Maintaining order, cleanliness and safety in an urbanization requires the participation of the owners of their homes. Neighborhood meetings are the place to make consensus decisions among all residents. But these community meetings can be a problem for some neighbors, especially if you happen to be president. In these meetings, matters as transcendental as the increase in quotas or the approval of spills are discussed. But… what happens if a neighbor decides not to come? Do you have the right to challenge a decision made at the meeting? This is the
The first thing to remember is that these meetings not only serve to make important decisions about the management and maintenance of common areas, but also provide a platform to address conflicts, propose improvements and foster cohesion between residents. However, not all residents regularly attend these meetings, which raises the question of whether those who are usually absent have the right to complain later about the decisions made. What does the Law say?
The legal framework of neighborhood associations.
In many countries, the regulation of condominium property establishes the legal framework within which communities of owners operate. In Spain, for example, the Horizontal Property Law (LPH) is the legal text that regulates these issues, establishing the rights and duties of homeowners in buildings divided into horizontal property regime. According to this law, all owners have the right to participate and vote in owners’ meetings, this being one of the mechanisms through which they can exercise their right to information and decision-making about the community.
But since the right to participate is not an obligation, the legitimacy to claim from those neighbors who do not attend neighborhood meetings is a complex issue. On the one hand, the law recognizes the right of all owners to be informed of decisions that affect the community, regardless of their attendance at meetings. This means that, in principle, any owner has the right to express his disagreement with the decisions made, even if he was not present at the meeting where it was made.
In this sense, as Mapfre points out, article 18 of the Horizontal Property Law establishes the cases in which any owner can challenge the agreements adopted by the neighborhood association:
When they are contrary to the law or the statutes of the Community of Owners. when they result in serious harm to the interest of the community for the benefit of one or more owners. when they entail serious harm to any owner who does not have legal rights. bear it or have been adopted with abuse of rights.
In fact, not only neighbors who have not helped the meeting have the right to demand a decision made. According to the LPH, this right also extends to residents who have saved their vote at the meeting (not those who have actively abstained), who have been improperly deprived of their vote or who were at the meeting but voted against it. . . Of course, in order to claim it is essential to be up to date with the payment of all debts.
In any case, this right is not absolute. The ability to claim may be conditioned by several factors. Among them, the most common are the established deadlines, within which challenges to the board’s decisions must be presented. If a property owner does not act within these deadlines, he or she could lose his or her right to file a claim. In Spain, the period to challenge the agreements of a neighborhood association is 3 months from the date on which they are adopted. However, the expiration date is extended to one year in the case of acts contrary to the law or the statutes. In the case of absentee owners, the deadlines are computed from the moment they receive the communication of the agreement.
