The Supreme Court agreed to settle the lease, thereby losing some tenants who had refused to pay property tax (IBI) and municipal tax to collect debts over the years. The Supreme Court stressed that it is not necessary for the contract to specify the annual amount that tenants must bear in relation to these taxes, according to the Law of Arrendamientos Urbanos (LAU).
This question of which different regional publics have maintained contradictions has been addressed by the Supreme Court in a ruling dated 17 November, consulted by this journal. The legal controversy has focused on whether these taxes are applicable to the individual, and therefore, according to what is stipulated in the regulations that regulate the tenant, the amount must be specified in the clause that requires the tenant’s allowance.
The dispute over the specific case used by the Supreme Court to explain the matter dates back to 2023, when a company that owned a villa in Ibiza applied for relief to cover its tenants, after they refused to pay a total of €1,006.72, which corresponds to the IBI and the amount of unpaid invoices. 2022 and 2023 (503.36 euros per exercise).
The contract in question indicates that the rental price does not include consumption of supplies “such as water, electricity, and telephone, as well as what is available per person, which in all cases will be the tenant’s account and location.” It explicitly stated: “The losses of del Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles and Comunidad de Propietarios y Tasas de basuras will be accounted for by the lessees.” The tenants had paid these taxes in 2021, but they refused to do so the following year, considering the clause to pay the due taxes invalid because the contract did not specify the amount.
In the first place, a court in Ibiza did not encourage the request for exemption and gave reason to the tenants on the need in the rental contract to indicate the amount of taxes, as provided in Article 20.1 of the local labor code, that allows the payment of non-allocable expenses. In his opinion, IBI and the municipal tax base cover this type of spending. The fall was abolished a year later by the public of the province of Palma de Mallorca, which considers that these taxes are only “individual expenses of the villa to be taken into account” and, therefore, do not fall within the “negotiating autonomy” provided for by this article “no need for any subsequent decision”. I realized that the tenants were obligated to pay because that was what was stated in the contract.
Different positions in the courts
Contrary to the decision of the Regional Hearing, the tenants filed a housing appeal before the Supreme Court, claiming that these taxes cannot be allocated individually because they fall on the entire property ownership and there are no objective mechanisms that would allow them to determine which tangible portion corresponds to the tenant for its use.
The Supreme Court recognizes that the interpretation of this Section 20 of the Urban Tenancy Act raises doubts, and there are suspicions that the different regional hearings and judges maintain different positions on the need to reform the annual importation of IBI and municipal charges for foundations in leases so that they can require tenants to pay. After analyzing the case law and the various rulings issued by the regional hearings, the judges concluded that the correct criterion was the appealed ruling from the public of the province of Palma de Mallorca, who is also the mayor of the city.
In this sense, the Supreme Court explains that when it comes to taxes being individually allocated to each household, as an IBI can be, it is not possible to understand that prior to the assumption of allocation that refers to the regulatory rules regulating the tenant. Therefore, it is not necessary to specify the annual amount, as the law stipulates for individual expenses. However, the loss was assessed through tax on taxes claimed by the company owning the property.