Selective Rental
October 12, 2026
9
Niels Schuit
Community rules on holiday letting in Spain changed in 2025, and the change matters to any owner who lets a residence occasionally. Since 3 April 2025, a reform of the Horizontal Property Law allows a community of owners to require express approval before a home within it is used as a tourist let, and to refuse that approval, by a majority of three fifths of owners representing three fifths of the participation quotas. A community may also resolve to charge a higher share of common expenses to units used in that way.
For an owner who lets selectively, perhaps a few weeks a year to people they have chosen, this shifts a decision that used to sit with the regional licensing system into the hands of the neighbours. That is worth understanding properly, because the practical consequence of getting it wrong is not a fine in the first instance. It is a community resolution, a demand to stop, and an argument with the people you live alongside.
What follows is an explanation of the framework, not legal advice. The reform is national, its application is local, and the position of any individual residence depends on its documentation, its timing and the statutes of its own community.
The reform entered into force on 3 April 2025, following a transition period after the enabling law of January 2025. Before it, the starting point in most communities was that a residence was yours to let unless the statutes said otherwise, and changing the statutes to prohibit letting required a demanding majority. After it, the starting point is reversed for tourist use. Express approval is the requirement, and silence is not consent.
Alongside the approval requirement, the reform gave communities two further instruments. They may set conditions on how tourist use is carried out within the building, and they may resolve to increase the share of common expenses attributed to units used as tourist accommodation, commonly cited as up to twenty per cent above the ordinary charge, on the reasoning that such use places more load on lifts, pools, gardens, security and cleaning.
Decisions of this kind are taken at a general meeting of the community, properly convened, with the item on the agenda. The threshold is a double one. Three fifths of the total number of owners must be in favour, and those owners must together hold three fifths of the participation quotas. A resolution passed by the people who happened to attend, without reaching that threshold of the whole, does not carry.
Two details follow from that and are regularly missed. The first is that absent owners are counted under the mechanism the law provides for them, so not attending is not a neutral act. The second is that a resolution affecting the use of a property is normally recorded in the minutes and, where it modifies the statutes, registered at the Land Registry so that it binds future purchasers. If you are buying a residence with letting in mind, the minutes of the last several meetings tell you more than any marketing material will.
This is the point on which owners most often receive conflicting information, and it is the point on which you should take your own advice rather than ours.
The reform was not drafted to strip existing, lawfully established tourist activity of its position, and commentary on it consistently states that community resolutions adopted under the new provisions do not operate retroactively against activity that was already properly in place. Where the disagreement lies is in what counts as properly in place, and from which date. Some practitioners point to registration and licensing completed before the reform took effect; others frame the cut-off differently. The practical answer is that the strength of your position rests on your paperwork and its dates, which is exactly the kind of question a Spanish lawyer should look at with your own file in front of them.
If you hold a tourist registration for your residence, keep the original documentation, the dates of registration and the correspondence that produced it somewhere you can retrieve it. Our article on the tourist rental licence in Andalusia sets out what that registration involves in this region.
A community that permits tourist use may still decide that it should cost more. The figure discussed in practice is an increase of up to twenty per cent on the ordinary share of common expenses for the units concerned. Whether your community has adopted such a resolution, and from what date, is a question for the administrator rather than a matter of assumption.
For an owner letting a handful of weeks a year, a surcharge of that order is usually a modest line against the rest of the cost of holding a residence, but it belongs in the arithmetic rather than outside it. Our articles on community fees in Spain and on what selective letting realistically produces give the surrounding figures, all of them indicative and all of them variable by case.
The provisions concern property held under the Horizontal Property regime, which is to say property within a community of owners. A genuinely independent house on its own plot, with no community, is not governed by them.
Many substantial residences on the Costa del Sol, however, sit inside a gated urbanisation with shared roads, gardens, security and sometimes a shared pool, and those urbanisations are usually constituted as communities. Owners of detached villas are therefore more often inside this framework than they expect to be. The question is settled by the title deed and the community statutes, not by whether the house has a neighbour attached to it.
There is a difference between a residence that is let and a residence that is rented out. The first remains a private home that is occasionally, and selectively, made available. The second becomes a commercial unit with a calendar to fill. Communities have generally become less tolerant of the second, and the 2025 reform gives them the means to act on that.
An owner who lets a few carefully chosen weeks, with guests who are screened, standards that do not slip and no visible change in the character of the house, is rarely the reason a community votes to prohibit anything. The way we approach private use and selective letting is built on that distinction. Our articles on vetting guests for a holiday let and on what letting costs a private residence go into how that is held in practice.
Before you commit a single week, three documents tell you where you stand. The statutes of the community, which may already contain a clause on tourist use predating the reform. The minutes of recent general meetings, which show whether the subject has been raised and how the vote fell. And the convening notice for the next meeting, which shows whether it is about to be.
Ask the administrator for all three in writing. An owner who finds out about a prohibition from a letter demanding that they stop has usually missed a meeting they were entitled to attend, and a vote they were entitled to influence. If you cannot be in Spain for a general meeting, our article on the Spanish power of attorney explains how an absent owner can arrange to be properly represented and have their vote counted.
Since April 2025 a community can resolve to require express approval for tourist use, and can withhold it, by a majority of three fifths of owners holding three fifths of the quotas. Whether a resolution has been passed in your community, and how it affects you, depends on your own documentation.
The provisions are directed at tourist or short-term use. Letting on a residential contract is treated differently, though community statutes may contain their own terms. Take advice on your own case.
Commentary on the reform is consistent that it does not operate retroactively against activity already lawfully established, but the detail of dates and documentation decides individual cases. This is the question to put to a Spanish lawyer with your file in front of them.
An increase of up to twenty per cent on the ordinary share of common expenses is the figure discussed in practice. Confirm with your administrator whether your community has resolved anything, and from when.
Only if it genuinely sits outside any community of owners. A detached house inside a gated urbanisation with shared facilities is usually within one.
The statutes, the minutes of recent general meetings and the next convening notice, all obtainable from the administrator in writing.
The useful position to be in is the informed one. You know what your statutes say, you know how the last votes went, you know whether a surcharge applies to you, and you have your registration documents to hand. From there, letting a few weeks a year is an operational matter rather than a risk.
This article is for information only and is not legal advice. The Horizontal Property regime, the regional licensing rules and the practice of individual communities all change, and the position of any residence turns on its own documents. Take advice from your own Spanish lawyer or tax adviser before acting.
If you would like to discuss how your residence is let, and how that is held to the standard of a private home, request a consultation.
