Every community has a rulebook, and most of them are worth exactly what the meeting that wrote them understood about the law. A ban on dogs typed into a set of house rules by a show of hands; a "no noise after ten" clause with no measurement behind it; a parking rule that contradicts the deeds; a pool rule that nobody can enforce because the pool piece of the puzzle belongs to the health regulations — we inherit them with every community we take over, and the first thing we do is check which of them would survive a court. This piece is about what a community on Fuerteventura can regulate and what it cannot: the two kinds of rules the Horizontal Property Act allows, the majorities each one needs, the three subjects that fill our inbox — noise, pets and parking — and the procedure that turns a rule into an order when an owner, or an owner's tenant, will not comply.
Two rulebooks, two majorities
The Act gives a community two instruments, and confusing them is the commonest mistake we correct.
The statutes are part of the constitutive title. They may contain «rules on the use or destination of the building, its flats or premises, installations and services, expenses, administration and government, insurance, conservation and repairs» (Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, art. 5). Because they touch the content of each owner's right, changing them takes unanimity — the favourable vote of all owners representing all the quotas (art. 17.6) — and they bind buyers only once they are registered at the Land Registry (art. 5). A statute can prohibit an activity in the private units: a professional use, a bar on the ground floor, a tourist let (since 2025 that particular ban has its own three-fifths rule, as our holiday-lets piece explains).
The house rules — normas de régimen interior — are a different animal. The owners may fix them «to regulate the details of coexistence and the proper use of common services and things, within the limits set by the Act and the statutes», and they bind every owner «until modified in the form provided for resolutions on administration» (art. 6) — that is, by the ordinary majority of owners and quotas, or of those present at second call (art. 17.7), the majorities our meeting guide walks through. House rules therefore reach the details: pool hours, the use of the barbecue area, where bicycles are parked, how the intercom is used, when the rubbish goes out, quiet hours. What they cannot do is what only a statute can: create prohibitions that cut into the content of the private right. A house rule that bans dogs, or forbids letting a flat, or assigns a common parking space to one owner for good, is a statute pretending to be a house rule — and it falls the day someone challenges it, within three months of the resolution, or a year when it is contrary to the Act or the statutes (art. 18).
The line between the two is the line between how something is done and whether it may be done at all. A rule that says «dogs on a lead in the common areas and never on the pool deck» is a house rule; a rule that says «no dogs» is a statute.
Noise: the one rule with numbers behind it
Noise is the complaint that never stops arriving, and it is also the one subject where the community does not have to invent a standard, because the State and the town halls have written it.
The national noise regulation sets quality objectives for the inside of homes: a living room should not exceed 45 dB(A) by day and evening and 35 dB(A) at night; a bedroom, 40 dB(A) by day and evening and 30 dB(A) at night — measured inside the room, the building's own installations and the neighbours' noise included (Real Decreto 1367/2007, anexo II, tabla B). Those are the figures a technician measures against, and the figures a court reads.
The town halls add the clock. Pájara's 2024 noise ordinance divides the day into three periods — day from 07:00 to 19:00, evening from 19:00 to 23:00, night from 23:00 to 07:00 on weekdays, with the night running from midnight to 08:00 at weekends and on holidays — adopts the State's indoor objectives, requires domestic activities and neighbourly relations to respect them, makes the keeping of pets conditional on «the absence of nuisance to the neighbourhood — barking, howling, meowing, especially at night», and bans works machinery in residential buildings between 22:00 and 08:00 when the noise reaches the homes; fines run from €100 to €750 for minor breaches, €751 to €1,500 for serious ones and €1,501 to €3,000 for the very serious (Ordenanza de ruidos y vibraciones de Pájara, arts. 8 and following). La Oliva confines the noisiest works machinery to 09:00–18:00 and was drafting a new ordinance in 2024; Antigua and Tuineje have their own. A community's quiet-hours rule should copy its town hall's periods rather than invent others, because a rule that matches the ordinance can be enforced twice — by the community under the Act and by the council under the ordinance — and a rule that contradicts it can be enforced by nobody.
Two practical consequences. A complaint about a neighbour's television is not a legal case until someone has measured it, so the administrator's first step is a sound-level reading by a technician or the local police, at the hours the ordinance defines. And a rule that sets quiet hours is enforceable; a rule that says «no noise» is not, because the Act sanctions activities that are nuisances in the sense of the general rules (art. 7.2), and a nuisance is a measured thing.
Pets: what a community may regulate in 2026
The 2023 Animal Welfare Act changed the conversation but not the Horizontal Property Act. It created no absolute right to keep animals in any home, and the courts have said so: a first-instance court in Vigo upheld, in 2026, a statutory ban on animals approved by unanimity and registered, precisely because the Act sets the form and the community followed it; an Audiencia Provincial ordered a flat used to house dogs to stop, through the Act's cessation action for nuisance activities. Two readings coexist and a community should know both: a ban on pets is a limit on the private right, so it lives in the statutes, by unanimity, registered — never in a house rule voted by majority; and a ban that exists only on paper is worth nothing if the community cannot prove a nuisance, because the sanction the Act offers is the cessation action, and a court grants it against a nuisance, not against a cat.
What a house rule may do, and should: dogs on a lead in the common areas; no animals on the pool deck or in the children's playground; owners clean up after their animals; no animals left alone on terraces, balconies or in garages when they disturb — which is also what the Pájara ordinance says. For the communities we administer with many owners abroad the pet rule that matters most is the one about tenants and guests: a holiday guest's dog is the owner's responsibility under the Act, which makes each owner answer to the others for the infractions committed and the damage caused (art. 9.1.g), and the cessation action names the owner as well as the occupant (art. 7.2).
