The levy for the lift arrives, and an owner in a complex in Corralejo reads two things she does not understand: her flat pays 2.40 per cent of everything, and the shops on the ground floor pay none of it. Neither number was decided by the administrator, the president or last year's meeting. Both come from papers that were signed before the first flat was sold, that most owners have never read, and that cannot, as a rule, be changed by a show of hands. This note explains what those papers are, what each one decides, how the courts read the clauses that free some owners from an expense, how any of it is changed, and where to get a copy.
Three texts and one number
The first text is the title deed of the building, the título constitutivo. The Horizontal Property Act says what it describes: the building as a whole and each flat or premises, with its size, boundaries, floor and annexes such as a garage, an attic or a basement (Ley 49/1960, article 5). The title also fixes the number that follows every owner for as long as they own: A cada piso o local se atribuirá una cuota de participación con relación al total del valor del inmueble y referida a centésimas del mismo, each flat or premises is given a participation quota in relation to the total value of the building, expressed in hundredths of it (article 3).
The second text is optional and usually sits inside the first. The title may contain rules on the use of the building and of its flats, premises, installations and services, on expenses, administration, insurance and repairs, formando un estatuto privativo que no perjudicará a terceros si no ha sido inscrito en el Registro de la Propiedad, forming a statute of its own that will not prejudice third parties if it has not been entered in the Land Registry (article 5). These are the statutes, the estatutos: the place where a building says that the ground floor does not pay for the lift, or that the flats may not be turned into offices.
The third text is the lightest. To settle the details of living together and of using the common services, the owners may approve normas de régimen interior que obligarán también a todo titular mientras no sean modificadas en la forma prevista para tomar acuerdos sobre la administración, house rules that also bind every owner until they are changed in the way laid down for resolutions on administration (article 6). Pool hours and rubbish times live there, and our note on house rules, noise and pets explains why a ban on a use does not.
| The text, and what it decides |
How it is changed |
| The title deed: the building, each flat or premises with its annexes, and the quota of each |
The agreement of every owner, or a court |
| The quota: your share of the general expenses and the weight of your vote |
As part of the title; fixed again by three fifths when flats are divided or joined |
| The statutes: what may be done in the building, who pays which expense, how the community is run |
The agreement of every owner, except where the Act asks for less: a majority for a lift, three fifths for concierge or security services and for holiday lets |
| The house rules: the detail of living together and of using the common services |
The ordinary majority of the meeting |
How your quota was fixed, and what it does
Usually the developer fixed it. The Act lists who can: the quota is determinada por el propietario único del edificio al iniciar su venta por pisos, por acuerdo de todos los propietarios existentes, por laudo o por resolución judicial, determined by the sole owner of the building when the sale by flats begins, by agreement of all the existing owners, by arbitration award or by court decision (article 5). It is not a simple count of square metres. The base is la superficie útil de cada piso o local en relación con el total del inmueble, su emplazamiento interior o exterior, su situación y el uso que se presuma racionalmente que va a efectuarse de los servicios o elementos comunes, the useful area of each flat or premises in relation to the whole building, whether it faces inwards or outwards, where it is, and the use it can reasonably be expected to make of the common services and elements.
The quota then does two jobs. It is the measure by which each owner pays the general expenses, con arreglo a la cuota de participación fijada en el título o a lo especialmente establecido, according to the quota fixed in the title or to what has been specially established (article 9); our guide to community fees and levies follows that money. And it is the weight of each vote, because the Act counts the meeting's majorities twice, by owners and by quotas (article 17).
Two rules protect the number. What an owner does to a flat does not move it: Las mejoras o menoscabos de cada piso o local no alterarán la cuota atribuida, improvements to a flat or premises, or damage to it, shall not alter the quota it was given (article 3). And not using something is no excuse: general expenses are owed sin que la no utilización de un servicio exima del cumplimiento de las obligaciones correspondientes, and not using a service does not exempt anyone from the corresponding obligations (article 9).
«Or as specially established»: the clauses that free some owners
Those last words of article 9 are the door through which the statutes come in. A building can share an expense in another way than by quota, and a common clause is the one that frees the ground-floor premises, which open onto the street, from the costs of the entrance hall, the stairs and the lift. The Supreme Court has read clauses of that kind many times, and we have read four of its judgments in full. They draw three lines.
