The push in many Spanish cities to turn apartments rented to vacationers back to family housing may be getting another tool with a proposed change in rules for apartment houses.
Spain’s Horizontal Property Law empowers the residents of apartment buildings as a community of neighbors, or Comunidad de Vecinos, in some ways similar to a homeowners’ association in U.S. neighborhoods. The comunidad must agree to many aspects of life in their buildings, including apartments being rented to tourists.
The law requires a 3/5 vote of the residents to set limits or conditions on tourist licenses being issued for apartments in the building, but a new amendment being studied by the Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda would allow the comunidad to ban tourist rentals in the building.
Two recent court suits have supported resident committees that argued they already had the power to do that, because a ban would be a form of limit, but it is not clear whether those decisions will be upheld.
