Sixty flats in Costa Calma, fifty-two of them owned by Germans and British, eight by Spaniards. For years the annual meeting has been run in English, with a German summary at the end and Spanish for whoever asked. This autumn two letters reach the president. A Spanish owner says the last meeting is void because it was not held in Spanish. A German owner says he is not bound by minutes he could not read. Neither is right, and each is pointing at something the community should settle before it meets again. This note sets out what Spanish law says about the language of the meeting, the notice and the minutes, what the courts have decided, and what an owner who lives abroad can and cannot ask for.
The Act is silent, and the Constitution is not about meetings
The Horizontal Property Act regulates who calls the meeting, where the notice is sent, what majorities are needed and what the minutes must contain. No article names a language. The argument for Spanish usually starts higher up, in the Constitution: El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. Todos los españoles tienen el deber de conocerla y el derecho a usarla, Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, and all Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it (article 3). The rules that do impose Spanish are addressed to authorities: the State administration conducts its procedures in Castilian (Ley 39/2015, article 15), and so do the courts (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, article 142). A community of owners is neither. When an appeal court drew the same duty from the Constitution, the Supreme Court corrected it.
What the Supreme Court decided in 2002
The case came up from a court in Cartagena: a community with 148 foreign owners, 94 of them British, and two Spaniards. Its annual meeting of September 1994 was held in English, as usual. Two owners asked the courts to annul it and to order a new one in Spanish, con traducción a tantos idiomas como propietarios de diferentes nacionalidades existan, with translation into as many languages as there were owners of different nationalities. The first court dismissed the claim, the appeal court upheld it, and the Supreme Court set that ruling aside (judgment 1052/2002, of 15 November 2002).
The Constitution, it said, does not prevent a foreign language from being used in relations between private parties, tanto más cuando así lo aconsejan las circunstancias y la naturaleza del acto, all the more when the circumstances and the nature of the act make it advisable. The Horizontal Property Act applied to that meeting, but its application no se extiende a que aquélla haya de celebrarse necesariamente en el idioma español, does not extend to the meeting having to be held in Spanish.
Three facts carried weight in the judgment, and a community does well to keep them in mind.
- The owners had chosen. At the meeting of 1992 se aprobó por unanimidad su celebración en inglés, holding it in English was approved unanimously, and in 1993 it was approved again. The Court saw in this la voluntad mayoritaria de los propietarios, the majority will of the owners.
- Nobody was kept from Spanish. The owner who objected took part in the meeting and the administrator translated for him, sin que en momento alguno se privara a aquél de su derecho a utilizar el idioma español, without his being deprived at any moment of his right to use Spanish.
- The resolutions could be read in Spanish. The minutes brought before the court were written in Spanish. The same owner had proposed that at least the resolutions put to the vote be translated into Spanish, en lo que ciertamente le asistía razón, in which he was certainly right, the Court said, and nothing showed that this had been breached.
So a meeting may be run in the language most of its owners share. What the judgment looked at was narrower than a language: whether the owner who objected had been able to take part and to know what was being voted. Two years earlier the Balearic appeal court had reached the same result for a meeting held in English, realizando el presidente y la secretaria de la comunidad las tareas de intérprete, with the president and the secretary of the community doing the work of interpreter. The Spanish-speaking owner who sued had spoken, made proposals and voted (judgment 543/2000, of 31 July 2000).
What it does not give: a right to your own language
An owner abroad sometimes reads that judgment the other way, as a right to be addressed in German or in English. The plaintiffs of 2002 had asked for something close to it, a translation for every nationality, and lost. Two rulings of the Málaga appeal court, which we have read in full, show how the argument fares.
In 2019 a foreign owner sued for unpaid fees answered that the notices and the minutes should have been translated, at least into English. The court rejected it. She had never asked: ninguna petición al respecto consta realizada de forma fehaciente, no request to that effect is on record in any reliable form. And the burden was hers: le correspondía a la apelante acreditar su desconocimiento del idioma, it was for the appellant to prove that she did not know the language, when the administrator had testified that their conversation had been entirely in Spanish (judgment 559/2019, of 28 October 2019). In 2007 the same court had dismissed the appeal of an owner who refused to pay alegando el desconocimiento del idioma, cuando ha sido hasta Presidente de la comunidad, alleging that he did not know the language, when he had even been president of the community (judgment 677/2007, of 28 November 2007).
These are appeal rulings on unpaid fees, not doctrine of the Supreme Court. We searched that Court's case law and found no judgment that imposes a duty to translate notices or minutes. What the rulings show fits the Act. Article 18 lists the grounds on which a resolution can be challenged, and not having understood is not one of them: it would have to be a breach of the law, and the Act requires no translation.
