Spanish supreme court upholds ban on tourist apartments by residents’ associations
In what is being described as a landmark ruling, the Spanish Supreme Court has decided to uphold the prohibition of tourist rentals if voted upon by the residents’ association or community of owners.
This has been a controversial and contentious topic in recent years for homeowner’s associations, landlords and those living close to tourist rentals.
But what exactly are the implications of this new ruling? How will it affect your property? And can landlords keep renting their property out to tourists? Here’s everything you need to know about this significant ruling.
What is the Spanish horizontal property law?
To fully understand the new ruling, it’s important to know the Spanish Horizontal Property Law (Ley de Propiedad Horizontal) and how it has changed. This law governs the administration of multi-property residential buildings and the topics and issues affecting them. In 2019, article 17.12 of the Spanish Horizontal Property Law was amended by royal decree, granting homeowner communities and residents’ associations the power to condition and limit tourist rentals in the building.
So why wasn’t that enough?
Well, the words condition and limit left a lot of room for interpretation. In fact, judges around the country were left confused by the wording, with many of them believing that limiting did not include banning and others believing that it did. Furthermore, the law did not clarify the voting threshold for the property community. So, again, it wasn’t clear whether a majority of votes was sufficient to ban the tourist rental or if a unanimous vote was necessary.
The new Spanish Supreme Court ruling has established clear rules which are easy to follow. The word limit does semantically include banning and a unanimous vote is not necessary – 3/5 or 60% of the vote is enough.
Appeals that have led to the supreme court’s decision
There were several appeals around the country which led to the case arriving in the Supreme Court. One such one happened in 2019 in Marbella. Tenants in the building complained about the tourist apartments, mentioning that the occupiers were taking illegal substances, being very loud, urinating in common spaces and destroying the building. The other homeowners decided to vote and a ban on the tourist rentals was approved by 48 votes to 3. 2 companies that owned 6 tourist apartments in the building took the case to court.
In this case, the court ruled that the ban was legitimate.
The supreme court’s reasoning for the decision
The Supreme Court decided to uphold the community of owners’ ban for several reasons. As already mentioned, the term limit was a point of contention. They ruled that prohibition is a form of limitation which landed in favour of the community of owners. The court wanted to consider the broader context and societal implications, rather than only looking at the legality of the rental.
They also ruled to balance interests. Whilst individuals have the right to legally rent out property, the situation needs to consider the collective interest of the community.
Implications of the ruling
Of course, such an important ruling is going to have big consequences for owners wanting to regulate short-term rentals in their buildings. It clearly lays out the conditions that need to be met for owners to legally ban tourist rentals and only 60% of them need to vote in favour of the ban in order for it to pass to the next stage. It’s a clear shift towards protecting the quality of life and standards for those living long-term in a building.
It’s also worth mentioning that communities can’t ‘just’ ban tourist rentals by voting. It has to be properly justified and implemented in accordance with the Spanish Horizontal Property Law’s requirements.
The ruling is also not retroactive, meaning that problems have to still be going on and affecting those living around the tourist property.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court’s new ruling is another step that Spain is taking to try and improve and regulate tourist rentals. The quantity of tourist rentals in the country is making it very hard for locals to find accommodation long-term and the change over of tenants can make things very uncertain for those living in the property community.
This ruling has given these tenants a voice, in which they can vote for a problematic property to be banned from being rented to tourists. The implication for landlords could be that they are no longer allowed to rent to tourists on a short-term basis. They may have to look to long-term solutions which will help Spain’s increasing housing problem.