CAN A COMMUNITY OF OWNERS FORBID TOURIST RENTALS?

Currently, and following the Royal Decree-Law 7/2019 of March on urgent rental measures, communities of owners have the possibility of reaching agreements that limit or condition the exercise of the tourist rental activity.

These resolutions require the favourable vote of 3/5 of the total number of owners who, in turn, represent 3/5 of the participation quotas, regardless of whether or not they modify the constitutive title or the statutes of the community.

The agreements taken in this sense cannot have retroactive effects, i.e. they cannot limit the activity for those who have already been carrying it out.

This relaxation of the majorities required to limit tourist rental activity has been applied since the 6th of March 2009.

Until then, this type of restriction meant a modification of the statutes or of the articles of association which, as such, required the unanimous support of the entire community (LPH art.17.6).

In practice, the question arises as to the  expression “limiting or conditioning” contained in this rule.

One sector considers that the owners’ meetings with a 3/5 majority can forbid holiday rentals without a just cause, while another majority sector considers that they can only establish limits or conditions to this activity, but not forbid it.

In the absence of a jurisprudential pronouncement on the matter, and as has been mentioned above, the majority supports that the community of owners can establish various limitations with a 3/5 majority, such as, for example, that the occupants of the rented property cannot remain in the common areas (clear example in the Covid period).

According to this majority, this activity could only be forbidden if the unanimity of all the owners is reached, as this would mean modifying the rules contained in the constitutive title of the horizontal property or in the articles of association.

However, in order to resolve this controversy, we will have to wait for a new law on the matter.