The secretary of the community of owners is the most discreet office in the building: hardly anyone knows who holds it, and yet their signature is on the community’s most important documents. The minutes of every meeting, the minute book, the debt certificates needed to claim against a non-payer… everything passes through their hands. In this guide we explain who can be secretary under Spain’s Horizontal Property Law, exactly what they sign, and how the role is shared out when the community has no property manager.
What the community secretary is and why you almost never see one
Article 13.1 of the LPH lists the community’s governing bodies: the owners’ meeting, the president (and vice-presidents, if any), the secretary and the administrator. On paper they are four figures; in practice they are usually one or two people. The reason is article 13.5: the duties of the secretary and the administrator are performed by the president of the community, unless the bylaws or the meeting, by majority resolution, decide those offices should be filled separately.
That is why in most buildings nobody «sees» the secretary: either the president is the secretary without realising it, or the hired property manager holds both offices at once. In self-managed communities, the ones that run without an external firm, understanding this distribution is especially useful, because it lets the load be shared among several neighbours instead of piling it all on whoever presides.
Who can be the secretary of a community of owners?
Article 13.6 deliberately leaves it open. The offices of secretary and administrator can be held by the same person or appointed separately, and the office can fall to:
- Any owner in the community, with no qualification required.
- Individuals with sufficient, legally recognised professional qualifications to perform those duties, the typical case of the chartered property manager.
- Corporations and other legal persons, under the terms established by law.
As for duration, the general rule of article 13.7 applies: unless the bylaws say otherwise, the appointment is for one year, and the meeting can renew, change or remove the secretary before the term ends by a resolution passed in extraordinary session.
The secretary’s duties, one by one
1. Drafting and signing the minutes of each meeting. The minutes must record what article 19.2 requires: date and place, who called the meeting, whether it was ordinary or extraordinary, the list of attendees with their offices and participation quotas, the agenda and the resolutions passed with the result of each vote. The minutes are closed with the signatures of the president and the secretary, at the end of the meeting or within the following ten calendar days; from that closing, the resolutions are enforceable (article 19.3). To see what well-drafted minutes look like, check our legally valid minutes template.
2. Sending the minutes to the owners. After closing, the minutes are sent to all owners following the law’s notification procedure, so that every neighbour, whether they attended or not, knows what was agreed.
3. Keeping the minute book and the documentation. Article 19.4 entrusts the secretary with the custody of the meeting minute books and with keeping, for five years, the notices, communications, proxies and other relevant meeting documents. It is the community’s official memory.
This custody matters more than it seems: when an owner sells their flat, when you need to prove what was agreed about some works three years ago, or when the community changes manager, everything depends on that archive existing and being complete. An organised secretary, or a well-kept digital archive, saves entire arguments.
4. Issuing the debt certificate to claim against non-payers. When the community claims a debt in court through the special payment-order procedure, article 21.3 requires attaching a certificate of the debt settlement resolution issued by whoever performs the duties of secretary, with the president’s approval, stating the amount owed and its breakdown. Without that document, the claim does not get off the ground. You have the full procedure in our guide on dealing with non-payers in the community.
The minute book: how it is legalised and what it must contain
Meeting resolutions are not jotted down in just any notebook: article 19.1 requires them to be recorded in a minute book certified by the Land Registrar in the legally prescribed form. That certification is what turns the book into the official record of the community’s life.
Within the book, each set of minutes must state at least the circumstances of article 19.2 we saw above. And the law itself allows a safety margin: defects in the minutes can be corrected as long as they unequivocally state the date and place, the attendees, the resolutions and the votes, and are signed by the president and the secretary; the correction must be made before the next meeting, which must ratify it (article 19.3).
The secretary in a self-managed community: sharing the role
In a community without a property manager, the default arrangement is simple: the president takes on everything (article 13.5). But the law allows something smarter: the meeting can appoint another neighbour as secretary by majority resolution. That way, whoever presides represents the community and takes the day-to-day decisions, and someone else handles the paperwork: minutes, archive and certificates. Two involved neighbours instead of one burnt-out one.
If that is where you are, these two guides will help: the full duties of the president in a community without a manager and the step-by-step guide to running a community of owners without a manager.
Tools that do the secretarial work by themselves
The good news about digitising the community is that the bulk of the secretary’s work is precisely what automates best. With FixrOS, the meeting notice is composed with its agenda and reaches every neighbour; during the meeting the vote count runs on its own; on closing, the minutes come out drafted with the attendees, the resolutions and the result of each vote, ready for the two signatures; and everything is archived and accessible to any owner from their phone, with the documentation always in custody and at hand. The system also flags the deadlines: closing the minutes within ten days, the annual meeting, the renewal of offices.
Quick questions about the community secretary
Can the secretary be the same person as the administrator? Yes. Article 13.6 expressly allows both offices to be held by one person, the so-called secretary-administrator.
How long does the office last? One year, unless the bylaws provide otherwise, with the possibility of early removal by the meeting (article 13.7).
Do you have to be an owner? Not necessarily: it can be an owner, a qualified professional or a legal person (article 13.6).
What if nobody wants the job? If nobody is appointed separately, the duties fall automatically to the president (article 13.5). You can read the full text of the law in the BOE (in Spanish).
Does your community manage itself, or is it thinking about it? See how FixrOS helps communities that run without a manager: minutes, fees, incidents and legal deadlines in one place, with a free demo to see it working.