After the State of Alarm came into force through Royal Decree 463/2020 on the 14th of March and its successive extensions, one of the first doubts that arose in relation to the communities of owners and Property Law, was what would happen to the general meetings called or planned.
The General Council of the Associations of Community Administrators was strict in stating that, in its opinion, all the meetings should be postponed, and the budgets and positions should be considered as extended.
The situation of uncertainty about the de-escalation and the return to normality generates doubts about if new formulas should be articulated for those urgent questions that are not within the article 10. 1 of the Law of Horizontal Property.
Since face-to-face meetings are prohibited, solutions could be applied, in cases of justified urgency or imperative need, to enable such decisions to be taken:
On line meetings. – No doubt, that this seems the future for the horizontal property meetings, but this transition must be done in an orderly way. The possibility of holding the meetings through videoconference, already endorsed by the doctrine, this would require a reform that would adapt the LPH to the present time. It is likely that, after this confinement, certain obsolete laws could take this step, taking into account that, for example, certain meetings of companies, even listed on the stock exchange, are being held in this way.
Until this happens, we understand that, for legal certainty, the implementation of this measure must be previously approved by meeting and included in the community’s bylaws. We consider that it should be considered as a subsidiary option to the possibility of carrying them out in person and always having the necessary logistic and technical means that allow an adequate adoption of agreements.
In no case would this mean holding a meeting in streaming where people represented could also see the meeting. The doctrine is, for the time being, positioned against this possibility.
Difficult times require proactive actions to try to solve the problems that arise and which we have never faced before.
