Can your community charge you for bringing guests to the pool?
Debate grows over whether neighbours can vote to introduce a guest fee this summer
As summer temperatures soar and schools close for the holidays, many families across Spain find themselves looking for ways to cool off — and community pools are often the answer. But with visitors flocking to the water, a new question is making waves: can your neighbours legally charge you for bringing guests?The short answer is: yes, they can... under certain conditions.
Although Spain’s swimming pool laws are governed by Royal Decree 742/2013, which sets minimum health and safety standards, the details of how a pool is run are often decided much closer to home. Every autonomous community is allowed to introduce its own rules, and within that, individual housing developments and residents’ associations often establish their own agreements too.
In fact, it’s common for a community’s internal regulations or bylaws to include limits on how many guests each owner can bring, and when. These rules are designed to make sure all residents can enjoy the shared facilities comfortably and fairly, especially during peak season.
This summer, one residential complex made headlines after proposing a €1 fee for every guest brought to the pool. The idea, according to reports, was to help manage numbers while raising money to maintain and improve the communal spaces. The plan sparked a lively debate on social media, with some praising it as a smart solution, and others calling it unfair.
So what does the law say?
Experts in property law point out that neighbourhood communities do have the right to introduce measures like guest charges or special visitor passes. However, these rules must be put forward and agreed on democratically, during an official residents’ meeting. In other words, it can’t just be decided informally, the community needs to vote on it and include it in the official statutes.
As ever with Spanish bureaucracy, the rules can vary from region to region, so it’s always worth checking what applies where you live. But if your community is following the right procedure, it’s perfectly legal to charge a small fee to guests using the pool.
So before you invite half the family round for a swim, it might be worth checking the noticeboard first.
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Image: Mariakray/Pixabay
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