Three quotes on the table of a board in Costa Calma this month: one at €6.50 per unit and month, one at €4.90, one at €7.20 «all inclusive». The board's question was the one we hear every September, in the weeks before the ordinary meetings that approve next year's budget: which of these is actually cheaper? The honest answer is that a per-unit figure on its own says almost nothing, because the Horizontal Property Act puts a fixed core of work inside the administrator's post and leaves everything else to the contract. This piece reads that core in article 20, what the law says about how fees are set and what a quote must tell you before you sign, what belonging to the professional college guarantees and how to check it, the clauses that should worry you, and two illustrative quotes for the same forty-unit block worked over a quiet year and a year with works. Quotations are in Spanish with the reading in English; the figures in the comparison are ours, chosen to show the mechanics, not a tariff.
What the law puts inside the post
Article 20 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal lists six duties, and the first five are the base service every community is entitled to for the fee it approves. The administrator must Velar por el buen régimen de la casa, sus instalaciones y servicios — watch over the good running of the building, its installations and services — and warn owners when something is wrong (20.a). They must Preparar con la debida antelación y someter a la Junta el plan de gastos previsibles, proponiendo los medios necesarios para hacer frente a los mismos — prepare the budget of foreseeable expenses in good time, propose how to fund it and put it to the meeting (20.b). They must attend to the conservation and upkeep of the building, disponiendo las reparaciones y medidas que resulten urgentes, dando inmediata cuenta de ellas al presidente — ordering the repairs and measures that are urgent and reporting them at once to the president (20.c). They must Ejecutar los acuerdos adoptados en materia de obras y efectuar los pagos y realizar los cobros que sean procedentes — carry out the resolutions on works and make the payments and collections that are due (20.d). And, where the posts are combined, they act as secretary of the meeting and custodiar a disposición de los titulares la documentación de la comunidad — keep the community's documentation available to the owners (20.e).
The sixth duty is the door to everything else: Todas las demás atribuciones que se confieran por la Junta — all the other functions the meeting confers (20.f). That line is why two quotes with the same per-unit price can describe two different services. Whatever the meeting or the contract adds beyond the five duties is negotiable, and whatever it does not add is not owed.
Around article 20 sit the rules that shape the workload. The meeting appoints and removes the administrator and resolver las reclamaciones que los titulares de los pisos o locales formulen contra la actuación de aquéllos — decides the complaints owners raise against them (article 14.a); it approves the budget and the accounts (14.b), which is why reading the annual accounts from abroad is the owner's side of the same duty. The meeting must be held por lo menos una vez al año para aprobar los presupuestos y cuentas — at least once a year to approve the budgets and accounts (16.1), with a convocation that carries the list of owners in arrears (16.2). The minutes must be closed dentro de los diez días naturales siguientes — within the ten calendar days following the meeting — and sent to every owner (19.3), and the secretary keeps the convocations, proxies and papers for five years (19.4). The fee itself is a general expense every owner contributes to by quota (9.1.e), approved inside the budget.
How fees are set: there is no tariff
Since December 2009 no professional college may publish a fee scale. Article 14 of the Ley de Colegios Profesionales, added by the Ley 25/2009, says that colleges no podrán establecer baremos orientativos ni cualquier otra orientación, recomendación, directriz, norma o regla sobre honorarios profesionales — may not set indicative scales or any other guidance, recommendation, directive, rule or standard on professional fees. Every firm prices freely, and the «official rate» some owners ask us about does not exist. What exists is a market habit: a monthly fee per dwelling or unit, sometimes an annual sum for the whole community, plus IGIC at the general rate: El tipo general en el impuesto general indirecto canario es el 7% — the general rate of the Canary indirect tax is 7 % (article 32.1 of the consolidated Canary text approved by Decreto Legislativo 1/2025).
What moves the number is the work behind it: how many units and how many of them are commercial premises or garages, whether the building has a lift, a pool, gardens or employees, how many meetings the contract includes, how many owners live abroad and in which languages, how much arrears management the community carries, and whether the accounts are kept and published monthly or reconstructed once a year. A quote that does not name these is a number, not an offer.
