Forcing an extraordinary meeting: the 25 % rule, the agenda and what to do when the president says no

The roof terrace of a block in Corralejo has leaked into three flats since the last storm. The president, who lives on the ground floor, answers that it will go on the agenda of the annual meeting, in March. The owners under the terrace do not want to wait five months, and the Horizontal Property Act does not make them: a group of owners can force a meeting. What the Act did not say clearly was how, and on 2 June 2025 the Supreme Court said it twice in one day. In Seville and in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, owners with more than enough quotas had called meetings themselves without asking the president first, and in both cases the Court decided against the meeting. This note sets out who can ask, how to ask, what happens when the president says no or says nothing, and how to write an agenda that will survive a challenge. Quotations are in Spanish with the reading in English.

Who can ask

The Act says the meeting gathers once a year for the budget and the accounts, and on any other occasion the president thinks fit o lo pidan la cuarta parte de los propietarios, o un número de éstos que representen al menos el 25 por 100 de las cuotas de participación, or when it is asked for by a quarter of the owners, or by a number of them holding at least 25 per cent of the participation quotas (Ley 49/1960, article 16). The two measures are alternatives. In a block of forty flats, ten owners are enough whatever their quotas; so are three owners of large units if their quotas add up to a quarter of the total.

Any meeting other than the annual one is an extraordinary meeting, and it can do whatever a meeting can do: approve works and the contributions to pay for them, change the administrator, or change the president. For the officers the Act even names the route: Los designados podrán ser removidos de su cargo antes de la expiración del mandato por acuerdo de la Junta de propietarios, convocada en sesión extraordinaria, those appointed may be removed before their term ends by a resolution of the owners' meeting, convened in extraordinary session (article 13).

Ask first: the Supreme Court in June 2025

For years the provincial courts disagreed on whether owners who reach the threshold may send the call themselves. The Supreme Court settled it in two judgments of 2 June 2025, numbers 867/2025 and 868/2025. Its starting point is the verb the Act uses: El verbo empleado -«pedir»- implica una solicitud, no una actuación ejecutiva, the verb used, «to ask», implies a request, not an act of execution. A request needs someone to receive it, and that is the president. So la legitimación de los promotores para convocar no es directa, sino condicionada a la previa inacción del presidente, the promoters' standing to convene is not direct, but conditional on the president's prior inaction.

Neither case was a technicality. In Seville, a meeting held on 5 September 2016 removed the president by 15 votes to 8; the owners who called it had the numbers, had not asked her first, and the resolutions were annulled. In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, owners holding 29.23 per cent of the quotas called two meetings directly, the lower courts held them valid, and the Supreme Court reversed. In both cases it was argued that asking would have been pointless, because the president was the very person the meeting was about. The Court answered that the Act already deals with that risk: the owners ask, and Si este, injustificadamente, no lo hace en un plazo prudencial, queda habilitada la legitimación subsidiaria de los promotores para efectuar directamente la convocatoria, if he, without justification, does not do so within a prudent time, the promoters' subsidiary standing to send the call themselves is triggered. In the Court's words, la pasividad del presidente no puede bloquear indefinidamente la celebración de la Junta, the president's passivity cannot block the holding of the meeting indefinitely.

The request

Nothing in the Act prescribes a form, and the two judgments show why form matters: years later, someone will have to prove that the president was asked, and when. A request that does its job has four things in it.

• Who is asking. The name, the flat or unit and the quota of every owner who signs, so that anyone can check the quarter of the owners or the quarter of the quotas.
• What for. The items the meeting is to decide, worded the way they should appear on the agenda.
• By when. A date by which the president is asked to send the call. The Court speaks of a prudent time and gives no number; a request that names its own date leaves less to argue about.
• Proof. A burofax with certified content to the president, with a copy to the administrator, shows what was asked and on which day.

One owner alone has a smaller right. 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 decide on any matter of interest to the community, by writing to the president, who must put it on the agenda of the next meeting that is held (article 16). It does not bring a meeting forward. It does guarantee that the matter is not left out of the next one.

The letter itself can be short. In Spanish, which is the language it will have to be read in: «Los abajo firmantes, propietarios que representamos más de la cuarta parte de las cuotas de participación, pedimos al presidente, conforme al artículo dieciséis de la Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, que convoque Junta extraordinaria en el plazo de quince días con el siguiente orden del día». That is: «We, the undersigned owners, who hold more than a quarter of the participation quotas, ask the president, under article sixteen of the Horizontal Property Act, to convene an extraordinary meeting within fifteen days with the following agenda». The agenda follows, and then the signatures.

When the president says no, or says nothing

Then, and only then, the owners who asked take the president's place: La convocatoria de las Juntas la hará el presidente y, en su defecto, los promotores de la reunión, the call to meetings is made by the president and, failing him, by the promoters of the meeting. Taking his place means doing everything he would have had to do. The call goes out con indicación de los asuntos a tratar, el lugar, día y hora en que se celebrará en primera o, en su caso, en segunda convocatoria, stating the matters to be dealt with and the place, day and hour at which it will be held at first or, where applicable, second call. It goes to every owner, not only to the friendly ones, at the address each has given the secretary: the Act speaks of el domicilio en España a efectos de citaciones y notificaciones, the address in Spain for summonses and notifications, and falls back on the flat itself when none was given (article 9).

