An owner who retired to Corralejo dies there, and the children live in Hamburg and in Manchester. The community's fees go on falling due every month, the letters go on arriving at an empty flat, and for a while nobody is the owner in any way the administrator can use. This note is about that interval: who owes the fees while the inheritance is open, what the community may do about them, what the family should tell the administrator and when, who speaks for the flat at the meeting, and what changes on the day the deed is signed. Who inherits, and what it costs in tax, is the field of our colleagues at Olga Caballero; their piece on renouncing an inheritance is the companion to this one.
Between the death and the acceptance there is an estate, not an owner
Under the Spanish Civil Code nobody becomes an heir by the death alone. The person named in the will, or called by the law, has to accept, and until then the assets form what lawyers call the herencia yacente, the estate that lies waiting. The Supreme Court describes it in a judgment of 2025: el patrimonio se encuentra sin un titular actual, pero únicamente de manera interina, the estate has no present owner, but only for the time being (judgment 1311/2025 of 25 September). When the heir does accept, the Civil Code closes the gap backwards: Los efectos de la aceptación y de la repudiación se retrotraen siempre al momento de la muerte de la persona a quien se hereda, the effects of acceptance and of repudiation always go back to the moment of the death (article 989).
The fees do not wait for any of this. The duty to contribute to the common expenses belongs to each owner (Ley 49/1960, article 9), and the Supreme Court said in July 2026 what kind of duty it is: una obligación legal inherente a la titularidad dominical del elemento privativo, de modo que corresponde a quien ostenta la condición de propietario en el momento de su devengo, a legal obligation inherent in the ownership of the flat, so that it falls on whoever is the owner at the moment it accrues (judgment 1176/2026 of 16 July). An inherited flat therefore carries two layers of debt. What the deceased left unpaid is a debt of the estate, like any other. What falls due after the death belongs to whoever turns out to be the owner, counted from the day of the death.
One warning before the rules. How heirs take an estate, and how far they answer for its debts, are questions of succession law, and for a family with ties to two countries the first thing to settle is which country's law that is. The European regulation gives the general rule, the law of the State where the deceased had his habitual residence at the time of death, and lets a person choose instead, in a will, the law of his nationality (Regulation (EU) 650/2012, articles 21 and 22). The law so fixed governs, among other things, las condiciones y los efectos de la aceptación o renuncia de la herencia o del legado, the conditions and effects of accepting or renouncing the inheritance or a legacy, and la responsabilidad por las deudas y cargas de la herencia, liability for the debts and charges of the estate (article 23). The rules on acceptance and on the heir's liability in the sections that follow are those of the Spanish Civil Code: they are the rules for an owner who lived here and made no such choice. Where another law governs the succession, that law tells the heirs' side of the story. The community's side does not move: who owes the fee, what the flat answers for, where notices go, how a claim is brought before a Spanish court and who votes are in the Horizontal Property Act and the Spanish procedure Act.
What an heir takes on by accepting
A buyer and an heir stand in different places. The Act makes a buyer answer only with the flat, and only for a limited period: the purchaser responde con el propio inmueble adquirido de las cantidades adeudadas a la comunidad de propietarios, answers with the property acquired for the sums owed to the community, up to the part already due of the year of the purchase and the three calendar years before it (Ley 49/1960, article 9). An heir who accepts without more steps into the debtor's own shoes: quedará el heredero responsable de todas las cargas de la herencia, no sólo con los bienes de ésta, sino también con los suyos propios, the heir becomes liable for all the charges of the estate, not only with its assets but also with his own (Civil Code, article 1003). The Code offers a way of keeping the two estates apart, acceptance with the benefit of inventory, which is declared before a notary and limits the heir's liability to what the estate holds (articles 1011 and 1023); the piece linked above explains it, together with the alternative of refusing.
Until that choice is made the person called to the estate owes nothing personally. In the 2025 case a widow sued two of her husband's children for expenses she had paid on the estate's assets; they answered that they had not accepted, and the Supreme Court held that the one who appealed could not be ordered to pay debts claimed from him as an heir. Appearing in the lawsuit without repudiating was not an acceptance. The Code also protects the ordinary things a family does after a death: Los actos de mera conservación o administración provisional no implican la aceptación de la herencia, si con ellos no se ha tomado el título o la cualidad de heredero, acts of mere conservation or provisional administration do not imply acceptance of the inheritance, if the title or capacity of heir has not been taken with them (article 999). Keeping the fees of the flat paid so that the debt does not grow is the kind of act that article describes; whether a particular payment or signature goes further is a question for the lawyer before it is made, not after.