What a quote must tell you before you sign
The Ley 17/2009 on access to service activities applies to administrators as to any service provider, and its article 22 lists what they must make available before the contract: their identity, legal form, tax number and address (22.2.a), their registration data (22.2.b), for regulated professions the qualification and the college they belong to (22.2.d), El precio completo del servicio, incluidos los impuestos, cuando el prestador fije previamente un precio para un determinado tipo de servicio — the complete price including taxes, where the provider sets a price for a type of service in advance (22.2.g), and el seguro o garantías exigidas, y en particular, los datos del asegurador y de la cobertura geográfica del seguro — the required insurance or guarantees, with the insurer's details and the geographic cover (22.2.i). On request they must also give un presupuesto suficientemente detallado — a sufficiently detailed estimate (22.3.a), the duration of the contract (22.3.b) and the measures they take against conflicts of interest (22.3.d).
Read as a checklist, article 22 is the request a board should send with its call for quotes: the price with IGIC, the scope in writing, the insurance certificate, the contract's term and how it ends, and the answer to one question every firm should be able to give without hesitation: do you receive anything from the suppliers you propose?
Inside the fee and outside it
| Inside the base fee (the law's five duties) |
Usually priced separately (20.f: the contract) |
| The budget and the ordinary annual meeting: convocation with the arrears list, attendance, minutes within ten days |
Extraordinary meetings beyond the number the contract includes |
| Monthly accounts, payments and collections, the bank in the community's own name |
Managing a major work: tenders, site visits, certifications, often priced as a share of the work |
| Incidents, urgent repairs and their report to the president |
Court claims for arrears (the debtor pays these under article 21.3) |
| Supplier management and the annual contracts: lift, cleaning, pool, insurance |
Insurance claims handled end to end |
| Custody of documents and the certificates owners need to sell |
Employees: payroll and social security of community staff |
| Answering owners, in the languages the contract promises |
Subsidy files, inspection files, data-protection paperwork |
The right-hand column is not a list of abuses; it is legitimate extra work that the law leaves to the contract. The problem is a quote that prices the left column low and keeps the right column vague, because a community with a roof to repair or twelve owners in arrears will spend its year in the right column. One extra deserves its own line. Article 21.3 lets the community include in a debt claim todos los gastos y costes que conlleve la reclamación de la deuda, incluidos los derivados de la intervención del secretario administrador, que serán a cargo del deudor — all the expenses and costs the claim entails, including those of the secretary-administrator's intervention, which are for the debtor's account. A fee for preparing the debt certificate and the claim is therefore normal; charging it to the community rather than to the debtor is a choice the quote should explain, and our piece on unpaid fees walks through the claim itself.
Colegiación: what it guarantees and how to check it in Fuerteventura
The Act is open about who may hold the post. Article 13.6 admits any owner, personas físicas con cualificación profesional suficiente y legalmente reconocida — natural persons with sufficient and legally recognised professional qualification — and legal persons. Membership of the professional college is not compulsory by law: the Ley de Colegios Profesionales requires it only cuando así lo establezca una ley estatal — where a State law so provides (article 3.2), and none does for property administrators. That is exactly why colegiación is worth checking: it is the guarantee a firm chooses to give.
For the province the check is public. The Colegio Oficial de Administradores de Fincas de Las Palmas, whose province covers Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, publishes its register under the heading Encuentra a tu colegiado/a — find your registered administrator — searchable by island and locality; when we looked in September 2026 it listed twenty-seven members for Fuerteventura. Its ventanilla única page links the register, the complaints form and the profession's code of conduct. That code, published by the Consejo General de Colegios, is where the guarantees are written. Article 6 requires registered administrators to hold insurance covering their professional liability and la responsabilidad en la que pueda incurrir con respecto a los fondos, bienes y derechos que les hayan sido depositados o confiados — their liability for the funds, assets and rights entrusted to them — and says that A solicitud del interesado, el Administrador de Fincas colegiado habrá de exhibir el correspondiente certificado que acredite la vigencia de dichas garantías — on request they must show the certificate proving those guarantees are in force. Article 2 sets the conduct rules a board should care about most: to Abstenerse de recibir comisiones, descuentos o beneficios por los gastos comprometidos derivados de la cuenta de un mandante, sin haber obtenido antes el consentimiento de éste — refrain from taking commissions, discounts or benefits on the expenses paid from a client's account without the client's prior consent (rule 3), to choose suppliers and invoice them with complete transparency (rule 4), to disclose any supplier in which they hold an interest (rule 5), to commit no expense without authorisation except the urgent ones the law allows (rule 2), and to informar con exactitud a éste de los honorarios profesionales correspondientes a los servicios prestados, procediendo, en su caso, al desglose — inform the client exactly of the fees for the services rendered, itemised where appropriate (rule 10).
