Unanimous vote: required for changes that affect the building’s constitution itself, changes to the ownership shares (coeficientes de participación), and some types of significant modification to common elements.
For most renovation-related approvals that affect common elements, a simple majority is typically sufficient. But getting that majority requires attending the Junta or submitting your vote in writing before the meeting.
The Practical Implications for Renovation Projects
Before planning any renovation that might touch common elements, your architect should identify which aspects require community approval. This is not always obvious without professional experience of the system. Our guide to working with an architect in Spain explains how this navigational role fits into the full project process.
Building the community approval step into the project timeline is essential. A community meeting might only happen once a year unless you request an extraordinary session (which itself requires a certain number of owners to request it). Adding this approval step after the design is complete and the contractor is ready to start can delay a project by months.
Comunidad Fees and Special Assessments
As an apartment owner in Spain, you pay a regular comunidad fee (cuota de comunidad) that covers the maintenance and operation of the building’s common areas and services. The fee is proportional to your coeficiente de participación, your ownership share of the building.
Beyond regular fees, the comunidad can pass extraordinary levies (derramas) for major unplanned repairs or improvements. As an owner, you are legally obligated to pay your share of these derramas, even if you voted against the expenditure.
For investors and buyers, checking the financial health of the comunidad before purchase is important. A building with an underfunded reserve and a history of large derramas is a building where unexpected costs are likely. A building’s accounts (available on request as a buyer or through the selling party) show the current reserve fund, any outstanding debts, and any approved but unfunded works. The comunidad due diligence fits into the broader property purchase checklist for foreign buyers in Spain.
Buying or renovating an apartment in Spain and want to understand what your comunidad rules allow? Tell us about your project using the form below and we will respond within 48 hours.