Is a vice president required?

Q.- At an AGM does a newly elected president need to select a vice president at that meeting, later or at all?

B J (Costa del Sol)

A.- There is no legal requirement for a community of property owners to have a vice-president. Many small communities elect only a president. The only officer required by the Law of Horizontal Property is the president. A vice president can be informally named at any time, if no member protests.

However, as regular readers of this column will be aware, this simple naming of a vice president can cause problems later. In order to have an authorised signature at the bank, the vice president must be elected at the AGM by a majority vote and he must be specifically authorised to access the community bank account in order to make deposits and transfers.

If the community has a licensed property administrator, he will be authorised by the terms of his contract. Both the administrator and the vice president must then be registered with the bank as authorised signatures. We have seen cases where the president becomes incapacitated and the vice president is unable to access the bank because he has not been authorised.

Send your questions for David Searl through lawyers Ubeda-Retana and Associates in Fuengirola at Ask@lawtaxspain.com, or call 952 667 090