A few days ago, the First Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court issued two rulings in which it upheld the veto of “tourist apartments” in homeowners’ associations that expressly prohibit in their bylaws the use of the dwellings to carry out an economic activity. The court considers in this respect that the rental of dwellings for tourist use is an economic activity.
In none of the cases examined in the aforementioned judgments is it a question of applying the new regulation of the Horizontal Property Law, but only of analyzing whether the existence of a statutory provision expressly determining that no professional, business, commercial or commercial activities of any kind may be carried out in the private apartments (reserving the use thereof exclusively for residential use) affects the use of the apartments for tourism purposes.
And the answer to the High Court is clear: to use the dwellings of a building for tourist apartments constitutes a business and/or commercial economic activity and, consequently, if there is a statutory provision prohibiting such activities, the same is forbidden since there is a statutory prohibition registered in the articles of association.
The Court concludes that this interpretation is in accordance with the Chamber’s jurisprudence that “the limitations must be clear, precise and express because the inclusion of the tourist activity in the statutory prohibition is perfectly consistent with its letter and spirit, which is none other than to prohibit the exercise of an economic activity of a commercial, professional or business nature in the dwellings, as is the case with tourist apartments“.
Apart from this novel jurisprudential line, it should be recalled that the possibility of agreeing the prohibition of tourist rental by the Community of owners was introduced by Royal Decree-Law 7/2019 of March 1 of urgent measures on housing and rental, which reformed the Horizontal Property Law (LPH) incorporating paragraph 12 of Article 17 of the same which introduced in matters of housing for tourist use the necessary quorum of votes required for the communities of owners to be able to limit or condition The exercise of the activity, fixing it in the favorable vote of three-fifths of the total number of owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas (double majority).
Both the limitation and the prohibition of the use of dwellings for tourist apartments has also been expressly endorsed by the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries, among others, in its resolution of June 16, 2020. In practice, I am aware that the Property Registries of Zaragoza are admitting the registration of both the agreements prohibiting such uses and the temporary limitation of such uses for a long period of time (50 years) with the aforementioned three-fifths quorum.
Obviously, failure to comply with such prohibition or limitation will entitle the Community or any of its members to bring anaction for the cessation of unpermitted activitiesunder the provisions of Article 7.2 of the Horizontal Property Law.
𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙤𝙧: Pablo Sola Marti Partner at 𝘓𝘢𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘢 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘨𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘴, 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘴 & 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