The notice: where it goes, and what a wrong translation costs
The Act says who sends the notice of a meeting (the convocation), what it must contain and where it must go. It does not say in what language. Every owner must give the secretary el domicilio en España a efectos de citaciones y notificaciones de toda índole relacionadas con la comunidad, an address in Spain for summonses and notices of every kind relating to the community (Ley 49/1960, article 9). If no address has been given, the flat itself is the address, and a notice handed to whoever occupies it is fully effective. If delivery proves impossible, the notice goes on the board and takes effect after three calendar days. An owner in Düsseldorf who has given no address and reads no Spanish is, for the Act, properly served. Our note on the annual meeting when you live abroad explains how to avoid that.
A community that does translate takes on a risk of its own. One in the south of Tenerife wrote its notices in four languages, Italian, English, Spanish and German, and sent each owner his own. For the meeting of February 2016 the Italian version was a draft. Its item 7 spoke of authorising the board to sanction owners who broke the rules. The final notice announced decisions on the works in one flat, and legal action if appropriate. The owner of that flat received his notices in Italian, and he learned what was being decided at the meeting itself. The community argued that its translations were a service outside its governing bodies, que no tiene valor oficial, ni probatorio, with no official value and none as evidence, because the president does not sign them. The court answered that la forma habitual de convocar a los propietarios es notificarles la convocatoria en su lengua, the usual way of convening the owners is to notify them of the convocation in their language, and that, the error not being the owner's, la consecuencia correcta es la nulidad del acuerdo, the correct consequence is the nullity of the resolution (Santa Cruz de Tenerife appeal court, judgment 35/2020, of 7 February 2020). A translation is a courtesy only while the owner also receives the signed text. If the translation is all he gets, it is his notice.
The deadline to challenge follows the same logic. The action lapses three months after the resolution, or after a year if it is contrary to the law or the statutes, and Para los propietarios ausentes dicho plazo se computará a partir de la comunicación del acuerdo conforme al procedimiento establecido en el artículo 9, for absent owners that period is counted from the communication of the resolution under the procedure of article 9 (article 18). On that wording it runs from the day the minutes are served, not from the day they are translated.
The minutes: one text counts
Resolutions are recorded in a minute book diligenciado por el Registrador de la Propiedad, legalised by the Land Registrar (article 19). The regulation behind that phrase deals with numbered pages and the registrar's seal, and it says nothing about language either (Reglamento Hipotecario, article 415). The Act lists what the minutes must contain and how they become final: El acta deberá cerrarse con las firmas del presidente y del secretario, the minutes must be closed with the signatures of the president and the secretary, at the end of the meeting or within the ten calendar days that follow.
Our reading is that the signed text should be in Spanish, or carry a Spanish version, even when the meeting was held in another language. The minutes are the document the community uses outside its own walls. In court the rule is written: when a document is not in Spanish, se acompañará la traducción del mismo, its translation must accompany it (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, article 144). At the Land Registry, Los documentos no redactados en idioma español podrán ser traducidos, para los efectos del Registro, documents not written in Spanish may be translated for the purposes of the Registry, and the registrar may do without the official translation, on his own responsibility, when he knows the language (Reglamento Hipotecario, article 37). In the case the Supreme Court decided, the minutes were in Spanish although the meeting had been held in English.
A case from Mallorca shows the rule at work. Owners who challenged a meeting of 2018 never filed its minutes. It was taken as proven that they held the minutes in German, por lo que pudieron aportarla con la demanda, con una traducción, so they could have filed them with the claim, with a translation. The claim failed because the document it rested on was missing, and the Supreme Court did not admit the appeal (order of 14 September 2022, appeal 3446/2020).
A translation of the minutes sent to the owners is a courtesy copy. In our reading, if it differs from the signed minutes in the book, the signed minutes are the text that counts: the one that is corrected if it contains an error, and the one a challenge is brought against. Where the minutes themselves are written in two languages, it is worth saying in them which version prevails. How errors are put right is in our note on the minutes of the meeting.
What an owner abroad can ask for
None of this leaves the foreign owner without tools. The Act gives several, and they work better before the meeting than after it.
- A translation of notices and minutes. Ask for it in writing. 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 a letter to the president, who must put it on the agenda of the next meeting (article 16). A written request is also what the Málaga court found missing in 2019.
- An interpreter at the meeting. The route is the same. The courts have accepted informal interpreting, by the administrator in the case of 2002 and by the president and the secretary in the Balearic one, where the owner who demanded an impartial interpreter lost.
