Can the owners' community ban my pet?
1. Having a pet is a responsibility. How many pets are there in Spain?
We will answer with four data around pets:
a) In Spain there are 29 million pets
b) 15 million of them are dogs
c) In contrast, in Spain children under fifteen years of age are only 6.6 million.
d) During the pandemic the purchase of pets increased by 38%.
Given the above magnitudes our pets live with us in the home and, by extension, in the owners community (hereinafter OC). Obviously, in many CP the question of the prohibition that we will analyze from now on will have arisen in many OC.
2. Can the community of owners where I live prohibit me to have a pet inside my house?
Categorically no. Neither the Catalan Civil Code nor the Law of Urban Leases, ban the pets possession inside the house: to formulate this limitation would be null and void from Law point of view. This nullity has been ratified by several Provincial Courts such Barcelona's one in a sentence of November 26, 2007.
Did the court decision make sense? Not only makes sense it is also constitutional.
Let us discover the reason: the decision to prohibit pets in the interior of dwellings would collide with the inviolability of the home.
This property inviolability is recognized in article 18 of the Spanish Constitution in a more accurate way the right to private property (recognized on article 33 of the Spanish Constitution) establish the faculties to dwelling use and enjoyment - except when the activities that are developed are not annoying or harmful for the other neighbors-.
3. Do I understand then that I do not have any type of legal restriction at the time of having pets?
No, this unilateral and unlimited extension of our subjective right is an incorrect assumption.
The reason is simple: in a OP there are some privative elements but, also others of common. When we speak of these as we refer in spaces that we share with the other neighbors and co-owners in them we cannot understand our freedom as absolute. This consideration that by the norms of social behavior is what we call civility.
To the Law, which codifies social behavior costums and converts them into rules, this limitation of individual freedom to the OCs has been conveyed in several firm rulings. The Spanish Supreme Court Sentence of November 4, 1988 empowers the Board of owners to approve and incorporate, always with the required quorum, a binding provision to the Internal Community Regulations that limits the use of common elements by pets or, urges to adopt rules, such as that our pets wear a collar - use a not drowning one please- while transiting through the community.
4. Conclusion: the good application of the Law consists in balancing our respective freedoms.
As we have so often emphasized, law is a balance between individual freedom and collective interest. We believe, with the help of @sepineditorial, that we have explained it clearly on the theoretical level.
In practice there are specific cases of each OP that go beyond to solve them you can count on the expert advice of our administrators.
Open the door to enjoy with your pet without getting in the way.