You disagree with a decision of the junta: the grounds, the clock and the steps before (and instead of) going to court

The minutes of the October meeting reach an owner in a Corralejo complex three weeks after the meeting, and the resolution she spoke against is there in black and white: a new fee distribution for the pool that lands on her ground-floor flat. She has three months, in most cases, and a shorter list of options than she thinks. Spanish horizontal property law lets an owner challenge a resolution of the meeting only on three grounds, only if her vote was cast a certain way, only after she has paid what she owes, and only within a deadline that the courts refuse to stretch. It also gives her cheaper moves inside the community before any of that, and since April 2025 it obliges her to try to negotiate before a judge will read her claim. This piece is the sequence on the ground: what counts as a ground, what to try first, who may sue, how the clock runs, what the negotiation step does to it, what a challenge does not stop, and what the court route costs in Fuerteventura.

Three grounds, and the one that is not a ground

Article 18 of the Horizontal Property Act names the resolutions that can be attacked in court. The first ground is legality: Cuando sean contrarios a la ley o a los estatutos de la comunidad de propietarios, when they are contrary to the law or to the community's statutes. The second is harm to the community itself: Cuando resulten gravemente lesivos para los intereses de la propia comunidad en beneficio de uno o varios propietarios, when they seriously damage the community's interests for the benefit of one or several owners. The third is harm to one owner: Cuando supongan un grave perjuicio para algún propietario que no tenga obligación jurídica de soportarlo o se hayan adoptado con abuso de derecho, when they inflict a serious loss on an owner who has no legal duty to bear it, or were adopted in abuse of right (article 18.1).

What is missing from the list is the most common reason for anger: a resolution you simply think is wrong. A budget you find high, a contractor you would not have chosen, a colour of paint, a decision taken by the majority within its powers, none of these is a ground. The Act says so in the article on majorities: Los acuerdos válidamente adoptados con arreglo a lo dispuesto en este artículo obligan a todos los propietarios, resolutions validly adopted bind every owner (article 17.9). A challenge is not an appeal against the majority's judgment; it is a claim that the majority broke a rule, hurt the community or hurt you in a way the law does not allow. What a foreign owner may demand of a Spanish community, from the proxy to the translation she will not get, is set out in our firm's guide to the community of owners; this piece is the sequence that follows a resolution she rejects. The owner of the first paragraph has a case only if the new distribution departs from the participation quotas of the title deed or the statutes without the majority those texts require, which is the kind of thing a lawyer checks in an hour against the deed.

Before the claim: the cheaper moves inside the community

The Act gives three tools that cost nothing and need no lawyer, and a lawyer will ask whether you used them. The first is the agenda. Any owner may put a question to the meeting: Cualquier propietario podrá pedir que la Junta de propietarios estudie y se pronuncie sobre cualquier tema de interés para la comunidad, any owner may ask the meeting to study and rule on any matter of interest to the community, by writing to the president, who must include it in the agenda of the next meeting (article 16.2). A resolution the meeting took in a hurry can be reconsidered at the next one, and a reconsideration asked for in writing and refused is a fact a judge later reads.

The second is the extraordinary meeting. A quarter of the owners, or owners holding a quarter of the quotas, can require one, and if the president does not act they can convene it themselves after a prudent wait; our piece on forcing an extraordinary meeting sets out the 2025 Supreme Court judgments on how that is done. For a resolution that a bare majority of attendees carried on a second call, a full meeting with the absent owners present is often the quickest cure.

The third is the minutes themselves. Many disputes are about what the minutes say rather than what the meeting decided, and the Act has a repair route: Serán subsanables los defectos o errores del acta siempre que la misma exprese inequívocamente la fecha y lugar de celebración, the defects and errors of the minutes may be corrected as long as the minutes state unequivocally the date and place, those present and represented, the resolutions with the votes for and against and the quotas, and bear the two signatures; and Dicha subsanación deberá efectuarse antes de la siguiente reunión de la Junta de propietarios, que deberá ratificar la subsanación, the correction must be made before the next meeting, which must ratify it (article 19.3). Our piece on the minutes explains what they must contain and when you must receive them. An owner whose vote against was left out of the minutes asks for that correction first, because the record of her vote is her standing.

One more tool is often mistaken for a challenge and is not one. When a resolution is adopted in your absence and does not charge you for a service you did not vote for, the Act counts your vote in favour unless you object: the absent owners, duly summoned and informed of the resolution, who no manifiesten su discrepancia mediante comunicación a quien ejerza las funciones de secretario de la comunidad en el plazo de 30 días naturales, do not express their dissent to the secretary within thirty calendar days, are counted as votes in favour (article 17.8). That dissent protects you from being charged as a supporter of an improvement you did not want; it does not annul anything, and it does not replace the court claim or its deadline.

