If you are renting a property and your dog’s barking disrupts community life in your building, you could face eviction if the conflict escalates and actual harm to the building or its residents is proven. This is according to horizontal property regulations in Spain, which establish the limits between the right to enjoy a home and the duty to respect neighbourly relations in residential buildings.
Living in a community has its advantages, such as access to shared services and collective security, but it also means living alongside people with different schedules, habits and varying sensitivities to noise or daily nuisances.
Pets often become the focus of this delicate balance. Dogs can cause discomfort to some neighbours, particularly if there is frequent barking or prolonged periods of noise. However, not every grievance opens the door to legal action.
To establish a legal basis for action, isolated episodes or subjective annoyance are not enough. It must be proven that the activity is genuinely harmful to community life or breaches applicable regulations. Dogs are animals, and barking is naturally part of their behaviour.
The legal framework governing these situations is found in Article 7 of the Horizontal Property Law, which outlines what a homeowner or tenant can do within a community.
The first section indicates that owners can make modifications to their properties provided they do not reduce or alter the security, general structure, external configuration or state of the building, and do not harm the rights of another owner, provided the works are communicated in advance. It also notes that alterations cannot be made to the rest of the property, and urgent repairs must be reported to the administrator immediately.
The second section is the most relevant to neighbour disputes. The law expressly prohibits owners or occupiers from carrying out activities that are banned in the community statutes, harmful to the property, or contrary to general regulations regarding annoying, unhealthy, harmful, dangerous or illegal activities. This includes continuous noise, such as that generated by animals, provided it reaches a significant level of disturbance.
The law also dictates how the community should respond. The president, either on their own initiative or at the request of neighbours, can demand the immediate cessation of the annoying activity.
If the disruption continues, and with the authorisation of the owners’ committee, legal action can be initiated through the courts. In such cases, a judge can order precautionary measures, including an immediate ban on the activity.
If the court rules in favour of the community, it can order the behaviour to stop and mandate compensation for damages. Depending on the severity, it can also deprive the occupant of the use of the property for a maximum of three years. In the case of tenants, the law even allows for the termination of their rental rights and their eviction from the property.
