The communities of neighbors stand up to the Moors. The owners who do face the community quotas are fed up with a backpack that weighs too much and, above all, that prevents maintaining or improving their buildings. The collegiate farm administrators are witnesses that the neighborhood delinquency, which is around 1,630 million euros, has stabilized, according to the General Council of Colleges of Administrators of Finces of Spain (CGCAFE). They even agree that it tends down. «In recent years there was a lot of condescension towards the Moors due to economic difficulties, first during the economic crisis and mortgage defaults, and then for the COVID,» says Lorenzo Viñas, president of the College of Administrators of Farm of Barcelona-Lleida. «Now it acts directly and agreements are taken with greater diligence,» he finishes. Neighbors compliant are not willing to continue assuming the debtors quota. The most affected communities are those with low economic resources that have central heating and centralized hot water. «If they have delinquent neighbors, the rest have to assume the cost of the pending receipts, and this is really traumatic,» says Peio Mendia, Treasurer of the CGCAFE. When important reforms are necessary, the thing is complicated. «In those cases, it is necessary to increase the extraordinary fee on the rest of the owners to avoid a claim by third parties or the financial one,» says Manuela Julia Martínez, president of the Professional College of Administrators of Farm of Madrid. This is what has happened in one of the communities that manages in the Usera district, in Madrid. On the farm, with eight neighbors, an elevator is being installed at a cost of 169,000 euros. The 21,125 euros that would correspond to the Mooring have been divided among the remaining seven owners, corresponding to each 3,000 euros. Lavandeira, lawyer and administrator of collegiate farms of A Coruña, remembers what happened during the 2008 crisis. «There were buildings that cut the elevator, closed swimming pools and other services for not being able to pay the maintenance.» We are not at that point, but there are farms where debts are a real ballast. Lavandeira manages a building where there are leaks on the upper floor due to the rains. «The community does not fix the roof because it has many delinquent and the other owners cannot assume the cost of the work.» To begin with, neighbors can agree on deterrent measures, such as the establishment of interests higher than the legal interest or the temporal deprivation of the use of services or facilities, provided they are not abusive or affect the habitability of the properties. There are communities that have temporarily restrict access to the pool, the gym, the paddle track or the social halls. «Therefore, in this type of communities, delinquency is very low,» says Martínez. Controlling this is not easy because there should be a guard or electronic access. Now, it is not possible to cut essential elements for habitability such as central heating, water or elevator. Daniel Loscertales, lawyer specializing on urban leases and horizontal property, considers that adopting this measure is an error. «It is a way to create problems in the community and that will mean great discussions, which is what is left over in them and especially in the owners' boards.» The other, more common measure, is to resort to the judicial route, specifically to a monitoring process, a rapid and simple judicial mechanism destined to the collection of unpaid debts – in theory, because in practice the judicial collapse excessively extends the times. Community fees, balances, consumption receipts and any other amount that have previously been certified in the Board of Owners can be claimed, although “the prescription period is five years, so it is not convenient to leave it slowly in time,” recalls Elisa Barragán, senior lawy Judicial route ”. In the law firm Vilches claim that the number of communities that need legal assistance to manage debts due to the financial difficulties of some people due to the rise in inflation has increased «markedly». And for something else. «On April 3, Organic Law 1/2025 of measures on the efficiency of the public justice service that forces us to go through mediations and extrajudicial negotiations prior to the beginning of the legal actions, so» many clients are filing the demands before the entry into force to avoid the procedure, «says Barragán. «For 200 or 300 euros they do not claim judicially, they usually wait for the 1,000 or 1,200 euros barrier to exceed,» says Álvaro Bermejo, a partner of the Bermejo lawyers, where the matters of claim of community debts are common. It is usual, although it is not mandatory, that the community is assisted by lawyer and attorney. The first thing that the Board of Owners has to do is to certify the debt, to communicate to the debtor in a reliable way the agreement adopted granting a small term for the payment. If it does not pay the default, the community can resort to the monitoring process, whose use has been generalized. The monitoring procedures presented in 2023, the last full year with data, added 1,063,672, a figure that represents 11.3% more than in 2022 and that includes the appropriate amounts for common expenses of communities of owners of urban real estate, according to the General Council of the Judiciary.
The keys to the monitor
The monitoring process works, although not with the effectiveness and agility that is presupposed to it. In fact, «in the big capitals, the monitor takes to cite almost the same as ordinary judgments,» says Loscertales. «I have cases in which in three months we have had a resolution and I have cases in which unfortunately the year is met and I am still waiting,» says lawyer Bermejo. “If the debtor does not respond within the legal term, that is, in 20 days from the notification, the creditor obtains an executive title. This opens the door to the seizure of the Mooring Assets, thus guaranteeing the fulfillment of the debt, ”says the lawyer Barragán. But if the Moorish presents opposition, it goes to a verbal or ordinary trial, which corresponds according to the economic amount. In these cases, the deadlines are more dilated. Although the monitor has become a slow route, it is usual for the community to recover the money owed or at least an important part. The problem is that sometimes the debtor declares himself insolvent. In those cases, «it is practically impossible to recover the debt,» assumes Mendia. The Court will decree the seizure of its assets to pay the debt, since the community of owners has preferential credit for the unpaid amounts of the current annuity and of the previous three years. «You have to periodically check that the debtor maintains this situation and in case it changes the execution,» says the president of the farm administrators of Madrid.