Notes from the island.

The flat you buy in a Spanish community answers for the fees the previous owners left unpaid — the year of the purchase and the three before it — and the certificate of debts the seller must hand the notary is the buyer's only protection. Who issues it and within what deadline, what it must say and why «up to date» is not «no levies pending», the seller's duties before and after the deed, the waiver buyers sign in a hurry, and how the certificate is requested from abroad.

One owner over seventy asks for a lift and the others do not want to pay. The Horizontal Property Act answers in three rules: accessibility works are obligatory without a vote up to one year of ordinary fees after public aid, a majority approves them above that cap, and the dissenter pays with everyone else. A worked example on a Corralejo building, the reserve fund and the levy, the State Plan grants the Canary Government opens, the regional tax deduction, and how we run the meeting.

Every community has a rulebook, and most of it is worth what the meeting knew about the law. Which rules belong in the statutes (unanimity) and which in the house rules (majority), the quiet hours and indoor noise limits that apply on Fuerteventura, what a community may say about pets and parking in 2026, and the four-rung procedure that turns a rule into a court order.

Most communities on Fuerteventura are insured by inertia — until a storm, a pool accident or a burst riser opens the policy. Whether a community must insure, what a building policy covers and quietly leaves out, why the sum insured must be the rebuild cost and not the market value, what the Consorcio adds for €420 a year, and the eight lines that decide between three quotes.

Every membrane on the island has a date on it. When a community's roof reaches it, the Horizontal Property Act makes the works mandatory — no vote on whether, only on how the derrama is shared — and the Civil Code keeps the roof common even under a private terrace. Who decides, how the reserve fund and the cuota split a €48,000 roof in Corralejo, what the specification must contain, the flood test before acceptance, and the warranties to write into the contract.

Five signatures for a flat in Corralejo, and only one needs a notary: the one that, done wrongly at home, gets refused in Spain. What needs a notarial power and what only a signed writing, the three routes from abroad — a Spanish notary, the consulate, your own notary with the Hague apostille, a sworn translation and the equivalence test — and the fourth by video-conference since 2023, what to put in the power, how to revoke it, and what your administrator can then do with it.

The new car arrives in Corralejo before the cable does. Under article 17.5 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal a charging point for private use on your own space needs only prior notice to the community, and the Supreme Court settled in December 2025 that a cable through the garage ceiling changes nothing. What the notice says, the four wiring schemes of the electrical code, who pays for what, when a common installation needs three-fifths, and where the grants stand this year.

The minutes arrive in Hamburg: at Thursday's junta the presidency fell to you. The post is mandatory, but the Act gives you one month to ask the judge for relief, a one-year term, a vice-president to stand in and an administrator to carry the paperwork. What only the president signs, where personal liability begins and ends, and the protocol we use so an owner abroad can hold the post without flying in.

The PDF lands in October with the convocatoria: fourteen pages, three columns and a junta you will not attend in person. What the Horizontal Property Act says the papers must contain (LPH 14, 15, 16, 19), the five pages that matter — budget against actual, the bank reconciliation, the arrears list, the reserve-fund line at 10 % or more, derramas kept apart — a ten-minute check from abroad, the red flags, and how to put a question on the agenda before you vote by proxy.

A brown map on a ceiling in Caleta de Fuste and an owner in Düsseldorf: where the water comes from, the line between common and private elements (stacks common, branches private, the terrace's waterproofing common even when the terrace is yours — Supreme Court 80/2024), who pays under LPH 9 and 10, the seven-day notice and forty-day payment clocks of the insurance law, the expert report that decides most leaks, and the protocol our administrators run.

The junta, the 2027 budget and the reserve fund; the debtor list and the five-year clock; closing the pool by the book, roofs and drains before the rains, certificates and insurance; the community's own Modelo 111 and the new freezing channel — and the owner abroad's mirror list, Modelo 210 by 31 December included.

From November 2026 the Spanish tax agency freezes bank, payment and neobank balances within hours of issuing the order. For an owner who lives abroad the danger is not the speed — it is that the letters arrive at an empty apartment, and the account that pays the community is the one that stops.

Five years to claim (the Supreme Court has settled it), a new mandatory settlement step before court, and the three-year debt a buyer's apartment answers for.

The Canary Islands ITE rule is not the one you will read on mainland sites. What your community must actually inspect, maintain, document — and how to fund it.

NIE, IBI, the Modelo 210, insurance and community duties — what a non-resident owner in Fuerteventura must actually do each year, and what happens if you don't.

Convocation, proxies, majorities and the 30-day rule — how a Spanish junta de propietarios works, and why its decisions bind you whether you attended or not.

What your cuota actually pays for, where your coefficient comes from, when a derrama is legitimate, and what happens to an owner who falls behind on payments.

Spain's 2025 reform lets a community approve, limit or ban tourist lets with a 3/5 vote, and the Canary Islands added its own law. Where that leaves owners.

What the law actually says about removing and appointing an administrator, the majority you need, the handover you should demand, and the right month to do it.