A clause written in general terms covers a great deal. The court's doctrine is that las exenciones genéricas de gastos que afectan a los locales contenidas en las cláusulas estatutarias, con apoyo en el no uso del servicio, comprenden tanto los gastos ordinarios como los extraordinarios, generic exemptions from expenses in favour of premises contained in clauses of the statutes, and resting on the fact that the service is not used, cover ordinary expenses and extraordinary ones alike; that includes altering or replacing a lift that already exists (Supreme Court, judgment 531/2019 of 10 October, restating its earlier rulings).
The words of the clause still decide. In that same case the statutes of a building in Logroño freed two floors only from cleaning, ordinary upkeep and electricity for the halls, stairs and lifts. When the worn-out lifts had to be replaced, the owners of those floors had to pay with everyone else, dado que la exención no era genérica, since the exemption was not a generic one.
And no clause about lift expenses covers a lift that was not there. Exemption clauses, the court says, han de interpretarse siempre restrictivamente de modo que no abarquen los gastos de instalación de ascensor, must always be read restrictively, so that they do not reach the cost of installing a lift (judgment 381/2018 of 21 June). Bringing an existing lift down to street level is treated in the same way. On 17 September 2026 the court decided the case of a building in Oviedo whose statutes freed the shops from lift expenses and whose entrance already had a ramp: the shops had to pay their share, because debe entenderse que la bajada a cota 0, se encuentra comprendida dentro de los gastos de instalación, que no de conservación o mantenimiento, bringing the lift down to level 0 must be understood as a cost of installation, not of upkeep or maintenance (judgment 1440/2026, quoting its ruling of 2021). On 2 June it had said the same of a ramp and sliding doors in an entrance whose lifts could not be lowered: tales trabajos no constituyen obras de conservación ni de reparación, sino que son las precisas para garantizar la accesibilidad universal al inmueble, such works are not works of upkeep or of repair, but the ones needed to guarantee universal access to the building, and the premises that the statutes freed from the upkeep and repair of the hall had to pay their share (judgment 844/2026). Who pays for those works when nobody is exempt is the subject of our note on accessibility works.
Changing the title or the statutes
The rule is everyone. Resolutions that approve or change the rules of the title or of the statutes requerirán para su validez la unanimidad del total de los propietarios que, a su vez, representen el total de las cuotas de participación, require for their validity the unanimity of all the owners who, in turn, hold all the participation quotas (article 17), and any change to the title follows los mismos requisitos que para la constitución, the same requirements as for its creation (article 5).
Unanimity does not mean that everyone must attend. As a rule, the votes of owners who were properly summoned and stayed away count in favour if, once told of the resolution, they no manifiesten su discrepancia mediante comunicación a quien ejerza las funciones de secretario de la comunidad en el plazo de 30 días naturales, do not state their disagreement to whoever acts as secretary of the community within thirty calendar days (article 17). One written objection in that time is enough to stop the change.
The Act itself lowers the bar in a few cases, and says so each time. A lift, or works that remove barriers, can be approved by a majority of owners and quotas incluso cuando impliquen la modificación del título constitutivo, o de los estatutos, even when they involve amending the title or the statutes. Setting up or ending a concierge, a security service or another common service of general interest takes three fifths; so does a resolution to approve, limit, condition or prohibit holiday lets; so does the division of a flat or the joining of two, where the meeting fixes the new quotas by the same majority (articles 10 and 17).
A change that is not registered is only half made. The entry of a building in the Land Registry includes aquellas reglas contenidas en el título y en los estatutos que configuren el contenido y ejercicio de esta propiedad, those rules of the title and of the statutes that shape the content and exercise of this property (Ley Hipotecaria, article 8), and an unregistered statute, in the words of article 5, does not prejudice third parties, the buyer among them.
When the quota looks wrong
A community in San Sebastián had charged one of its premises 2.40 per cent of the expenses since the nineteen-seventies. In 2015 the owner read his deed and found 1.30. The community went to court: the quotas in the title did not add up to one hundred, other premises of 13 square metres carried the same 1.30 as his 98, and he had paid the higher share for decades without a word. It asked the court to declare that the true quota was 2.40.