Who may challenge: the vote you cast decides

Standing is the first thing a community's lawyer checks, and it is where most challenges die. Article 18.2 gives it to los propietarios que hubiesen salvado su voto en la Junta, los ausentes por cualquier causa y los que indebidamente hubiesen sido privados de su derecho de voto, the owners who reserved their vote at the meeting, the absent for any cause, and those wrongly deprived of their right to vote. The owner who voted in favour cannot sue against the resolution she helped to pass. The absent owner can, whatever the reason for the absence: the Act says «por cualquier causa», and asks the absent owner for nothing else.

The phrase that causes trouble is «salvar el voto», reserving one's vote. The Supreme Court settled its meaning in judgment 242/2013 of 10 May 2013 and restated it in judgment 844/2026 of 2 June 2026: the requirement no obliga al comunero que hubiera votado en contra del acuerdo, sino únicamente al que se abstiene, does not bind the owner who voted against the resolution, only the one who abstains. Voting against is enough; the abstainer must say at the meeting that she reserves her position, for instance because she lacks the information to vote. In the 2026 case, the owners of two commercial premises in Oviedo attended, declined to vote on a ramp they thought was not their business, and later sued: the Court held that they had neither voted against nor reserved their vote, limitándose a manifestar que el asunto no iba con ellos, proceder que no podemos identificar con el hecho de salvar el voto, limiting themselves to saying that the matter did not concern them, which the Court could not treat as reserving the vote; only the owner who had been wrongly denied the vote for arrears obtained a decision on the merits, and lost it. The lesson for the owner of the first paragraph is mechanical: vote against, say so clearly, and check the minutes record it.

The second condition is money. To challenge, the owner deberá estar al corriente en el pago de la totalidad de las deudas vencidas con la comunidad o proceder previamente a la consignación judicial de las mismas, must be up to date with all the debts fallen due to the community, or first deposit them with the court (article 18.2). An owner who disputes the very debt pays or deposits it under protest and sues; the alternative is a claim that is inadmissible on day one. The Act carves out one exception: Esta regla no será de aplicación para la impugnación de los acuerdos de la Junta relativos al establecimiento o alteración de las cuotas de participación, the rule does not apply to challenges against resolutions that set or alter the participation quotas. The Supreme Court reads that exception generously. In judgment 287/2024 of 28 February 2024, on a Torremolinos community that had billed its owners on a basis other than the deed's coefficients, it repeated the line of its judgment 613/2013 that se incluyen en el ámbito de la excepción no solo los acuerdos que modifiquen la cuota de participación fijada en el título, the exception covers not only resolutions that change the quota fixed in the title but also those that set up a system of distributing expenses, generally or for particular expenses, permanently or for one occasion. A fee distribution like the pool charge of the first paragraph sits inside that exception, so arrears on the disputed fee do not bar the claim; arrears on anything else do.

The clock: three months or a year, and the day it starts

Article 18.3 sets the deadlines: La acción caducará a los tres meses de adoptarse el acuerdo por la Junta de propietarios, salvo que se trate de actos contrarios a la ley o a los estatutos, en cuyo caso la acción caducará al año, the action lapses three months after the meeting adopts the resolution, or one year when the resolution is contrary to the law or the statutes; and Para los propietarios ausentes dicho plazo se computará a partir de la comunicación del acuerdo, for the absent owners the period runs from the notification of the resolution, by the means article 9 provides for. So an owner who attended counts from the day of the meeting, however late the minutes arrive; an owner who was away counts from the day the minutes reached the address or e-mail she gave the community, and an owner who gave none is notified at the flat itself, to whoever occupies it, and failing that through the notice board, which takes effect three days after the posting (article 9.1.h). The grounds of harm, the second and third of article 18.1, always carry the three months; only legality carries the year.

These are periods of caducidad, lapse, not of prescription, and the difference matters: a lapse period is not interrupted by a letter, a complaint or a meeting. The Audiencia of Las Palmas said so in its judgment 365/2025 of 11 June 2025, about a community in Telde whose owner attended a meeting on 26 December 2019 and filed in April 2020, recalling that the Act fixed the periods señalando un plazo de caducidad que no admite interrupción como la prescripción, setting a lapse period that admits no interruption, unlike prescription, and holding that la acción estaría caducada al haber transcurrido más de tres meses desde la celebración de la junta, the action had lapsed, more than three months having passed since the meeting, for every ground except illegality. The only statutory stop on the clock today is the negotiation request of the next section, which did not exist in 2020.

