You bought the apartment in Corralejo, you live in Cologne, and the first letter from the community's administrator asks for «a Spanish bank account» for the quarterly receipt. You do not need one. A community that collects its fees by direct debit in euros has to accept an account in any country of the European Union, and the owner who pays from abroad has the same right to undo a wrong debit as the owner who banks around the corner. What the rule does not do is make every way of paying equally safe. A standing order goes on paying last year's fee, a British account sits outside the protection, and a returned receipt costs more than the bank's charge. This piece reads the rules as they stand in October 2026: the European regulation on payments in euros, the Spanish payment services act, the Banco de España's own page on the matter and the Horizontal Property Act. It ends with a checklist.
The rule: the community cannot demand a Spanish IBAN
The rule is article 9 of Regulation (EU) 260/2012, the SEPA Regulation: Todo beneficiario que acepte una transferencia o utilice un adeudo domiciliado para cobrar fondos de un ordenante titular de una cuenta de pago radicada en la Unión no especificará en qué Estado miembro está radicada dicha cuenta de pago, a payee that accepts a transfer or uses a direct debit to collect funds from a payer whose payment account is located in the Union shall not specify the Member State in which that account is to be located. The only condition is that the account can be reached by direct debit, and a bank of the Union that accepts domestic direct debits has to accept those that come from another member state (article 3). A community of owners that sends receipts to its owners' accounts is a payee using a direct debit. The German, Dutch, Irish or French account of an owner is as good as a Spanish one.
The Banco de España says it without nuance on its page for bank customers, where it describes the company, professional or public body that refuses a payment or a direct debit because the IBAN is not from its own country: Esta práctica es una fuente habitual de reclamaciones, es ilegal y contraviene el artículo 9 del Reglamento (UE) nº 260/2012, this practice is a frequent source of complaints, is illegal and contravenes article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012. The steps it recommends are plain: tell whoever refuses that they are obliged to accept the account, send a formal complaint, and if the answer does not come or does not satisfy, report it to the competent authority. That authority is the Banco de España itself when the refusal comes from a bank or arises between businesses or professionals, and the consumer authority of the autonomous community when a business refuses a consumer. Sometimes the form simply has no room for a foreign IBAN; a written request that quotes article 9 is the first step.
The mandate: what you sign, and who keeps it
A direct debit rests on your consent, given in a document called the mandate. The Regulation requires that the consent be given to the payee and to your own bank, directly or through the payee, and that the mandate, with any later change or cancellation, be kept by the payee or by someone on its behalf (article 5.3.a). Each collection then carries the same set of data: the community's name and its creditor identifier, your name and your IBAN, the mandate's unique reference and the date you signed it, the amount and, where given, what it is for (annex, point 3). In practice the administrator sends the form, you sign it with your IBAN, and the administrator, not your bank, keeps it.
Your bank, for its part, must let you set limits. You have the right to instruct it so that it limite el cobro de adeudos domiciliados a un determinado importe o periodicidad, o a ambos, limits the collection of direct debits to a certain amount or periodicity, or both, and also to block every debit from a given payee or to accept debits only from the payees you name (article 5.3.d). A cap a little above the ordinary receipt is a sensible guard. Remember to raise it when a levy is approved, or the levy will come back unpaid.
A wrong receipt: eight weeks to undo it, thirteen months if you never signed
A direct debit can be undone. Under the Spanish payment services act (Real Decreto-ley 19/2018, article 48.2), for direct debits in euros el ordenante tendrá un derecho incondicional de devolución dentro de los plazos establecidos en el artículo 49, the payer has an unconditional right to a refund within the periods set in article 49, and the request can be made durante un plazo de ocho semanas contadas a partir de la fecha de adeudo de los fondos en su cuenta, during a period of eight weeks counted from the date on which the funds were debited from the account. Within those eight weeks the bank cannot refuse and need not be given a reason (article 49.2). The right comes from the European payment services Directive, so an account in Germany, the Netherlands or France gives it too, under that country's own law. If there was no mandate at all, the debit is an unauthorised payment: the bank has to be told without undue delay once you see it, and in any case dentro de un plazo máximo de trece meses contados desde la fecha del adeudo, within a maximum of thirteen months counted from the date of the debit (article 43.1).
A refund is not a discharge. Taking the money back does not cancel the fee: the community's credit is still there, now unpaid, and an unpaid fee bears interest. Use the refund for a real error (a duplicated receipt, a wrong amount, a flat you have already sold) and tell the administrator the same day.
Direct debit or standing order
|
Direct debit / Standing order |
| Who starts each payment |
Direct debit: The community. Standing order: You |
| When the fee changes |
Direct debit: The new amount is collected. Standing order: You have to change the order yourself |
| A levy approved by the meeting |
Direct debit: Collected under the same mandate, if its wording covers every receipt of the community. Standing order: Not covered: it needs a separate transfer |
| What identifies your flat |
Direct debit: The mandate's reference. Standing order: The text you write in the concept line |
| If something is wrong |
Direct debit: A refund for eight weeks. Standing order: No refund right: the order was yours |
| What can fail |
Direct debit: No funds that day, a cap at your bank, a closed or frozen account. Standing order: A change you forgot, a reference you left out |
The standing order has one virtue, control, and one defect that shows only later. Suppose the budget approved in spring raises the quarterly fee from €210 to €228 and your order goes on sending €210. Nobody notices for a year, and the certificate of debts requested when you sell shows €72 of arrears, with interest. With a direct debit the community collects what the meeting approved.