- Someone to speak for you. Attendance can be by proxy, bastando para acreditar ésta un escrito firmado por el propietario, a document signed by the owner being enough to prove it (article 15). The Act prescribes neither a form nor a language, and a bilingual form avoids arguments at the door. A notarial power for acts outside the meeting is another matter, with its apostille and sworn translation, and it is in our note on powers of attorney for owners abroad.
- Spanish, whenever you want it. Whatever language the meeting uses, the Supreme Court treated the use of Spanish as a right of the owner who claimed it.
What neither the Act nor the rulings we have read give is the annulment of a meeting because it was not held in the owner's language, or more time to challenge while a translation is on its way.
Who decides, and who pays
The Act has no rule on translations or interpreters. In our reading the decision is an ordinary one: Para la validez de los demás acuerdos bastará el voto de la mayoría del total de los propietarios que, a su vez, representen la mayoría de las cuotas de participación, for the validity of the other resolutions the vote of the majority of all the owners who in turn represent the majority of the quotas is enough (article 17), and at second call the majority of those attending, if they hold more than half of the quotas present. Once approved, the cost is a general expense, shared by quota like the rest, also by the owners who do not need the translation. Without a resolution, each owner arranges and pays for his own: the Málaga court noted in 2019 that the owner had neither arranged nor requested the means to understand.
A Balearic appeal ruling of 2011 treated it that way. In a community where about 90 per cent of the owners were foreigners, an earlier meeting had agreed, the administrator said, to translate documents into French, English and German, and two owners disputed their share of the cost. The court upheld the charge for translating documents: la traducción es indispensable y forma parte del derecho de información de los comuneros, translation is indispensable and forms part of the owners' right to information, and la junta que aprueba dichos gastos, implica la conformidad de la mayoría de la junta en su procedencia, the meeting that approves those expenses implies that its majority accepts them as proper (judgment 144/2011, of 4 May 2011). It said so to uphold an expense the owners had voted, not to annul anything for lack of a translation.
The rulings we have read do not say whether a permanent, paid translation service would count among the otros servicios comunes de interés general, other common services of general interest, whose creation needs three fifths of owners and quotas (article 17). The Balearic court treated translation as an expense approved by the meeting, and so do we. The same majority can settle the language of the meeting itself: the owners in the Cartagena case had voted it, and the Supreme Court gave weight to that.
| The situation |
What follows |
| The meeting is held in English or German |
Valid when the circumstances advise it and nobody is kept from Spanish |
| The notice arrives only in Spanish |
Valid if it went to the address the Act names |
| The only notice you get is a translation, and it is wrong |
The resolution can be annulled |
| You want the minutes in your language |
Ask in writing; the meeting decides by majority |
| The translation and the signed minutes differ |
The signed minutes count |
| You did not understand, and did not pay |
Not a defence for the Málaga court |
| The minutes go to court |
In Spanish, or with a translation |
What we do in the communities we administer
We chair meetings in Spanish and English and issue the minutes in both languages; German summaries are available on request. The notice goes online the moment it is issued, in English, Spanish or German, with the proxy form attached. Whether a particular resolution can still be challenged depends on dates and facts, and that needs advice on the case. The service is described on our community administration page, and a community that wants to compare can ask for a quote.
Common questions
Is a meeting held in English valid?
Yes, when the circumstances advise it, as the Supreme Court held in 2002 for a community with a large foreign majority that had voted to meet in English. An owner who wants to use Spanish must be able to, and he is right to ask that the resolutions put to the vote be translated into Spanish.
Can I demand the minutes in German?
You can ask, in writing, and have the question put on the agenda. The Act gives no right to a translation: the meeting decides by majority and, if it agrees, the cost goes into the budget.
The notice I received in my language left something out. Does that matter?
It can. In 2020 the Santa Cruz de Tenerife appeal court annulled a resolution because the Italian notice, the only one the Italian owners received, did not carry the item that was voted. The community said everyone had the Spanish version as well, and the court found that they had not.
I did not understand the notice. Can I challenge what was agreed, or stop paying?
Not for that reason alone. A resolution can be challenged when it is contrary to the law or the statutes, when it seriously harms the community to the benefit of one or more owners, when it seriously harms an owner who has no legal duty to bear it, or when it was adopted with abuse of right, and only within three months or a year. The Málaga court rejected the language argument against the fees in 2007 and in 2019.
Who pays for the translation or the interpreter?
The community, by quota, when the meeting has agreed it: a Balearic appeal ruling of 2011 upheld that charge against two owners who disputed it. Without a resolution, each owner pays for his own.