The Supreme Court keeps one narrow door open beyond the year. Where what is attacked is not a flawed resolution but the absence of any resolution at all, a meeting convened by someone with no power to convene it, with no quorum and outside every rule, the Court treats the acts as null of full right and not healed by the passing of the year: in judgment 332/2024 of 6 March 2024, a Tenerife case with two boards and two administrators each claiming to run the same community in Arona, it repeated that what faltaba era el propio acuerdo en sí mismo, dándose así un atentado a la esencia de la institución incompatible con la sanación por caducidad, was missing was the resolution itself, an attack on the essence of the institution that lapse cannot cure. That is the exception for chaos, not for an ordinary resolution you consider illegal; those carry the year and no more.

The negotiation step the law now demands, and what it does to the clock

Since 3 April 2025 a civil claim in Spain is admissible only after an attempt to settle, and a challenge to a community resolution is a civil claim like any other. The efficiency Act, Ley Orgánica 1/2025, requires the attempt en todos los procesos declarativos del libro II, in every declaratory process of book II of the Civil Procedure Act, with a short list of exceptions that does not name horizontal property (article 5.2). Our firm's piece on the requirement explains the forms it can take; the simplest is the one the Act itself names, because se considerará cumplido el requisito cuando la actividad negociadora se desarrolle directamente por las partes, o entre sus abogados o abogadas bajo sus directrices y con su conformidad, the requirement is met when the negotiation is carried out directly by the parties or between their lawyers under their instructions (article 5.1). A reasoned letter to the president and the administrator proposing a correction, with a date and a request for a meeting, is that negotiation.

The letter also does something to the clock that nothing else does. Under article 7.1 of the same Act, the request to open a negotiation, if it defines its object properly, interrumpirá la prescripción o suspenderá la caducidad de acciones desde la fecha en la que conste el intento de comunicación de dicha solicitud a la otra parte, interrupts prescription or suspends lapse from the date the attempt to deliver it to the other party is recorded. The three months of article 18.3 stop on the day the burofax is attempted at the community's address. They restart if the other side does not react: the process ends without agreement, among other cases, Si transcurrieran treinta días naturales a contar desde la fecha de recepción de la solicitud inicial de negociación por la otra parte y no se mantuviera la primera reunión o contacto dirigido a alcanzar un acuerdo o no se obtenga respuesta por escrito, if thirty calendar days pass from the other party's receipt of the request without a first meeting or contact aimed at an agreement or a written answer (article 10.4). From the end of the negotiation las partes deberán formular la demanda dentro del plazo de un año, the parties must file the claim within one year, for the requirement to count (article 7.3), but the resumed lapse period of the Horizontal Property Act is the shorter leash, and it is the one to watch. The proof the court will want is simple: cualquier documento que pruebe que la otra parte ha recibido la solicitud o invitación para negociar, any document proving that the other party received the request or invitation to negotiate, its date and its full content (article 10.2); a burofax with certified content does that; a plain e-mail is harder to prove.

Put together, the sequence for the owner of the first paragraph is: check the minutes record her vote against; send the negotiation request to the president and administrator well inside the three months, by burofax, defining the resolution and the correction she wants; wait the thirty days or attend the meeting the community offers; and if nothing moves, file before the remaining days of the three months run out, with the lapse clock resumed from where it stopped.

What a challenge does not do

Filing does not freeze the resolution. Article 18.4 is explicit: La impugnación de los acuerdos de la Junta no suspenderá su ejecución, salvo que el juez así lo disponga con carácter cautelar, a solicitud del demandante, oída la comunidad de propietarios, the challenge does not suspend the resolution's execution unless the judge so orders as a precautionary measure, at the claimant's request, after hearing the community. The works go ahead, the contractor is hired, and the levy is billed. The minutes make the resolution enforceable the moment they are closed: Desde su cierre los acuerdos serán ejecutivos, salvo que la Ley previere lo contrario, from their closing the resolutions are enforceable unless the law says otherwise (article 19.3).

That has a practical consequence for the owner who sues: she keeps paying. A levy she refuses to pay while the case runs makes her a debtor at the next meeting, where owners in arrears podrán participar en sus deliberaciones si bien no tendrán derecho de voto, may take part in the deliberations but have no vote (article 15.2), and it exposes her to a payment claim the community can bring in the meantime. An owner who wants the works stopped asks the judge for the precautionary suspension with the claim, shows the harm that waiting would cause, and may be asked for security; the community is heard first, and the request is granted sparingly because every suspension costs the other owners something.

