Do commercial premises have to pay service charges (owners' association fees) and special levies?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

Yes. Commercial premises pay service charges and special levies like any other owner, according to their participation share, the percentage of the building that corresponds to them. They are only free of the expenses from which the building's deed or the by-laws of the owners' association (the “comunidad de propietarios”) specifically exempt them, such as those of the entrance hall, the staircase or the lift. That exemption does not, in principle, cover special levies for the façade, the roof or the structure, which belong to the whole building. The fact that the premises do not use a service does not free them from paying for it. When commercial premises are exempt The “Código Civil de Cataluña”, the Catalan Civil Code, does not exempt commercial premises from any expense merely because they are commercial premises. For commercial premises not to pay an expense, the exemption must be written into the deed of constitution, which is the deed by which the building was divided, or into the by-laws, the owners' association's own rules. Moreover, the law only accepts exemptions that refer to specific services or common parts, such as the entrance hall, the staircase, the lift or the gardens. A general statement, such as that commercial premises do not pay the expenses that do not affect them, is unlikely to be enough. That is why the first thing to do is read the deed of division into units (“división horizontal”) and the by-laws. In principle, the fact that the premises have never been charged for an expense does not create an exemption. And exemptions are interpreted strictly, so anything the clause does not expressly mention is not exempt. Special levies A special levy is an extraordinary contribution approved by the owners' general meeting to pay for works or an expense that was not in the budget. It is a common expense like any other, so the premises pay it according to their participation share, unless their exemption covers those works. In principle, this leads to the following results: If the premises are exempt from staircase expenses and the special levy is for repairing the staircase, they do not pay it. If the special levy is for the façade, the roof or the structure, which serve the whole building, they pay it even if they are exempt from the entrance hall, staircase and lift expenses. If the special levy is for installing a lift that the building did not have, they also pay it, even if they are exempt from the lift expenses. The courts take the view that such an exemption covers the expenses of the existing lift, not the installation of a new one. Changing what commercial premises pay To exempt commercial premises from an expense now or to change how it is allocated, the owners' general meeting needs the votes of four-fifths of the owners, who must also represent four-fifths of the participation shares. The opposite can also happen. If the business on the premises makes especially intensive use of the common parts or services, the deed of constitution can provide, or the owners' general meeting can resolve by that same majority, that the premises pay a larger share of the expenses. The law does not allow the increase to exceed double what corresponds to them under their participation share. In the rest of Spain, the Horizontal Property Act (“Ley de Propiedad Horizontal”) in principle requires unanimity to change the exemptions in the deed of constitution or the by-laws.