Tourist Condominium Management: What Dominican Law Requires

A tourist condominium has one feature that sets it apart from a residential building: its owners almost never live there. They are in Santo Domingo, New York or Madrid, they appear for a few weeks a year and they delegate everything else. That distance turns administration into something more demanding than collecting fees and hiring a gardener, and it means legal failings take years to surface — usually once they have become expensive.

This article walks through the framework that applies to a tourist condominium in the Dominican Republic: what the law requires of the administrator, how the general meeting works, what employment and tax obligations the building creates, what changes when there is also a hotel operation, and which failings we see most often.

The legal framework: which law governs a Dominican condominium

The condominium regime in the Dominican Republic was established by Law No. 5038 of 1958, which created ownership divided by floors or apartments and set the principle still in force: each owner is the exclusive owner of their unit and a compulsory co-owner of the common areas in their corresponding proportion.

Two further layers rest on that base, and in a tourist condominium they are inseparable from it.

• The land registry, governed by Law 108-05, where the condominium declaration, the division plan and each unit’s title are recorded. What is not registered is not enforceable against third parties.
• The condominium regulations, which are what actually govern daily life: participation shares, fees, governing bodies, majorities, permitted uses and the sanctions regime. The law sets the framework; the regulations set the specific rules.

Consolidated texts of Dominican legislation can be consulted through the Legal Counsel of the Executive Branch, and the applicable case law through the Judiciary. One thing should be said plainly: this article describes the general framework and does not replace a lawyer’s review of your building’s specific regulations, which is where the differences that matter live.

The general meeting: who decides and by what majority

The owners’ meeting is the sovereign body. It is not a formality: it is the only mechanism by which decisions affecting everyone acquire binding force. A significant expense approved outside a meeting is a challengeable expense.

Notice

Notice must be given with the timing, form and content the regulations require, and must include the agenda. In a tourist condominium this is more delicate than it sounds: with owners across several countries, a notice posted in the lobby serves no real purpose. The regulations must permit verifiable electronic means and the administrator must keep contact records current.

Quorum and majorities

Majorities are normally calculated by share in the common areas, not by head. An owner of three large units carries more weight than an owner of one studio. Regulations usually tier the requirements.

• Ordinary acts of administration — annual budget, current fees, service contracts — by simple majority of those present or represented.
• Works and extraordinary capital calls by reinforced majority, because they commit everyone’s assets.
• Amending the regulations or the common areas by the highest majorities, and in some cases unanimity.

Proxy and remote voting

This is the piece that fails most often in tourist condominiums. Without a clear mechanism for proxies and electronic voting, meetings fall short of quorum time after time, and the building ends up governed by the handful of owners who live nearby. Amending the regulations to allow verifiable remote voting is usually the first recommendation we make on entering a community of this kind.

The administrator: obligations that are not optional

The administrator executes what the meeting decides and answers for that management. These are the obligations that, when missing, end in conflict.

1. Separate accounting. Condominium funds are not mixed with the administrator’s or with the hotel operation’s. A dedicated bank account in the condominium’s name, without exception.
2. Annual budget and accountability. A budget approved in meeting and statements presented with the frequency the regulations require, with supporting documents available to any owner who asks.
3. Minute book. Every meeting documented, signed and preserved. Without minutes, an agreement is practically indefensible.
4. Reserve fund. For major repairs and contingencies. A tourist condominium without a reserve fund ends up calling emergency contributions from owners who are out of the country — the reliable recipe for conflict.
5. Current insurance. Building policy and public liability on common areas. In coastal locations, wind and flood cover must be checked explicitly, along with the sum insured against real reconstruction cost.
6. Employment and tax compliance. All building staff formally employed and the condominium’s obligations as an employer up to date.

Building staff: the condominium is an employer

Concierges, cleaning staff, gardening, pool and security. Although the administrator hires and supervises them, the employer is usually the condominium, and the obligations that relationship creates are those of the Dominican Labour Code, Law 16-92, whose application is overseen by the Ministry of Labour.

• Written contracts and employer registration.
• Social security. Registration and contributions for every worker in the system administered through SISALRIL, plus occupational risk cover.
• Christmas bonus, holidays and profit-sharing where applicable, provisioned month by month rather than paid in one go through a December capital call.
• Severance on termination. The item that surprises most: on dismissal without just cause, Dominican severance grows with length of service, and a concierge of fifteen years can represent a considerable obligation the condominium never provisioned.