The procedure and the cost in Fuerteventura

A challenge to a community resolution goes to the ordinary trial whatever its amount: the Civil Procedure Act (Ley 1/2000) sends to that procedure the claims Cuando se ejerciten las acciones que otorga a las Juntas de Propietarios y a éstos la Ley 49/1960, de 21 de julio, sobre propiedad horizontal, siempre que no versen exclusivamente sobre reclamaciones de cantidad, when the actions the Horizontal Property Act grants to the meeting and to the owners are exercised, as long as they are not purely money claims (article 249.1.8.º). The court is the one where the building stands, En los juicios en materia de propiedad horizontal, será competente el tribunal del lugar en que radique la finca (article 52.1.8.º); for every municipality of Fuerteventura that means the first-instance courts of Puerto del Rosario, the island's single judicial district. Lawyer and court agent are compulsory in the ordinary trial, because the exemption covers only the verbal trials of small amounts, En los juicios verbales cuya determinación se haya efectuado por razón de la cuantía y ésta no exceda de 2.000 euros (articles 23 and 31), and a resolution challenge is never one of those.

The stages are fixed by the Act and slow in practice. The community is served and answers para que la conteste en el plazo de veinte días, within twenty days (article 404.1); a preliminary hearing follows within twenty days of its summons (article 414.1), then the trial, then a judgment due within twenty days of its close (article 434.1). The courts' governing council measures how long the whole takes: in its workbook of April 2026, an ordinary trial finished in 2025 lasted 13.4 months at first instance in the Canary Islands, against 15.5 months in Spain as a whole, and an appeal to the Audiencia of Las Palmas adds its own months. An owner who files in November 2026 against a levy for works that start in January is, in practice, litigating about money already spent.

The cost has two sides. If the claim fails in full, las costas de la primera instancia se impondrán a la parte que haya visto rechazadas todas sus pretensiones, salvo que el tribunal aprecie, y así lo razone, que el caso presentaba serias dudas de hecho o de derecho, the costs of the first instance are imposed on the party whose claims were all rejected, unless the court finds and explains that the case raised serious doubts of fact or law (article 394.1): the owner then pays the community's lawyer and court agent as well as her own. If the claim succeeds, the community pays, and the community's money is every owner's money, the claimant's share included, because the community's own defence is a general expense met from the fees under article 9.1.e. That is the arithmetic a good adviser puts on paper before the burofax goes out: what the resolution costs you, what the case costs if you lose, and what you recover if you win.

What we do

We answer an owner's or a board's question about a resolution in plain language within twenty-four hours: what the Act says, what your statutes add, and whether what you have is a ground. When the matter has consequences, the options go on paper, with what each path costs, how long it takes and what can go wrong. If the owner or the community chooses the formal route, the file moves next door to the group's law firm in Corralejo with the documents complete, and nothing is filed without a written quote first. Legal support for communities is where the question lands; the quote form is the quickest way to put it to us.

Common questions

I was abroad, the minutes arrived by e-mail and I disagree with a resolution. When does my deadline start?

On the day the minutes were notified to you, three months for the grounds of harm and one year for a resolution contrary to the law or the statutes, provided the community sent them to the address you gave it. If you never gave the community an address, delivery at your flat to whoever occupies it counts, and if that fails the notice on the building's board counts as notification three days after it is posted; the clock starts then.

I voted in favour and now regret it. Can I challenge?

No. Standing belongs to those who voted against or reserved their vote, to the absent and to those wrongly denied the vote. Your route is the agenda: ask the president in writing to put the matter to the next meeting, or gather a quarter of the owners for an extraordinary one.

The resolution I want to challenge is the very fee I refuse to pay. Do I have to pay first?

If the resolution sets or alters the participation quotas or the way expenses are shared, no: the Supreme Court reads that exception as covering any distribution of expenses, general or particular, permanent or for one occasion. For any other resolution you must be up to date with every debt fallen due, or deposit the disputed amount with the court before you file.

Does sending a burofax give me more time?

A negotiation request that defines the resolution and what you want suspends the lapse period from the day its delivery is attempted, and the period resumes if the community does not meet you or answer in writing within thirty days. An ordinary complaint, a request for the agenda or a dissent under article 17.8 suspends nothing.

If I win, does the community pay my lawyer?

When all of your claims are upheld, the court normally orders the community to pay the costs, which include your lawyer and court agent within the official scale. The community pays from the common fund, to which you contribute through your fees, and if you lose in full the order runs the other way.