Two details catch promoters out. La convocatoria contendrá una relación de los propietarios que no estén al corriente en el pago de las deudas vencidas a la comunidad, the call must contain a list of the owners who are not up to date with the debts due to the community, with the warning that they will not vote; the list is in the administrator's hands, so the request should ask for it. And the minutes must record El autor de la convocatoria y, en su caso, los propietarios que la hubiesen promovido, who made the call and, where applicable, the owners who promoted it (article 19). Keep the request, the proof of delivery and the president's answer, or the proof that there was none, with the minutes.

The agenda is the meeting

As a rule, a meeting can only decide what its agenda announced. On 7 May 2026 the Supreme Court restated its doctrine in judgment 700/2026: No servirán a este fin las enunciaciones vagas, vague headings will not serve, and it gave «works», «extra contributions» and «matter of community interest» as examples; nor can «any other business» be used as cover for deciding a new matter that deserved a line of its own. The test is that el orden del día debe aportar los datos suficientes para que los propietarios puedan identificar, sin dificultad y sin esfuerzos interpretativos, la cuestión concreta que se someterá a debate y, en su caso, a votación, the agenda must give enough information for the owners to identify, without difficulty and without effort of interpretation, the specific question that will be put to debate and, where appropriate, to a vote.

For the block with the leaking terrace, «roof» is not an agenda item. «Repair of the roof terrace over flats 3A, 3B and 3C: approval of a quotation and of an extraordinary contribution to pay for it» is. An owner in Manchester who reads that line knows whether to send a proxy.

Notice, quorum and majority

For an extraordinary meeting the Act sets no number of days: the summons is sent con la que sea posible para que pueda llegar a conocimiento de todos los interesados, with as much notice as is possible for it to come to the knowledge of all those concerned (article 16). In a building where half the owners live abroad, that is an argument for two weeks, not two days. The second call can be held the same day, pudiendo celebrarse el mismo día si hubiese transcurrido media hora desde la anterior, if half an hour has passed since the first, and at a second call serán válidos los acuerdos adoptados por la mayoría de los asistentes, siempre que ésta represente, a su vez, más de la mitad del valor de las cuotas de los presentes, resolutions passed by the majority of those attending are valid, provided that it also represents more than half the value of the quotas of those present (article 17). Removing a president or an administrator needs no more than that.

Owners in arrears count for less than they think. They podrán participar en sus deliberaciones si bien no tendrán derecho de voto, may take part in the debate but have no vote, and their quotas are left out of the count (article 15).

Owners abroad

Neither the request nor the vote needs anyone to fly in. For the meeting, attendance is in person or by proxy, bastando para acreditar ésta un escrito firmado por el propietario, a writing signed by the owner being enough to prove it (article 15); the Act asks for nothing more, and for no notary. For the request, each owner can sign his own sheet, with his name, unit and quota, and send it to whoever is collecting them. What the Act does not provide for is attendance by video: our note on video meetings explains what can be done meanwhile, and the one on the annual meeting for owners abroad how the address for notifications and the proxy work in practice.

If the meeting is about the president or the administrator

It often is. The item must say so in terms: «removal of the president and election of a new one», «termination of the administrator's appointment and appointment of a new one». A president who is asked to convene a meeting about his own removal is in exactly the position the Supreme Court had in front of it, and the answer is the same: he is asked, and if he does not act the promoters do. What a change of administrator involves is in our note on changing the community's administrator, and what the post of president carries, for an owner who lives abroad as much as for one who lives upstairs, in the one on the president's duties.

What we do in the communities we administer

We act as secretary and administrator for communities in Fuerteventura, and their meetings, annual and extraordinary, are convened, chaired and minuted in Spanish and English. When owners want a meeting we would rather hear it early: a request that reaches the president with the right signatures and a clear agenda is far easier to answer with a call than with a dispute. The service is described on our community administration page, and a community that wants to compare can ask for a quote.

Common questions

How many owners have to sign?

A quarter of the owners, or owners whose quotas add up to a quarter of the total. Either measure is enough, and the request should list names, units and quotas so that the figure can be checked.

Can we send the call ourselves if we have the signatures?

Not straight away. Since June 2025 the Supreme Court requires the owners to ask the president first; they may convene themselves only if he does not do so within a prudent time. A meeting called directly can be annulled with everything it decided.

How long do we have to wait for the president?

The Act gives no number and the Court speaks only of a prudent time. A request that sets its own date, and proof of the day it was delivered, is the best evidence that the wait was reasonable.

Can an extraordinary meeting remove the president?

Yes. The Act provides for removal before the end of the term by a meeting convened in extraordinary session, and the ordinary majority is enough. The removal has to be on the agenda in so many words.