Can community presidents receive remuneration?

THE Horizontal Property Act remains silent on this point as it neither endorses nor bans it.

Case law, on the contrary, is more specific, giving the following clues:

The Appeal Courts of Malaga, the Balearics and Tenerife have declared that presidents cannot have a fixed remuneration although […] they may be compensated for the costs and trouble inherent to carrying out the job of president.

The Appeal Court in Las Palmas deals with a case where although statutes specifically state that the president of a specific community will not generate remuneration […] this prohibition is not incompatible with covering representation expenses, more or less modest, against submission of receipts or invoices for the most relevant expenses.

The Appeal Court in Granada is more restrictive and states that […] whilst prima facie the job of president is pro bono, such mandate is not incompatible with receiving, exceptionally, consideration by the community.

In this case, an AGM resolution where the president was exonerated of paying his monthly fee was deemed void because […] one thing is to be reimbursed in expenses and a different one is to exonerate the president from paying… concluding that the resolution […] altered the coefficients of ownership within the community of owners… and a professionally remunerated administrator can do this job.

With regards to the required quorum in an AGM (Annual General Meeting) or EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) – as the case may be – most courts consider that a resolution to grant a regular remuneration requires unanimous consent, if it goes against the Statutes or Articles (because they stipulate that it is an unpaid job), whereas a resolution to simply cover representation expenses can be decided by a majority of votes, irrespective of what the Statutes or Articles state.