Liability of the community president under Spanish law

Marta was voted president at the May meeting and, four months later, found a court envelope in her mailbox with her full name on it. A neighbour had tripped on a loose tile in the lobby that she, the letter claimed, "knew about and never fixed". She spent two weeks not sleeping, sure she would pay with her home and her salary.

The reality is far less alarming: it is the community of owners, not the president's personal assets, that answers to a third party; the president merely acts as its legal representative. Personal liability of the community president is the exception, not the rule, and article 13 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (LPH), Spain's Horizontal Property Act, makes that plain.

Does the president answer with their own money?

As a rule, no. When an outsider is hurt by something communal (a loose tile, a crumbling cornice, a leak that floods the shop below), the party sued is the community, which has legal standing to answer and, almost always, a civil-liability policy behind it. The president signs, appears and takes the heat, but does so on behalf of the community, just as a company director acts for the firm and not out of their own current account.

That is the whole logic of the post. The president represents the community in and out of court (art. 13 LPH), so the financial consequences of their acts, when carried out within their role, fall on the common fund and, where needed, on whatever special levy the meeting approves.

Their own pocket only enters in the exceptions below.

When is the president personally on the hook?

The shield cracks in specific situations and they are worth knowing because they are almost entirely avoidable. The president can indeed answer with personal assets when they:

• Act on their own, without a meeting resolution or beyond the authority granted: commission works nobody approved, settle a lawsuit without a mandate, sign what they should not have signed.
• Are negligent or fail to act, the classic culpa in vigilando: they knew of a risk or defect, did nothing and that defect went on to cause harm. Marta's tile would only touch her personally if it were shown she knew about it, had the means to fix it and chose to look the other way.
• Misuse or carelessly manage the common funds: mixing community money with their own, paying without receipts, never rendering accounts.

After years reading minutes, the pattern repeats: the president who lands in trouble is nearly always the one who decided to "sort it out fast" without going through the meeting, hiring the first builder available, fronting money from their own account or settling with the litigating neighbour just to make the problem go away. The rush to do a favour is the front door to personal liability.

How does the president stay protected?

With paper. A president's best insurance is not an abstract idea but a documentary trail proving that every decision came from the meeting and was carried out as agreed, and four habits hold almost all of that protection. First, never move without a resolution: if something material is not in the minutes, it may as well not exist. Second, keep the actas and the accounts clean (dates, amounts, express authorisations, books that balance), because they are the proof you acted within the role. Third, notify formally and verifiably when it matters (a burofax, Spain's certified letter, earns its cost the day a dispute starts). Fourth, keep everything: notices, budgets, invoices, emails.

The president who documents does not only protect themselves; they hand the next one an orderly community instead of a box of loose papers. A community-management software helps precisely here, keeping minutes, receipts and accounts filed in one place and timestamped.

An obligatory, unpaid post

It helps to remember where all this starts: being president is compulsory. Article 13.2 of the LPH frames the appointment as a duty owed by the owners, usually by rotation or draw; the one-year term, unless the statutes provide otherwise, comes from article 13.7. As for pay, the law assigns none: absent an express resolution of the meeting, the post is held for free. Nobody is paid to take the heat.

The law does offer an escape valve: the appointed owner may ask a judge to be relieved of the post within one month of appointment, setting out their reasons. If the job fell to you by lot and your circumstances make it unworkable, that month matters. And if your community is weighing whether to run without a professional manager, it pays to understand first what duties the president takes on.

Before chasing a debtor: the new 2025 step

There is a freshly minted requirement that lands on the president and that many still overlook. Ley Orgánica 1/2025, in force since 2025, requires attempting an adequate out-of-court dispute-resolution method (a MASC) before turning to the courts. For the community this means that, before filing the payment-order claim against a defaulting neighbour, you must show that prior attempt at an amicable settlement.

It is no empty formality: skip it and the court may reject the claim. A president who wants to claim unpaid dues must build that step into the plan and, once again, keep written proof that they tried.

Chairing a community frightens people more than it should.

The underlying rule protects whoever knows it: act within what the meeting approves, document your decisions and never blur the common fund with your own, and you answer with paper, not with your home. Marta's scare deflated the moment her lawyer read the minutes: the community was insured and she had done things right.

Updated 29 July 2026. This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice.