Which activities count as a nuisance and how can the owners' association make them stop?

What counts as a nuisance activity

The law does not give a list. What is prohibited falls into one of these three groups:

• Activities contrary to normal community life, such as music and noise at unsocial hours, constant parties, shouting, insults and threats, bad smells or dirt. The courts require serious, repeated and proven disturbance. Isolated incidents are not usually enough.
• Activities that damage or endanger the building, such as overloading the structure or storing hazardous materials.
• Activities prohibited by the by-laws, planning regulations or the law. In that case there is no need to prove any disturbance. It is enough to prove that the activity is taking place, for example a holiday let in a building whose by-laws ban them. If there is no ban, the courts point out that tourist use is not a nuisance in itself.

How to make them stop

The president, on their own initiative or at the request of a quarter of the owners, sets the procedure in motion:

• The president formally requires whoever is causing the disturbance to stop, by a method that leaves a record, such as a “burofax” (a certified letter with proof of content). This is a duty, not an option. It is advisable to send the formal demand to the owner of the flat as well, even if they do not live there.
• If the disturbance continues, the meeting can resolve to sue. Before doing so, the law generally requires an attempt at negotiation.
• The claim is filed together with the formal demand and the certificate of the meeting's resolution. Without them, it will normally fail.
• As an interim measure while the case is ongoing, the judge can order the activity to stop immediately. In the judgment, the judge can order compensation to be paid to the association and, if the activity continues, deprive the person responsible of the use of the flat for up to two years and terminate the tenancy agreement or other right of whoever occupies it.

If the person causing the disturbance is a tenant, what the owner and the association can do is explained in the question about a tenant who disturbs the neighbours. Each neighbour affected can also bring an individual claim to have the noise, fumes or smells reaching them stopped. In the rest of Spain, the Horizontal Property Act (“Ley de Propiedad Horizontal”) follows a similar route, but the deprivation of use can last up to three years.

How it is proved

A 2018 case decided by the “Audiencia Provincial” of Barcelona, the provincial appeal court, serves as an example. The owners' association sued the daughter who lived in the flat and her parents, who owned it, for loud music at night, a washing machine and vacuum cleaner at six in the morning, parties, insults and threats. The evidence included the complaints made to the City Council and to the “Mossos d'Esquadra” (the Catalan police), the reports of the “Guàrdia Urbana” (the city police), the minutes of three meetings, a letter signed by the neighbours and their testimony at the trial. The first-instance court ordered a one-year deprivation of the use of the flat, not the two years the association had sought, because the disturbance had decreased after the claim was filed. The appeal court upheld that decision. The judgment also went against the parents, who did not live there, because they had been sent a formal demand and did nothing to remedy the situation.