How to change your community administrator in Spain — and when to do it

Most owners never think about who administers their community until something goes wrong: the accounts arrive a week before the meeting, nobody answers in August, a leak takes three months to fix, or the arrears list has quietly grown for four years. Then the same question comes up at every AGM — can we actually change administrator, or are we stuck?

You are not stuck. Spanish law makes this one of the easiest decisions a community can take. What trips communities up is not the law; it is the timing and the handover.

The legal position, in one paragraph

Under the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (LPH), appointing and removing the administrator is a competence of the junta de propietarios — the owners' meeting — and of nobody else (art. 14.a). Article 13.7 is blunt about it: unless your statutes say otherwise, posts are appointed for one year, and those appointed "podrán ser removidos de su cargo antes de la expiración del mandato por acuerdo de la Junta de propietarios, convocada en sesión extraordinaria" — they can be removed before their term ends by an agreement of the owners' meeting, called as an extraordinary session.

So: no unanimity, no notary, no court. A meeting and a vote.

What majority do you need?

Removing and appointing an administrator is not one of the special cases listed in article 17, so it falls under the residual rule (art. 17.7): a simple majority — a majority of owners who also represent a majority of participation quotas on first call, or a majority of those attending representing more than half the quotas present on second call.

Two practical notes. First, owners who are not up to date with their community payments may attend and speak but have no vote (art. 15.2) — which occasionally changes the arithmetic. Second, proxies count: an owner in Düsseldorf who sends a signed delegation is as present as the neighbour downstairs.

Calling the meeting

The president convenes the junta. If your president is reluctant, the LPH gives owners a lever: owners representing 25% of the participation quotas (or 25% of the owners) can require a meeting to be called (art. 16.2).

Three things to get right in the convocation, because a sloppy one is the easiest way to have the decision challenged later:

• An explicit agenda item. Not "various matters". Something like "Cese del administrador actual y nombramiento de nuevo administrador" — dismissal of the current administrator and appointment of a new one. Decisions on matters not on the agenda are vulnerable.
• Proper notice. The ordinary annual meeting needs at least six days' notice (art. 16.3); an extraordinary one needs whatever notice is feasible. Six days is a legal floor, not a target — for a community with owners abroad, three or four weeks is the decent minimum, and your statutes may require more.
• The debtor list. The convocation must include the list of owners not up to date with the community (art. 16.2). Skipping it is a common defect.

The part that actually decides whether the change goes well: the handover

The vote takes ten minutes. The handover is where communities lose a year.

Here the LPH is thinner than people expect. It obliges the administrator to "custodiar a disposición de los titulares la documentación de la comunidad" — to keep and make available the community's documentation (art. 20.e) — and article 19 governs the minutes book. But the familiar deadlines you will read online (ten days for essential documents, forty-five for the accounting) come from the profession's own codes of conduct, not from the statute. Treat them as good practice you have to write down, not as a right that enforces itself.

So write them into the agreement itself. The minutes should record the date of cessation and a deadline for delivery of, at minimum:

• the libro de actas (minutes book) and the full set of minutes;
• the community's bank statements, and the change of authorised signatories — the account must be in the community's own name and CIF, never the administrator's;
• the debtor list with the supporting documentation for each file, and the status of any claim already in court;
• current contracts: lift, cleaning, gardening, pool, insurance, energy supply, any employment contracts and their Social Security position;
• technical documentation: the building book if one exists, ITE or inspection certificates, lift inspections, legionella and pool records;
• the last approved budget and accounts, and the reserve fund balance.

A new administrator who takes over without the debtor files is a new administrator who quietly writes off your arrears. Ask for that list first.

Is there a penalty for switching?

Legally, the junta can remove the administrator at any time — that is article 13.7 and it cannot be contracted away. What you may owe is a contractual question: some administration contracts run for a fixed term and provide for the remaining months. Read the contract before the meeting, because it belongs in the discussion.

In practice most contracts in Fuerteventura are annual and expire with the appointment, which is why the ordinary AGM is the natural moment. And a professional firm that wants your community should not be charging you to arrive. We don't — taking on a community mid-term or at renewal costs nothing extra either way.

The timing: aim at the budget cycle

This is the piece almost nobody plans for.

Your community's financial year is a cycle: the ordinary AGM approves the closing accounts for the year that ended and the budget for the year ahead, and the quotas everyone pays are derived from that budget. If you change administrator at the meeting that sets next year's budget, the incoming firm owns the numbers it will be judged on. If you change three months later, someone spends a year administering a budget they had no part in building — and every awkward figure has two possible authors.

So the useful question is not "when can we change?" but "when does our community approve its budget?" Work backwards from that date:

1. Three to four months before — ask for quotes and compare them properly (see below). Get them in writing, with the scope stated.
2. Six to eight weeks before — the board agrees a recommendation and the president puts the item on the agenda for the ordinary AGM.
3. At the AGM — accounts approved, budget approved, administrator appointed. One meeting, one clean line.
4. The following weeks — handover per the deadlines minuted.

Communities looking at the 2027 budget cycle should be having the first conversation now, not in the week of the meeting.

What to ask any administrator before you appoint them

Article 13.6 allows the post to be held by an owner, by a qualified professional, or by a company. That freedom cuts both ways, so ask:

• Qualification and registration. Are they a colegiado administrator, and do they carry professional indemnity insurance? Ask to see both.
• A fixed, written fee, and a clear statement of what falls outside it. A quote that cannot say what is included is a quote you will argue about.
• Where the money sits. Community account, community CIF, community signatures.
• How often you see the accounts. Monthly beats "at the AGM" by a distance — an error found in March is a correction; the same error found in December is an argument.
• Supplier discipline. Three quotes for significant work, and no commission taken from any supplier. Ask them to say it out loud.
• Arrears policy. What happens at 30, 60 and 90 days, and who pays for the claim.
• Languages. In a community where half the owners live abroad, an administrator who only writes in Spanish is a translation problem you inherit.
• What owners can see for themselves. Our own owner portal is included with every community we manage: statements published online, incidents tracked with photos, meeting convocations and the proxy form in one place, in English, Spanish and German, behind one login.

None of this is exotic. It is the minimum a building deserves.