The reserve fund and notifications in Andorra: avoiding challenges

In Andorra, a homeowners community must keep a reserve fund of at least 5% of the last ordinary budget, included in the annual forecast (art. 14 of Law 12/2004). Meeting notices and minutes go to the Andorran address each owner has registered or, failing that, to their flat in the building.

If you own a flat in Andorra and live in the UK, Spain or France, that second rule is the one that concerns you. Nothing in the law sends your notices abroad.

How the reserve fund is calculated

The base is the last ordinary budget, not what was actually spent. A twelve-flat building with an ordinary budget of 36,000 euros must set aside at least 1,800 euros a year, or 150 euros per flat if shares are equal. The consolidated text of the law, published by the Legislative Decree of 12 March 2018, puts this in article 14. The article opens with buildings held in de facto horizontal property (without a deed of division) and ties the fund to the cost of setting up the regime, but the sentence that sets the 5% minimum makes no such distinction. The same article requires every budget to include building and third-party insurance and a permanent maintenance contract for the building and its general installations.

The owners' meeting approves budget and accounts at least once a year (art. 25.1). A budget passed without the fund is a resolution contrary to the law, which can be challenged before the batlle, Andorra's first-instance judge (art. 31), and the deadline for that challenge is one year instead of the usual thirty days (art. 32.4).

One recommendation goes beyond the text: the law does not require a separate bank account, but we advise one, so the fund does not quietly pay ordinary bills.

Where notices and minutes must be sent

Article 12 sets the order, and it is short:

• First, the address in the Principality of Andorra that the owner has given to the president or the administrator-secretary
• Failing that, the owner's own flat in the building; delivery to whoever occupies it, a tenant included, is fully valid
• If even that is impossible, the notice board the community must keep, clearly visible, at the building entrance

There is no mention of registered post abroad. An owner in Manchester who never registered an Andorran address is legally served at a locked flat, and if nobody is there to receive it, at the notice board downstairs. Since 2025 there is a better route: Law 5/2025 (sixth additional provision) allows meetings to be called by email or electronic messaging even if the bylaws say nothing about it, provided the system keeps proof of sending and content. Ask your administrator to put your email address on file in writing.

This matters for two reasons. An absent owner's thirty-day window to challenge a resolution only starts once it has been communicated under article 12 (art. 32.4). And for resolutions under article 26, a properly summoned absent owner who does not object in writing within thirty calendar days is counted as a vote in favour (art. 26.4).

Debts and property sales

Unpaid service charges are preferential debts that rank ahead of all others, mortgages included, except wage claims and sums owed to the CASS, the social security fund (art. 13.2). A buyer answers with the flat itself for arrears left by previous owners, so the seller must hand the notary a certificate of debts from the community; without it the notary cannot complete the sale unless the buyer expressly waives it (art. 13.3). Since September 2019 the community recovers debts through the order-for-payment procedure of the Civil Procedure Code, based on accounts approved by the meeting (art. 33 as worded by Law 24/2018).

How other European countries set the legal minimum is compared in reserve funds across Europe, country by country.

If you own in Andorra from abroad, send the administrator an Andorran contact address or an email for notices this month. For how votes are counted once the meeting sits, see our guide to the homeowners' meeting in Andorra, and if the fund is heading for a renovation, read how Pla Renova grants for communities are paid. With a tool such as Vecinly, addresses, notices and minutes stay in one place for owners wherever they live, as our page on international communities explains.

Information updated September 2026. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.