How should expenses in a community of owners in Spain be distributed?

You have several rights when you live in a community of owners in Spain. For example, you can do work on your property so long as it does not affect building safety. However, there are always several obligations to be fulfilled with rights, for example, to contribute to the quota corresponding to the general expenses of the building. خدمات 

How is the participation quota calculated by each owner as a normal community expense?

In general, the building's constitutive title sets out the quota for each floor or building. 'To fix it, the useful surface area will be considered as the base for the overall structure, location and usage of the common elements,' says the Madrid Association of Property Managers' Professional Association (CAFMadrid).

However, the law allows the door to be used for another cost distribution system. The owner/developer of the block of flats may establish a criterion of the distribution of expenses by title or by statutes other than the participatory coefficient. For example, expenses are paid in equal parts or excluded, such as when they do not have access through the main entrance, as they are situated in the first floor, from the payment to certain owners.

It also sets out an exception to the owner payment contribution system when it comes to individual expenses. In this case it applies when systems are installed, such as water meters or heating meters, allowing for individual consumption and thus expenditure.

What happens then, when all flats in the same community, regardless of their square meter, pay the same fee? Can the distribution of expenses change? Except as specified in the Community Statute, the owner will contribute to the payment of general expenditures according to the coefficient of participation. In order to alter the payment of one or more items of expenditure, involving changes to the payment system laid down in the statutes, a unanimous agreement will have to be reached.

Another question most debated is the obligation of the premises to participate in all block costs, including the lift, even if they are not using it. "If the landowner is not exempt from the payment of some expenses or from an agreement reached unanimously, they are obliged to contribute to the payment of service maintenance costs or common elements of the property, even when they do not use them, because they do not use the property without exemption" states CAFMadrid.

In any case, if an owner does not fulfill its obligations, a late payment penalty may be imposed by the community. For the Association of Property Administrators, the imposition of defaulting Community interests on owners in arrears is doctrinal. However, the favorable doctrine is likely to impose interest that does not exceed the legal interest for money, since it would be an unfair enrichment for the community if it exceeded that amount. The Community must therefore adopt an agreement to this effect by a simple majority, which is only applicable with its approval and not retroactively.