What is an administrador de fincas?

Much Spanish property forms part of a complex of buildings which share some facilities such as a swimming pool, gardens, park, social club etc. and as such requires some sort of collective management.

These complexes usually employ a caretaker or a gardener, or both, to take care of daily maintenance and repair (lifts, swimming pool maintenance, gardening, distribution of letters and parcels to the corresponding post boxes, cleaning of common areas etc.).

In Spain most complexes, or "urbanizaciones" as they are called here, delegate the management of the community ("communidad") in a licensed property administrator called "administrador de fincas". This person (or company) oversees all the administrative side of the community management, and property owners pay a monthly fee to the administrador de fincas to cover the cost of community maintenance and management.

The administrador calls yearly meetings in which owners debate all issues related to the management of the complex or urbanization and elect a representative ("presidente") to liaise with the administrator. These meetings are chaired by the admininstrator who takes notes and sends the minutes of the meeting and the agreements reached.