Spain: how a homeowners' association plans to save €1,000 a year on garage cleaning
A Spanish homeowners' association pays €1,000 a year to have its garage cleaned. Its plan to hire a cleaner directly, without a company, runs into Social Security rules and staff subrogation.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Spain: how a homeowners' association plans to save €1,000 a year on garage cleaning
A homeowners' association pays 180 euros for each visit from its cleaning company. Five visits a year. A thousand euros. By the residents' own account, the service leaves the corners unswept. Fed up, the association's president has floated a proposal that sounds explosive in an age of austerity: drop the company, hire a woman from the neighbourhood directly and save half the cost. The plan also includes swapping fluorescent lights for LEDs, ditching posted letters and having residents clean the ramp in shifts. The question hanging over the debate is not whether savings are possible, but at what legal and labour cost.
The real cost of hiring a cleaner as an employee
The original idea was simple: pay 60 euros for two or three hours of work and be done with it. But the fine print appears quickly. A homeowners' association cannot use the special domestic workers scheme, the one that allows contributions of around 160 euros a month. Because it operates with a company tax ID rather than an individual's, the association falls under the General Scheme of the Social Security system. That sends employer contributions and administrative obligations soaring.
A calculation many residents overlook is that, if the cleaner suffers a workplace accident, the association is liable with its own assets. There is no intermediary company to absorb the risk. In a real case cited in the discussion, a 40-unit association in Barakaldo ended up paying more than a thousand euros per resident after an uninsured worker fell. The bill included Labour Inspectorate fines, back contributions, wage regularisation and interest. The initial saving became a collective mortgage.
Subrogation: the contract that won't let you escape
Even if the association decides to break with the cleaning company, labour law imposes staff subrogation. This means the worker assigned to the site has the right to keep her job if another company takes over the service. And if the association hires directly, she can claim there too. The mechanism protects the worker, but ties the client's hands.
Some argue that if a year passes without hiring anyone, the obligation disappears. That is not a legal certainty, but it is the hope of many associations. Others point out that subrogation only applies to workers on permanent contracts and that, in practice, companies usually negotiate exit deals. The result is a regulatory maze that discourages everyone.
LEDs, letters and the property manager: the other fronts of the cutback
The savings plan is not limited to cleaning. Replacing fluorescent lights with LEDs seems obvious, but the upfront cost is high. A fluorescent tube uses between 18 and 32 watts. Compatible LED tubes are expensive and require labour to bypass the starter and rewire. Payback can take years. The conclusion of several experienced residents is clear: wait for prices to fall.
Doing away with posted letters and replacing them with email is another flagship measure. But the Horizontal Property Law requires the association to communicate with each owner at the address they designate. If a resident has no email or simply does not want to use it, the association must keep sending paper. Depriving them of the notice can invalidate agreements reached at meetings. The price of saving a stamp can be an entire budget being overturned.
The property administrator is another expense under suspicion. Some find one who charges half. But doing without one makes handling non-payment and special levies harder. The administrator, however costly, acts as a legal buffer in neighbour disputes.
The self-employed route: the only door some see as viable
Faced with the wall of Social Security and subrogation, one way out keeps coming up: hire a self-employed worker. She invoices, pays her own contributions and bears the risk. The association pays an invoice and forgets about payrolls. It is legal as long as the relationship is not disguised employment. The problem is that many of the people who clean building lobbies are not registered as self-employed. Finding one who is, and who charges a competitive price, is difficult.
The most radical alternative is for residents to do the cleaning themselves. Each one takes their spot, the ramp in shifts. It sounds like a neighbourly utopia. In practice, there is always someone who does not want to get their hands dirty. And if the hourly cleaner is injured, the association remains exposed. A thousand euros saved a year can cost ten times more in court.
The striking thing is not the price of cleaning. It is that, in the middle of a cost-cutting frenzy, the average Spanish homeowners' association keeps paying unaudited invoices. And antiestéticar of the Labour Inspectorate weighs more than any savings plan.
A homeowners' association pays 180 euros for each visit from its cleaning company. Five visits a year. A thousand euros. By the residents' own account, the service leaves the corners unswept. Fed up, the association's president has floated a proposal that sounds explosive in an age of austerity: drop the company, hire a woman from the neighbourhood directly and save half the cost. The plan also includes swapping fluorescent lights for LEDs, ditching posted letters and having residents clean the ramp in shifts. The question hanging over the debate is not whether savings are possible, but at what legal and labour cost.
The real cost of hiring a cleaner as an employee
The original idea was simple: pay 60 euros for two or three hours of work and be done with it. But the fine print appears quickly. A homeowners' association cannot use the special domestic workers scheme, the one that allows contributions of around 160 euros a month. Because it operates with a company tax ID rather than an individual's, the association falls under the General Scheme of the Social Security system. That sends employer contributions and administrative obligations soaring.
A calculation many residents overlook is that, if the cleaner suffers a workplace accident, the association is liable with its own assets. There is no intermediary company to absorb the risk. In a real case cited in the discussion, a 40-unit association in Barakaldo ended up paying more than a thousand euros per resident after an uninsured worker fell. The bill included Labour Inspectorate fines, back contributions, wage regularisation and interest. The initial saving became a collective mortgage.
Subrogation: the contract that won't let you escape
Even if the association decides to break with the cleaning company, labour law imposes staff subrogation. This means the worker assigned to the site has the right to keep her job if another company takes over the service. And if the association hires directly, she can claim there too. The mechanism protects the worker, but ties the client's hands.
Some argue that if a year passes without hiring anyone, the obligation disappears. That is not a legal certainty, but it is the hope of many associations. Others point out that subrogation only applies to workers on permanent contracts and that, in practice, companies usually negotiate exit deals. The result is a regulatory maze that discourages everyone.
LEDs, letters and the property manager: the other fronts of the cutback
The savings plan is not limited to cleaning. Replacing fluorescent lights with LEDs seems obvious, but the upfront cost is high. A fluorescent tube uses between 18 and 32 watts. Compatible LED tubes are expensive and require labour to bypass the starter and rewire. Payback can take years. The conclusion of several experienced residents is clear: wait for prices to fall.
Doing away with posted letters and replacing them with email is another flagship measure. But the Horizontal Property Law requires the association to communicate with each owner at the address they designate. If a resident has no email or simply does not want to use it, the association must keep sending paper. Depriving them of the notice can invalidate agreements reached at meetings. The price of saving a stamp can be an entire budget being overturned.
The property administrator is another expense under suspicion. Some find one who charges half. But doing without one makes handling non-payment and special levies harder. The administrator, however costly, acts as a legal buffer in neighbour disputes.
The self-employed route: the only door some see as viable
Faced with the wall of Social Security and subrogation, one way out keeps coming up: hire a self-employed worker. She invoices, pays her own contributions and bears the risk. The association pays an invoice and forgets about payrolls. It is legal as long as the relationship is not disguised employment. The problem is that many of the people who clean building lobbies are not registered as self-employed. Finding one who is, and who charges a competitive price, is difficult.
The most radical alternative is for residents to do the cleaning themselves. Each one takes their spot, the ramp in shifts. It sounds like a neighbourly utopia. In practice, there is always someone who does not want to get their hands dirty. And if the hourly cleaner is injured, the association remains exposed. A thousand euros saved a year can cost ten times more in court.
The striking thing is not the price of cleaning. It is that, in the middle of a cost-cutting frenzy, the average Spanish homeowners' association keeps paying unaudited invoices. And antiestéticar of the Labour Inspectorate weighs more than any savings plan.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (51 replies).
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