Our own practice is directed by a lawyer registered with the Las Palmas Bar since 1998 and carries professional liability insurance; we show the certificate on request, and we expect any firm you compare us with to do the same.
The clauses that should worry you
- A price without a scope. «Full administration» with no meeting count, no accounting frequency and no list of extras is the quote that grows in year two.
- Silence on suppliers. Ask the article 22.3.d question in writing. A firm that proposes its own maintenance company, or a relative's, must say so; the code's rule 5 exists for that case.
- An account that is not the community's. The bank account must be in the community's name and tax number, with the president among the signatories. Our earlier piece on changing administrator explains what to demand at the handover; the same list is what to demand at the start.
- No insurance certificate. Article 22.2.i of the Ley 17/2009 and article 6 of the code both say you may ask for it. If it does not arrive, the answer is the absence.
- Minutes that arrive months later. The law gives ten days to close them and requires their dispatch to every owner; a firm that cannot meet that with your community's size will not meet the rest.
- Debt claims billed to the community. Article 21.3 puts the cost on the debtor. A quote that charges the community per file, and then charges the debtor too, is billing the same work twice.
- Renewal by silence with a penalty. Article 13.7 lets the meeting remove the administrator at any time; a contract that makes leaving expensive is asking you to pay for a right the law already gives you.
Two quotes for the same block, side by side
Take a forty-unit block in Caleta de Fuste with a lift, a pool and a gardener. Quote A charges €6.50 per unit and month, €3,120 a year plus IGIC, and includes the ordinary meeting, one extraordinary meeting, monthly online accounts, incidents, and the management of works up to €15,000 without extra charge. Quote B charges €4.90, €2,352 a year plus IGIC, and lists its extras: €150 per extraordinary meeting, 4 % of the budget for managing any work, €90 per arrears file, €60 per insurance claim.
In a quiet year, one ordinary meeting, no works, two insurance claims and three arrears files, Quote A costs €3,120 and Quote B €2,352 plus €120 for the claims, €2,472, with the arrears fees charged to the debtors under article 21.3. Quote B is cheaper by about €650. In a year with a €30,000 roof repair, two extraordinary meetings, the same claims and six arrears files, Quote A costs €3,120 plus whatever it charges above its €15,000 works ceiling, say 2 % of the excess, €300, so €3,420; Quote B costs €2,352 plus €300 for the meetings, €1,200 for the work and €120 for the claims, €3,972. Now Quote A is cheaper by about €550, and the community has also had the works managed by the firm that answers for the building the rest of the year. Neither is the wrong quote. The point is that a board cannot choose between them without reading the right-hand column of the table above against the year it expects, and that the 7 % IGIC sits on top of every figure.
How we quote
The communities we administer in Fuerteventura receive a fixed monthly fee per unit with the scope written into the contract: the ordinary meeting and the number of extraordinary ones included, accounts published online every month, incidents handled from three service points on the island, a bilingual team for owners abroad, and a list of extras with their prices before they are needed. The insurance certificate and the identification article 22 requires come with the quote, and any firm's proposal you already have on the table can be read against ours line by line. Our community administration service describes the standard; ask for a quote and you will receive the scope, the extras and the tax shown, on one page.
Common questions
Is the administrator's fee shared by every owner?
Yes. It is a general expense under article 9.1.e, paid by participation quota unless the title or the statutes set a different rule, and it is approved inside the annual budget the meeting votes under article 14.b. An owner cannot opt out of it, and an owner in arrears loses the vote at the meeting but not the obligation.
Can we pay the administrator per task instead of per unit?
The law does not fix the method; article 20.f leaves what is added to the meeting and the contract. A per-task model is lawful, but the five legal duties of article 20 must be covered whatever the model, so a contract that charges separately for preparing the budget or for the ordinary meeting is charging for the core of the post.
Do we have to appoint a registered administrator?
No. Article 13.6 allows an owner, a qualified natural person or a company, and college membership is not compulsory by law for administrators. It is the guarantee a firm offers: the public register of the Las Palmas college, the complaints route, the code of conduct and the insurance certificate you may demand under it.
Who pays the administrator's fee for chasing an owner in arrears?
The debtor, once the claim is made through the community's debt procedure. Article 21.3 allows the claim to include all the costs of recovering the debt, including those of the secretary-administrator's intervention, for the debtor's account, and article 21.5 adds the lawyer's and procurador's fees where they are used. Before the claim, the work of reminders and certificates belongs to the ordinary service or to the extras the contract prices.