On 27 February 2026 the Supreme Court said no (judgment 324/2026). The quota is the one in the registered title. An owner who pays what the administrator bills, trusting it to be right, has not agreed to anything by paying. Area is only one of the criteria of article 5, so a large unit with a small quota is not proof of a mistake. And what the community wanted was to change the title without the agreement the Act requires. The court did point to the way that exists: a falta de acuerdo de todos los propietarios existentes, es posible acudir a la vía judicial para modificar el título constitutivo cuando en su otorgamiento no se hayan respetado los criterios que deben tomarse en consideración para la fijación de la cuota, failing the agreement of all the existing owners, it is possible to go to court to modify the title when the criteria for fixing the quota were not respected in granting it. That lawsuit, it added, needs all the co-owners as parties.
Three things follow for an ordinary building. Expenses are shared by the title, not by custom, however old the custom. An owner who finds that the bills use a number the deed does not contain can ask for the deed's number. And a quota that really is wrong is corrected by everyone's agreement or by a judge, never by a majority vote. An owner who challenges a resolution that sets or alters quotas does not even have to be up to date with the community first, which the Act otherwise requires of anyone who challenges a resolution (article 18).
Where to read them
The Land Registry holds the text that counts. An informative extract, the nota simple, of the building's main entry, asked for word for word, shows the title, the registered statutes and every quota, and any registrar can issue one for a property anywhere in Spain (Ley Hipotecaria, article 222). It is information, not proof: La nota simple informativa tiene valor puramente informativo y no da fe del contenido de los asientos, the informative extract has purely informative value and does not attest to the content of the entries. For a dispute, ask for a certification.
Your own purchase deed states your quota, and the entry of your flat repeats it. The administrator is the third source, since the Act lists among the administrator's duties to custodiar a disposición de los titulares la documentación de la comunidad, keep the community's documents at the owners' disposal (Ley 49/1960, article 20). The house rules are not in the Registry: they are in the minutes of the meeting that approved them.
A resort made of several buildings may have more than one title, one for each community and another for what they share. Our note on resorts with several communities explains how to tell which you are in.
What we do, and what we do not
Statutes and house rules are part of our legal support for communities: we draft them, update them and take them to the Registry, and we read them closely before anyone promises the meeting something the statutes forbid. Owners' and boards' questions are answered in plain language, with what the law says and what your own statutes add to it, and when a matter needs a lawyer the group's law firm takes the file, with a written quote before any formal step.
What we do not do is move a quota. An administrator cannot correct the title, and neither can a majority of the meeting: we tell a community so before it votes, and we set out the two ways that exist. If you have a clause or a number you cannot explain, send it to us.
Common questions
I own a ground-floor flat and never use the lift. Do I have to pay for it?
Yes, unless the registered statutes free you. Not using a service does not exempt an owner from paying for it. If the statutes do free the ground floor from lift expenses in general terms, that covers its upkeep and even its replacement, but not the installation of a lift that was not there, or the works to bring it down to street level.
The community has charged me 2.40 per cent for years and my deed says 1.30. Which one counts?
The one in the registered title. In February 2026 the Supreme Court refused to raise an owner's quota on the ground that he had paid the higher share for decades. Ask in writing for the title's quota to be applied; what can be recovered for past years is a question for a lawyer, with the bills in hand.
We enclosed the terrace and the flat is now bigger. Does our quota go up?
No. Improvements to a flat do not alter its quota, which changes only in the ways the Act lays down. The enclosure itself is another matter: it needs the meeting's approval.
Can the meeting change the statutes by a majority?
Not as a rule. A change to the statutes needs the agreement of every owner, with absent owners counted in favour if they do not object within thirty calendar days of being told. The exceptions are the ones the Act names, such as a lift, concierge or security services and holiday lets.
I am buying a flat. Do statutes that nobody showed me bind me?
If they are registered, yes, and that is why the extract of the building's entry is worth reading before signing. Statutes that were never registered do not, in the Act's words, prejudice third parties, and a buyer is one.
