Rules of a community & a dog question !

[scotty]

In our community it is written in the rules that you cant have a dog. Now an english guy has a small dog & when the community approached him his solicitor wrote to them claiming it was a breach of his rights to try and force him to get rid of the dog. Comments please & especially from David .

[aquaman]

Firstly I am not a legal expert but I understand the laws of Spain overule community rules, and it is not illegal in Spain to have a dog. The dog must adhere to Spanish law, i.e be microchipped, vacanated, kept on a lead and the owner must remove any mess the dog may make, not to use the communal gardens especially the pool area. As long as the owner has the dog on a lead when walking through the community on the paths to the outside there shouldn't be a problem

[pigs-might-fly]

Ah - dogs - the the bane of community life!
Noisy, (barking all day when left in apartments all day while owners go to work), smelly, defecating, (often in community gardens or immediately outside the community boundary), hair shedding beasts who have no place whatsoever in communal living.
No - it is not illegal to own a dog in Spain, BUT if the community rules have been correctly drawn up it is possible to ban the keeping of pets within the community.
This is covered by paragraph two of article seven, of the Law of Horizontal Property, not specifically, but generally, as relating to the prohibition of activities which are not permitted in the community statutes.
I also refer to David Searl's clarification of this paragraph:- I quote from "You & the Law in Spain"

"Included in the list of banned activities are those forbidden by the statutes. Thus, dogs may be prohibited, for example, and owners must abide by this"

The real problem arises if the ban has not been incorporated in the statutes as originally drawn up - usually by the developers.
To change the statutes requires a 100%, (by owner's cuotas) vote in favour for such an alteration to take effect.
This is unlikely in the extreme as owners will not wish to limit their potential market either for re-sale or letting of their properties.