Keeping the accounts of a community of owners without a property manager is entirely possible, thousands of communities across Spain do it every year, but it takes order, a bit of method and knowing what the law requires. The good news: you don’t need to be an accountant. The Horizontal Property Law asks for very few things on the financial side, and all of them can be met with consistency and the right tools.
In this guide we cover, in the order you will meet them, the five financial fronts of any community: the budget, the fees, the reserve fund, the day-to-day of receipts and payments, and arrears. If your community manages itself, you may also want to look at our platform for self-managed communities, built precisely to take the manual work off your hands.
Who keeps the accounts when there is no property manager
When a community appoints no manager, the duties do not disappear: they pass to the president. Article 13.5 of the Horizontal Property Law 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 decide to fill those positions separately.
And what are those duties on the financial side? Article 20 of the LPH describes them: preparing the foreseeable expenditure plan in good time and submitting it to the meeting, and making the payments and collections that are due. Translated into everyday terms: drawing up the budget, issuing the fees, paying the stairwell electricity and the lift maintenance company, and keeping a record of all of it. For the full map of the role, see our guide to the president in a community without a manager.
The annual budget: the foundation of everything
Everything else hangs from the budget. Article 14 of the LPH gives the owners’ meeting the power to approve the plan of foreseeable expenses and income and the corresponding accounts, and article 16.1 requires the community to meet at least once a year precisely to approve budgets and accounts.
In practice, drawing up a community budget is simpler than it sounds: start from last year’s actual costs (utilities, maintenance, insurance, cleaning), adjust whatever you know will change, and add the reserve fund contribution. You have the full process, line by line, in our article on the community of owners’ annual budget.
The fees: how they are shared between neighbours
Once the budget is approved, it has to be shared out. As a general rule each owner contributes according to their participation coefficient, the percentage in your property deed reflecting the weight of each flat or unit in the building as a whole. A flat with a 5% coefficient bears 5% of the budget, unless the community’s bylaws set a different rule.
To avoid doing the maths by hand, at FixrOS we publish a free community fee calculator by coefficient: enter the annual budget and your coefficient, and it returns your annual and monthly fee instantly.
The reserve fund: the 10% the law demands
This is the financial obligation self-managed communities most often overlook. Article 9.1.f of the LPH requires a reserve fund, owned by the community, endowed with an amount that may in no case be less than 10% of its last ordinary budget. Its purpose: covering conservation, repair and refurbishment works on the building, as well as accessibility and energy-efficiency works.
The law itself adds a possibility few people know: against the reserve fund the community may take out an insurance policy covering damage to the building, or a permanent maintenance contract for the property. To dig deeper, we have two dedicated guides: what the reserve fund is and how much it should hold and how to account for it correctly.
The day-to-day: receipts, payments and reconciliation
Between one meeting and the next, keeping a community’s accounts comes down to three habits. First: issue the fee receipts on the same date every time and record who has paid and who has not. Second: pay invoices from the community’s bank account, never from personal accounts, not even «to speed things up», and file every invoice together with its proof of payment. Third: once a month, check that the bank balance matches your records. Accountants call this reconciling; you can simply call it checking.
- One single record. Starting with a spreadsheet is fine: what matters is that there is only one, with dated income and expenses and each entry’s supporting document.
- Everything through the bank. Cash is the enemy of transparency. Every movement through the account leaves a trail and prevents arguments.
- A calm year-end close. Before the annual meeting, prepare the year’s summary: what was budgeted, what was spent, the deviation and the balance. That is what the meeting must approve each year.
What to do about neighbours who don’t pay
Arrears are the most uncomfortable part of keeping a community’s accounts, especially when the debtor is the neighbour on the third floor. The law gives the community concrete tools. Article 21.1 of the LPH allows the meeting to approve deterrent measures against late payment, such as interest above the legal rate or temporary loss of the use of services and facilities (provided they are not abusive and do not affect habitability), and establishes that debts owed to the community accrue interest from the moment payment was due.
If the debt persists, article 21.2 enables the special order-for-payment procedure for communities of owners, to claim ordinary and extraordinary fees and reserve fund contributions in court. Meanwhile, article 15.2 removes the right to vote at the meeting from any owner who is not up to date with payments (though they may still take part in the discussion). The full procedure, step by step, is in our guide on dealing with non-payers in the community.
Transparency: accounts in plain sight
In a self-managed community, trust is the most valuable asset. Most financial conflicts between neighbours are born not of fraud but of opacity: nobody knows how much is in the account, the accounts are shown once a year on a sheet of paper, and doubts pile up for months. The solution is simple to state: any neighbour should be able to check the balance, the movements and the receipts at any time. When the information is available, suspicion evaporates on its own.
Tools so you don’t do it all by hand
Everything above can be done with a spreadsheet, a folder of invoices and willpower. But every hour the president spends issuing receipts or chasing paperwork is an hour given away. A management platform does that work by itself: it issues the receipts, records every payment, flags arrears, calculates the reserve fund contribution and keeps the accounts visible to every neighbour in real time.
If your community runs without a manager, take a look at how FixrOS helps you run your community without a property manager: clear accounts, automatic receipts and the duties of the Horizontal Property Law flagged before the deadline. And if you are weighing up the full self-management model, start with our guide to running a community of owners without a manager and the overview of the legal obligations of a community without a manager.