If your community of owners has no property manager, you already know who carries the workload: the president. The role of president of a community without a property manager is the most demanding one in Spanish horizontal property, because on top of legally representing the community it takes on all the management duties that a professional handles in other buildings. The good news is that the Horizontal Property Law (LPH) defines very clearly what you must do, what you cannot decide on your own and how long the role lasts.
In this guide we go through, article by article, the duties, the responsibility and the limits of the president when there is no manager, and at the end we explain how self-managed communities organise themselves today so the role doesn’t become a second job.
The president’s role: mandatory, and always an owner
Article 13.2 of the LPH is blunt: the president «shall be appointed, from among the owners, by election or, failing that, by rotation or by lot», and it adds that «the appointment shall be mandatory». In other words: only an owner can be president, and if it’s your turn, in principle you cannot refuse.
The law itself leaves an escape route: the appointed owner may ask the judge to be relieved within the month following taking office, stating their reasons. The judge decides and, in the same ruling, appoints the owner who must replace them. The judge can also be turned to when, for whatever reason, the meeting cannot manage to appoint a president.
As for whether there is an age beyond which you can excuse yourself from the role, the law sets none: we explain it in detail in our guide on the age limit for being president of the community.
What duties the president of a community without a manager takes on
Here is the key to everything. Article 13.5 of the LPH says that «the duties of the secretary and the administrator shall be performed by the president of the community», unless the bylaws or the meeting, by majority resolution, decide to fill those positions separately. If your community has not appointed a manager, those duties are yours by law.
And what exactly are they? Article 20 lists them. In plain language, the president acting as manager must:
- Look after the good running of the building, its facilities and services, and warn owners when something is not being used properly.
- Prepare the plan of foreseeable expenses in advance and submit it to the meeting, proposing how to meet them.
- See to the upkeep of the building, ordering urgent repairs and immediately informing the owners about them.
- Execute the resolutions on works and make the payments and collections that apply: fees, contractor invoices, special levies.
- Act as secretary of the meeting and keep the community’s documentation available to the owners.
- Anything else the meeting entrusts to them.
On top of that comes their own function as president: article 13.3 provides that they legally hold the representation of the community, «in and out of court, in all matters affecting it». They sign on behalf of everyone, claim debts on behalf of everyone and answer to third parties on behalf of everyone.
And don’t forget calling meetings: under article 16.2, convening the meetings falls to the president, stating the matters to be discussed, the place, day and time, and including in the agenda any items an owner has requested in writing. You have the full step-by-step in our guide on how to run a community of owners without a property manager.
What the president CANNOT do alone
Being president does not mean being the boss of the community. The LPH reserves the important decisions for the owners’ meeting, and article 14 makes it clear. It falls to the meeting, not the president, to:
- Appoint and remove the people holding the positions (president included) and resolve complaints against their actions.
- Approve the plan of foreseeable expenses and income, and the accounts.
- Approve the budgets and the execution of all repair works, ordinary or extraordinary.
- Approve or amend the bylaws and the internal rules.
- Decide on all other matters of general interest.
The important nuance is urgency: article 20.c allows the president-manager to order the repairs and measures «that prove urgent», with the obligation to immediately inform the owners. A burst pipe doesn’t wait for the meeting; changing the cleaning company does.
How long the role lasts and how it is handed over
Unless the community’s bylaws say otherwise, the governing positions, president included, are appointed for a term of one year (article 13.7). The same article provides for early removal: appointees «may be removed from office before the end of their term by resolution of the owners’ meeting, convened in extraordinary session».
In practice, many self-managed communities work on a yearly rotation: each year it’s another flat’s turn. It’s a fair system, but it has a well-known problem: every handover takes the accumulated knowledge with it. If the accounts, minutes and contracts live in the outgoing president’s head (or computer), the incoming one starts from scratch. That’s why the community’s paperwork should live in one shared, organised place, not in personal folders; the secretary must keep custody of the minute books and preserve notices and relevant documents for five years (article 19.4), and in a community without separate positions, that secretary is you. We explain who can take on that role in our guide to the secretary of the community of owners.
The president’s responsibility: what real risk there is
The question that worries anyone accepting the role the most. Let’s be honest: the LPH does not devote an article to «the president’s liability», but from their role as legal representative (article 13.3) it follows that they are the one who acts for the community before third parties, and from the duties in article 20 follows a duty of diligence in management. If the community breaches its legal obligations, annual meeting not convened, minutes unsigned, reserve fund not funded, the president is the one who will have to answer for it.
Two ideas for sleeping soundly. First: always act with a meeting resolution behind you and put everything in writing in the minutes; a president executing validly adopted resolutions is complying with the law, not taking risks. Second: for decisions with serious legal consequences, suing a non-paying owner, major works, an employment dispute, lean on professional advice case by case even if you don’t have a permanent manager.
A note on arrears, which is the most common battlefront: claiming debts rests on the meeting’s liquidation resolution, with a certificate from whoever acts as secretary and the president’s approval (article 21.3). The full text of the law is in the BOE (consolidated Law 49/1960), and the practical procedure in our guide on what to do about non-paying owners.
How to lighten the president’s load without hiring a manager
All of the above explains why nobody wants to be president in a self-managed community: the role concentrates notices, minutes, accounts, collections, incidents and legal representation in one person with a first and last name. But notice something: almost all of that work is repetitive and documentary. Drafting the notice, writing up the minutes, issuing the receipts, chasing an invoice, remembering the annual meeting deadline… is exactly the kind of task a platform can do on its own.
That is what FixrOS does for communities that manage themselves: receipts go out automatically, the meeting notice and the minutes are drafted with everything article 19 requires, every neighbour checks the accounts from their phone, and the system flags legal duties before the deadline passes. The president decides; the platform executes and leaves everything documented for the next one.
If this year it’s your turn, take a look at the FixrOS platform for running your community without a property manager and book a demo: in 30 minutes we’ll show you how the role stops being a burden.