Parking, terraces, laundry and works: the rules that hold up
- Parking. Who owns or uses which space is decided by the title and the deeds, not by the meeting: a garage space that is a private unit is the owner's, a common courtyard can be regulated by house rules — guest parking, time limits, no repairs or washing, charging points under the individual-works rule our EV-charger piece sets out. Assigning a common space permanently to one owner needs the statutes.
- Terraces and façades. Awnings, closures, satellite dishes and pergolas alter the exterior and touch common elements; the Act lets an owner modify only what does not «impair or alter the security of the building, its general structure, its configuration or external state», with prior notice to the community (art. 7.1). A house rule may fix a uniform colour and model for awnings; it may not authorise what the Act forbids.
- Laundry, barbecues, drones and the rest. Details of coexistence, all of them: a house rule may say where laundry is hung, where a barbecue is lit and when, whether the roof is accessible. It may not fine — the Act gives communities no power to impose fines, only the procedure below — so a "penalty table" in a set of house rules is decoration.
- Works inside flats. Hours are the town hall's and the ordinance's; a house rule may repeat them and add the practical rules: notice to the administrator, the lift protected, debris removed daily, no works in August if the community so decides. Whether a work is allowed is a different question, answered by the Act (art. 7.1) and the licence.
When a rule is broken: the ladder
The Act's procedure for the owner or occupant who «carries out in the flat or in the rest of the building activities prohibited by the statutes, harmful to the property or contrary to the general rules on nuisance, unhealthy, noxious, dangerous or unlawful activities» has four rungs, and skipping one loses the case (art. 7.2).
- The president's demand. On his own initiative or at the request of any owner or occupant, the president requires the offender, in a form that proves receipt, to cease immediately, warning of legal action. The administrator drafts it, the president signs it, the file starts here.
- The meeting's authorisation. If the conduct persists, the president may bring the cessation action only with the prior authorisation of the owners' meeting, duly convened for the purpose — a specific item on the agenda, a specific vote by ordinary majority, minutes that say so.
- The action, against owner and occupant. The claim goes through ordinary proceedings, with proof of the demand and the meeting's certificate; the judge may order the activity to stop at once, as an interim measure, under warning of the offence of disobedience, and the claim must be directed against the owner and, where there is one, the tenant or occupant.
- The sentence. Beyond definitive cessation and damages, the court may deprive the owner of the use of the flat for up to three years, according to the gravity of the breach and the harm to the community; a tenant may lose all rights to the flat and be evicted.
Nothing in that ladder needs the rule to be in the statutes: the Act's own list of nuisance activities is enough, which is why the measured noise reading matters more than the wording of the house rules. And nothing in it lets the community act on its own: the rule is enforced by a judge, on the community's evidence. Our piece on the president explains how a president abroad signs the demand and delegates the rest.
A rulebook that holds up: the model we install
For the communities we administer on the island the house rules run to two pages, in Spanish and in the owners' languages, approved by ordinary majority and handed to every tenant and every holiday guest: quiet hours copied from the municipal ordinance (23:00–07:00, midnight–08:00 at weekends); pool hours and the rules the health regulations impose, which our pool piece will set out this month; dogs on a lead, never on the pool deck, owners clean up; guest parking marked, time-limited, no washing or repairs; works notified, hours per the ordinance, debris out daily, none in August; barbecue in its area, laundry inside the terrace line, roof closed; the administrator's incident channel as the first call for any of it. Anything that would cut into an owner's right — pets, letting, uses — goes to the statutes or nowhere.
Where we come in
Our administrators in Fuerteventura audit the statutes and house rules of every community we take over, redraft the house rules so that each line is enforceable and each subject sits in the right instrument, translate them for owners and tenants, commission the noise measurement when a complaint comes in, draft the president's demand and, when the meeting authorises it, instruct the cessation action. See our community administration and community legal support services, or ask for a quote.
Common questions
Can a community of owners ban pets in the flats?
Only in the statutes, approved by unanimity and registered at the Land Registry — never by a majority vote on house rules. Courts in 2026 have upheld registered statutory bans and have also ordered the cessation of flats used to house animals as a nuisance; the 2023 Animal Welfare Act created no absolute right to keep animals. A community that wants to regulate rather than ban uses house rules: leads, no animals on the pool deck, no nuisance, the owner answering for tenants and guests.
What are the legal quiet hours in Fuerteventura?
The town halls set them. Pájara's 2024 ordinance runs the night period from 23:00 to 07:00 on weekdays and from midnight to 08:00 at weekends and holidays, bans works machinery in residential buildings from 22:00 to 08:00 and applies the State's indoor objectives — 30 dB(A) in a bedroom at night — with fines from €100 to €3,000. La Oliva limits the noisiest works machinery to 09:00–18:00. A community's rule should copy its own municipality's periods.
Can the community fine an owner who breaks the house rules?
No. The Horizontal Property Act gives communities no power to fine. The route is the president's formal demand to cease, the meeting's authorisation and, if the conduct persists, a cessation action in court, which may end with the owner deprived of the use of the flat for up to three years or a tenant evicted. Municipal fines for noise are the council's, on a measured reading.
Do house rules bind my tenant or my holiday guests?
Yes. The Act's prohibitions apply to the owner and to the occupant of the flat, and each owner answers to the others for the infractions committed and the damage caused. Give the house rules to every tenant and guest in their language, and put the administrator's contact in the flat: the demand and the claim will name you as well as them.