Where there are several heirs, the Code adds a rule that surprises families: once the estate has been divided, creditors podrán exigir el pago de sus deudas por entero de cualquiera de los herederos que no hubiere aceptado la herencia a beneficio de inventario, may demand payment of their debts in full from any of the heirs who did not accept with the benefit of inventory (article 1084). The one who pays then recovers from the others their share (article 1085).
What the community can do while nobody accepts
A community does not have to wait for the family. An estate without an owner can be sued (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, article 6) and appears in court through whoever administers it (article 7), and in January 2026 the Supreme Court repeated that la legitimación pasiva de la herencia yacente no ofrece duda, the standing of the herencia yacente to be sued is beyond doubt, in a case brought against an estate in the person of its known living heirs (judgment 67/2026 of 26 January). The Horizontal Property Act points the same way for the fees: podrá ser demandado el titular registral, a efectos de soportar la ejecución sobre el inmueble inscrito a su nombre, the registered owner may be sued, so that enforcement can be carried out against the property registered in his name (article 21). The claim itself, the steps the law requires before it and the time the community has to bring it are set out in our note on unpaid community fees.
What matters to a family abroad is how such a claim reaches them. In the payment-order procedure for community fees the court notifies at the address the owner gave the community, failing that at the flat, and failing that by edicts (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, article 815). The Supreme Court, sitting in full in 2021, set the limits. If there is the slightest sign of a possible heir, that person must be found and told of the claim. If the owner died without a will and without known relatives, the court summons the unknown heirs by edicts and debería comunicar a la Delegación de Economía y Hacienda correspondiente la pendencia del proceso, should inform the corresponding Treasury office that the case is pending (judgment 590/2021 of 9 September), because the State inherits when nobody else does, and for the State the inheritance se entenderá siempre aceptada la herencia a beneficio de inventario, is always deemed accepted with the benefit of inventory (Civil Code, article 957).
A case from Arrecife, decided by the Supreme Court in June 2026, shows what silence costs. A woman who owned a home in Lanzarote died in 2020; her only heir was her father, in a care home in Germany. The man who had sold her the home sued her estate over an unpaid part of the price, told the court what he knew about the father and asked it to find him; he was not found, the case went ahead by edicts, and the judgment became final. The father's own heir appeared thirteen months after the edict and asked the court of Arrecife to rescind the judgment. It was too late: a judgment given in the defendant's absence can be rescinded De cuatro meses, a partir de la publicación del edicto de notificación de la sentencia firme, si ésta no se notificó personalmente, within four months from the publication of the edict notifying the final judgment, if it was not notified in person (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, article 502), and that court held that living in Germany was not the force majeure that would have extended the time. She then asked the Supreme Court to review the judgment for fraud, and lost again. The Court recalled that edicts are a last resort, since solo cabe acudir a él como última solución cuando no se conoce el domicilio de la persona que deba ser notificada o se ignora su paradero, they may be used only as a last solution when the address of the person to be notified is not known or his whereabouts are unknown, and that a claimant who hides an address he knows, or does not make the least effort to find it, loses the judgment; but this claimant had given the court every lead he had (judgment 948/2026 of 18 June).
Where the Civil Code governs the succession, the community also has a way of ending the wait. Anyone with an interest in knowing whether the heir accepts, and a creditor of the estate is one, may ask a notary to put the question: the person called has thirty calendar days to accept, accept with the benefit of inventory or repudiate, and if he says nothing se entenderá aceptada la herencia pura y simplemente, the inheritance is deemed accepted purely and simply (Civil Code, article 1005). Since 2015 only a notary can put that question; the 2025 judgment says so in terms. And a creditor recognised in the will or by the heirs, or holding an enforceable title, may oppose the division of the estate until he is paid or given security (Civil Code, article 1082; Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, article 782).
What to tell the administrator, and when
The first message does not need a deed. It needs three things: that the owner has died, who is dealing with the estate, and where the community should write from now on. The Act lets every owner name an address in Spain for notices, and where none has been given the flat itself is the address and the notice board comes after it (Ley 49/1960, article 9). A family that gives the secretary a working address on the first day has taken itself out of the Arrecife story.
The second message comes when the inheritance has been accepted and the flat assigned. The Act asks for it by name: every owner must tell the secretary, by a means that leaves a record of receipt, of el cambio de titularidad de la vivienda o local, the change of ownership of the dwelling or premises (article 9). In an inheritance that change is shown by the deed of acceptance and adjudication, because it is the division that turns a share of an estate into ownership of a flat: confiere a cada heredero la propiedad exclusiva de los bienes que le hayan sido adjudicados, it confers on each heir the exclusive ownership of the assets adjudicated to him (Civil Code, article 1068). From that day the receipts, the notices and the vote are the new owner's, and the community's books should say so.
