If you live in a small community of owners in Spain, the question has surely come up at some meeting: is it mandatory to have a property manager? The short answer is no. The Horizontal Property Law never requires the community to hire an external professional to run it. What it does require is that certain duties get done, and it leaves considerable freedom about who does them. In this article we explain exactly what the law says, who takes on the work when there is no property manager, and what your community needs to run well on its own, for instance with the help of a platform for self-managed communities.
Everything you will read here has been verified against the consolidated text of Law 49/1960, of 21 July, on horizontal property, which you can consult at the BOE (Spain’s official gazette).
What the Horizontal Property Law actually says
Article 13.1 of the LPH lists the community’s governing bodies: the owners’ meeting, the president (and vice-presidents, where they exist), the secretary and the administrator. At first glance the administrator might seem mandatory, because it appears on the list. But the key lies three paragraphs further down.
Article 13.5 provides that the duties of the secretary and the administrator are performed by the president of the community, unless the bylaws or the owners’ meeting, by majority resolution, decide to fill those positions separately from the presidency. In other words: the role of administrator always exists, but it does not have to be filled by a hired professional. By default, its duties fall to the president. Appointing an external property manager is a choice the community makes, not a legal command.
That is why Spain has thousands of communities run by professional firms living alongside many others, mostly small and medium-sized buildings, that have managed themselves without trouble for decades.
Who takes on the manager’s duties when there isn’t one?
When the community appoints no administrator, the president acts as administrator and secretary at the same time (article 13.5). And it is no ceremonial role: article 13.3 gives the president the legal representation of the community «in and out of court, in all matters affecting it».
And what exactly are those duties? Article 20 of the LPH lists them:
- Looking after the good running of the building, its facilities and services, issuing the appropriate warnings to owners.
- Preparing the foreseeable budget in good time and submitting it to the meeting, proposing the means to cover it.
- Attending to the upkeep of the building, arranging urgent repairs and reporting them to the president or the owners.
- Executing the resolutions adopted regarding works, and making the payments and collections that apply.
- Acting, where applicable, as secretary of the meeting and keeping the community’s documentation available to the owners.
- Any other duties assigned by the meeting.
Translated into daily life: collecting fees, paying the stairwell electricity, getting quotes from the plumber, preparing the annual budget and keeping the invoices. To see how this work is shared out in practice, we have a complete guide on how to run a community of owners without a property manager step by step, and another specifically on the role of the president in a community without a manager.
Can a resident act as the community’s administrator?
Yes, and the law says so in as many words. Article 13.6 of the LPH provides that the position of administrator «may be held by any owner, as well as by natural persons with sufficient, legally recognised professional qualifications». It may also be held by legal entities. The positions of secretary and administrator can, moreover, be combined in one person.
In practice, this opens up three possible models:
- The president does everything, the default model of article 13.5, the most common in small communities.
- A resident other than the president acts as administrator, useful when someone has the time or a good head for numbers, appointed by majority resolution of the meeting.
- A professional property manager, the classic option when the community prefers to delegate.
When hiring a property manager does make sense
Let’s be honest: the fact that a property manager is not mandatory does not mean doing without one is always a good idea. A chartered professional brings legal judgement and experience, and there are situations where that carries real weight:
- Large communities with many owners, employees or complex facilities (lifts, a pool, garages with turnover).
- Buildings with major works under way or open litigation.
- Communities with high arrears that require frequent court claims.
- Entrenched conflict between neighbours, where a neutral third party helps.
By contrast, in a building with few homes, simple expenses and neighbours willing to organise themselves, self-management works, and today it works better than ever, because the heavy part of the job (receipts, minutes, notices, incident tracking) can be automated. If your building has four owners or fewer, the law even provides a simplified regime: we cover it in our guide on self-management in small communities.
What your community needs to run without a manager
Having no administrator exempts you from nothing. The community must still:
- Meet at least once a year to approve budgets and accounts (article 16.1).
- Record resolutions in the minute book certified by the Land Registry, with the minimum content set by article 19.
- Fund the reserve fund with at least 10% of the last ordinary budget (article 9.1.f).
- Maintain the building and attend to necessary repairs.
We have a full run-through of the obligations of a community of owners without a manager, and if you want the wider picture of the law itself, here is the Horizontal Property Law explained in plain language.
How much work is a community without a manager, really?
Less than people fear, if it is organised, and far more than is reasonable, if it is not. The bulk of the year concentrates in three moments: preparing and holding the annual meeting, issuing the fees each month, and reacting when something breaks. The rest is consistency: recording what comes in and goes out, keeping every invoice and putting every resolution in writing. The difference between a self-managed community that works and one that exhausts its president is rarely the size of the building, it is whether that repetitive work is done by hand or has been automated.
Conclusion: not mandatory, but it must be done properly
No, having a property manager is not mandatory for a community of owners in Spain: article 13.5 of the LPH leaves those duties with the president unless the meeting decides otherwise. The real question is not whether you can do without a manager, but whether you have an orderly way of doing the manager’s work: fees up to date, minutes in order, clear accounts and legal deadlines met.
That is exactly what FixrOS solves: receipts go out on their own, notices and minutes are drafted in line with the law, and the system flags every obligation before its deadline. Find out how to run your community without a manager with FixrOS and book a free demo.