Having a space doesn’t mean you can use it for anything. That doesn’t mean you can modify it for your own benefit. Not, at least, in a community garage. Or not, at least, if these changes cause structural changes in the space or its use. One of the most obvious examples is using garage space as a storage room. However, the decision is not always the same.
A garage with storage room? Spain, the land of curious stories of neighboring communities. We had a couple of years ago Xataka The Supreme Court issued its ruling: A neighbor cannot use his storage room as a parking space. Yes, you read that right. It took three sentences and 17 years of litigation to reach this conclusion.
The issue revolved around the use, the community of neighbors believed was inappropriate, of a storage room owner had given it. Taking advantage of the adjacency of its wall and his garage space, he knocked it down and converted the storage room into a sort of extended garage, in which he could fit two vehicles.
The latter was permitted but the construction work altered the structure substantially and the storage room was also given a use that was not permitted. And what happens in reverse is the same. That is, the garage space is used as a storage room.
This is not an isolated incident. Taking advantage of garage space to store furniture or other items is “more common than it seems,” Maria del Carmen Martin, a registered property administrator, assures us. “We have come across several cases where the surrounding communities report the owners of garage spaces because, apart from a car, they leave things there that don’t belong,” he noted.
A few months ago, the provincial court of Guipuzcoa ruled in favor of some neighbors who converted their parking spaces into storage rooms. Instead of vehicles, they were storing all kinds of furniture and similar items inside. A course of conduct that may violate the rules but, in this case, the Justice rejected that this was happening.
LPH. When this issue is discussed, one of the structural issues is the wording of Article 7.2 of the Horizontal Property Act. It reads the following:
“The owner and occupier of the apartment or premises is not allowed to carry out activities on it or on the rest of the property which are prohibited by law, which are injurious to the property or in violation of the general provisions of nuisance, unhealthy, noxious, dangerous or illegal activities.”
Literally, therefore, the neighbor cannot carry out any activity regardless of the extent of his land. If the activities are disturbing or unhealthy, for example, they will be banned altogether This happens if you want to put more than one vehicle in a parking space or install a bollard or railing. It is not strictly prohibited but you cannot observe it if it causes inconvenience to the neighbors.
the law. “The key to all of this is in the rules,” Maria del Carmen Martin explains to us. “If the regulations reflect that the space is a parking space, it should not be used for any other use than parking vehicles,” he explains. its companions Xataka Home They reported this same case a few days ago.
Demonstrating in court that leaving furniture in a garage can be a “nuisance, unsanitary, harmful or dangerous” activity is more complicated than pointing directly to the law and what it has established.
Not always. Point, therefore, it will not always be forbidden to use the garage space as a storage room. If the statute states that the garage space is indeed a garage space, there is a loophole in favor of an interested neighbor. In that case, it must be the community of neighbors who condemn this owner and demonstrate in court that an inappropriate activity is causing the inconvenience.
As explained in this article idealist Whether storing furniture is an activity that cannot be allowed will be up to the courts if the laws do not say anything. And it is this that determines if, for example, it is flammable material that cannot be stored in this place or if, on the contrary, there is no inconvenience and therefore the neighbor who deposits his things there is within his full rights.
Picture | Derrick Treadwell
In Xataka | The horizontal property law allows this, and experts confirm it: “You can install a railing in your square so that your car does not get scratched.”