Who attends and votes meanwhile
The Act says how an owner attends a meeting: in person or through a representative, and a writing signed by the owner is enough to prove the representation. It has no line written for an estate. The nearest rule is the one for a flat with several owners, who must name one representative para asistir y votar en las juntas, to attend and vote at the meetings (Ley 49/1960, article 15). Before the estate is divided the heirs are not yet co-owners of the flat. Each holds a share of the whole estate, and in the Supreme Court's words ningún heredero puede reclamar para sí, sino para la comunidad hereditaria, no heir may claim for himself, but for the community of heirs (judgment 701/2026 of 7 May). The practical answer is the same in both situations: one voice, with a paper behind it that all those called to the estate have signed.
Two more rules of the same article reach many inherited flats. Where a widow or widower holds the usufruct and the children the bare ownership, attendance and the vote belong to the bare owner, who is taken to be represented by the usufructuary unless he says otherwise; for extraordinary works and improvements, among other decisions, the delegation must be express. And a flat in arrears has a voice but no vote: owners who are not up to date when the meeting begins podrán participar en sus deliberaciones si bien no tendrán derecho de voto, may take part in its deliberations but shall have no right to vote, unless they have challenged the debt in court or deposited the sum. An estate whose fees stopped on the day of the death arrives at its first meeting without a vote.
Selling from the estate, and the insurance
Many families sell. To sell they must first be owners on paper, which is why the acceptance is signed before the sale, if need be on the same morning, and under the Civil Code selling the flat is an act that only an heir can perform: it is an acceptance. At the notary the seller has to state whether the community's fees are up to date and hand over the community's certificate of debts, which the secretary issues within seven calendar days of being asked; our note on the debt certificate reads that paragraph of the Act line by line. What the estate owes is settled at the sale, or it follows the flat within the limit described above.
The deceased's own home policy does not end with the death either. The insurance Act applies to a death the rules it gives for a sale: el adquirente se subroga en el momento de la enajenación en los derechos y obligaciones que correspondían en el contrato de seguro al anterior titular, the acquirer steps at that moment into the rights and obligations that the previous holder had under the insurance contract, unless the policy was made out to a named person and its general conditions say otherwise; the insurer must be told in writing within fifteen days, the heirs answer for the premiums already due, and either side may end the contract within fifteen days, the insurer from learning of the change and the new owner from learning that the policy exists (Ley 50/1980, articles 34, 35 and 37). The building's own policy is the community's and is not touched by any of this.
What we do, and what we do not
In the communities we administer, an inheritance nobody has untangled is one of the usual origins of a debt, and our arrears recovery treats it as what it is. Every case starts with the file: what is owed and since when. Then come a reminder, a formal reclamation in writing and, where there is will to pay, a payment plan; owners and heirs abroad hear from us in English, Spanish or German. If a case has to go to court, the group's own lawyers take it, with a written quote before anything is filed.
What we do not do is decide who inherits, or advise an heir whether to accept. That is a lawyer's work, and the first thing we tell a family is to get it done. If you have just inherited a flat in a community we manage, write to us with the address of the building and we will tell you what the community has on file and what it needs from you.
Common questions
My father died and I have not accepted the inheritance. Do I have to pay his community fees?
Under the Civil Code, not personally until you accept. But the fees go on accruing, the flat answers for them within the Act's limit, and if you do accept they are yours from the day of the death, together with what your father left unpaid. Keeping them paid for the estate is the kind of act the Code calls conservation; ask your lawyer before signing anything as heir.
We are three heirs and nothing has been divided. Who goes to the meeting?
One person, with a writing signed by all three. The flat has one vote, and it loses it while there are fees unpaid when the meeting begins.
The community wrote to the flat and nobody saw the letters. Does that count?
Yes, if no other address had been given: the Act makes the flat the address for notices, and the notice board after it. A court claim follows the same order and ends in edicts. Give the secretary an address today.
Can the community force us to decide?
Where the Civil Code governs the succession, it can ask a notary to put the question. You then have thirty calendar days to accept, accept with the benefit of inventory or repudiate, and silence counts as plain acceptance.
We want to sell the flat at once. What does the community have to do with it?
It issues the certificate of debts that the notary will ask for, within seven calendar days. What the estate owes is settled at the sale, or it follows the flat within the Act's limit.