If you do pay by transfer, the concept line is what matters. Write what the administrator asked for, normally the community, the unit and the period, and nothing else. A transfer that cannot be matched to a unit is a fee that shows as unpaid. Send one transfer for each receipt, not a round sum «on account».
British, Swiss and other accounts outside the Union
The protection of article 9 is for accounts in the Union. The United Kingdom left the Union but not the payment scheme: the European Payments Council keeps it, like Switzerland, inside the geographical scope of the SEPA schemes, and works on the assumption that Union legislation, the SEPA Regulation included, fully applies only between institutions in the EU and the EEA (document EPC409-09, version of 24 December 2025). In practice that means three things. A euro account at a British bank that takes part in the scheme can be debited, but nobody can be made to accept it. A sterling account is normally out of reach of a direct debit in euros. And British banks set their own charges for payments in euros, which the community does not see and cannot give back. For an owner in the United Kingdom the robust arrangement is an account in euros inside the Union, in Spain or in another member state, and a mandate on that account.
What a returned receipt costs
A receipt comes back for dull reasons: no funds that day, a cap you set and forgot, an account closed after a move, an account frozen by a seizure order (our piece on frozen accounts explains how that happens to owners abroad). The consequences are less dull, and there are three.
The first is interest. The fee is unpaid, and the Act is short about it: los créditos a favor de la comunidad devengarán intereses desde el momento en que deba efectuarse el pago correspondiente y éste no se haga efectivo, the community's credits bear interest from the moment the payment is due and is not made.
The second is the bank's charge. The bank usually bills the community for each returned receipt. Whether that charge ends on your account depends on what the meeting has agreed: where it has agreed that the cost of a return goes to the unit that caused it, you will find it on your next statement; where it has not, it is a common expense that everyone pays. If the debt has to be claimed, the Act puts on the debtor todos los gastos y costes que conlleve la reclamación de la deuda, all the expenses and costs entailed by claiming the debt (article 21.3).
The third is the vote. Owners who are not up to date when the meeting starts may speak, but no tendrán derecho de voto, they shall have no right to vote, unless they have challenged the debt in court or deposited the sum (article 15.2). A receipt returned in September is a vote lost in October if nobody tells you. What happens next to a fee that stays unpaid is in our piece on unpaid community fees.
Levies, purchases and sales
Three moments break a payment arrangement. The first is a levy: a «derrama» approved by the meeting is a separate receipt with its own dates, explained in our piece on fees and levies. With a direct debit it arrives like any other receipt, if your cap allows it; with a standing order it does not arrive at all. The second is a purchase: the seller's mandate does not pass to you, and a new one has to be signed in the first week. The third is a sale: cancel the mandate in writing with effect from the day of completion, because a receipt collected afterwards from the seller's account is a debit that someone will have to undo.
A checklist
- Give the IBAN you really use. An account in euros in any member state is valid, and the community cannot require a Spanish one.
- Sign the mandate and keep a copy. Note its reference and the date.
- Set a cap at your bank, and raise it before a levy. A cap that stops a levy turns it into arrears.
- Check the first receipt. Look at the amount, the unit and the period; you have eight weeks to undo an error.
- If you pay by transfer, use the exact reference. Change the amount when the budget changes.
- Tell the administrator before you change bank. A closed account is a returned receipt, and a returned receipt is arrears.
What we do in the communities we administer
In the communities we administer, fees are collected by SEPA direct debit from any EU account, and UK and other accounts are supported. The statements are published in the owner portal and the quarterly owner report shows the fees paid, so an owner abroad can check that each receipt was collected instead of finding out at the next meeting. They sit under the same login as the minutes and the convocations. Owners who want their community run that way can read what we do for owners who live abroad and ask for a quote.
Common questions
Can the community insist on a Spanish bank account?
No, if your account is in euros in a member state of the European Union and can receive direct debits. Article 9 of the SEPA Regulation forbids a payee that collects by direct debit from specifying the country of the account, and the Banco de España calls the refusal illegal. An account outside the Union, British or Swiss, does not have that protection.
Can I get a community receipt refunded?
Yes, within eight weeks of the debit and without giving a reason; if you never signed a mandate, tell the bank as soon as you notice, with thirteen months as the outer limit. The refund returns the money, not the obligation: the fee is still owed and bears interest until it is paid.
Is a standing order safer than a direct debit?
It gives you control and takes the adjustment away from the community. A standing order does not follow a new budget or a levy, and the difference becomes arrears that bear interest and can cost you your vote at the meeting.
Who pays the bank's charge when a receipt is returned?
The bank charges the community. Whether the community passes the charge on to the owner depends on what the meeting has agreed; the unpaid fee itself bears interest from the day it was due, whoever pays the charge.