The classic error is engaging someone “for services” who in fact works fixed hours, takes instructions and works exclusively for the building. That relationship is an employment relationship whatever the paperwork says, and retroactive recognition arrives with interest. The same cost logic we describe for a hotel in the breakdown of operating costs applies here on a smaller scale.

Tax obligations of the condominium

A condominium is not a commercial company, but neither is it invisible to the tax authority. It has its own taxpayer registration and obligations administered by the Directorate General of Internal Revenue.

• Tax receipts. Receiving valid fiscal invoices from every supplier and issuing them where required.
• Withholdings. On salaries and on certain payments to third parties, declared and remitted on time.
• Information returns according to the applicable regime.

Separately sit each owner’s obligations on their unit — property tax and, if it generates income, income tax — which are not the condominium’s but which a competent administrator reminds owners about in good time, particularly non-residents.

When there is also a hotel operation

Here two regimes meet, and this is where most litigation originates. They should be separated with a heavy line.

• The condominium administers the building: common areas, insurance, building staff, reserve fund. It is funded by fees and answers to the general meeting.
• The hotel operator commercially exploits the units that voluntarily joined the rental programme. It is funded by fees on revenue and answers to each participating owner under their contract, as explained in our article on how a condo-hotel rental programme works.

Three practical rules prevent nearly every conflict.

1. Separate accounts, always. Condominium money and rental pool money share neither bank account nor ledger, even when the same company handles both.
2. Hotel use of common areas, priced. If the operation uses the lobby as reception or the pool as a guest amenity, there must be an agreement approved in meeting with consideration attached. Otherwise the owners outside the programme are subsidising those inside it.
3. Explicit apportionment of shared services. Energy, water, security and maintenance split by a written, auditable formula between the condominium and the operation.

Where the project is also covered by Law 158-01 on tourism development, there are obligations to maintain that qualification which fall on the building’s administration too. Official investor information is centralised by ProDominicana.

Arrears: the structural problem

In a residential condominium, the neighbour in arrears lives with the consequence of not paying. In a tourist one they are three thousand kilometres away and never see the dry garden. That is why arrears in these buildings run systematically higher, and why the collection policy has to be written down before it is needed.

• Late-payment interest defined in the regulations and applied without exceptions or informal arrangements.
• Suspension of non-essential services where the regulations allow, following the prescribed procedure and notices.
• Set-off against the rental statement when the unit is in the hotel programme. It is the most effective mechanism available, and it only works if it is provided for in writing in both documents.
• Judicial collection as a last resort, with the debt certification the regulations require.

An uncomfortable but useful observation: arrears rarely start from a lack of money. They start from a lack of information. An owner who receives a clear monthly statement — what they paid, what was spent and on what — pays. One who receives an invoice with no context delays.

Changing administrator without breaking the building

A moment arrives in the life of almost every tourist condominium when the owners conclude that the administration is not working. The change is legitimate and common, but badly executed it leaves the building without accounts, payroll or insurance for weeks.

1. Check the procedure in the regulations. What majority is required, what notice, whether grounds are prescribed. A change agreed without following that procedure is challengeable and tends to end with two administrators claiming to represent the same building.
2. Call a meeting with the item on the agenda. Raising it under “any other business” is not enough: the appointment must be announced so that anyone unable to attend knows what is being voted on and can appoint a proxy.
3. Demand a handover inventory. Minute book, accounting statements, bank reconciliations, current contracts, personnel files, policies, reserve fund balance, list of debtors with ageing, and keys and access credentials. Handed over against a detailed receipt.
4. Run a cut-off audit. Closing the accounts at the handover date protects both the outgoing and the incoming administrator: without that cut-off, any earlier problem is attributed to the new one.
5. Change bank signatories the same day. The step most often delayed and the one that creates most risk.
6. Notify suppliers, bank, insurer and the tax authority. The condominium remains the same taxpayer and the same employer; what changes is who represents it.

Point three decides whether the transition goes well. An administrator who resists handing over the documentary inventory is saying, without saying it, that the inventory does not exist in order. It is the same traceability we require in hotel management, described in the hotel management agreement and in how an operator works.

What to ask a candidate administrator

Four questions separate a professional from an improviser: what report is delivered and how often; whether the condominium will have its own bank account in its own name; how employment obligations for building staff are handled; and which other buildings they administer today, with verifiable references. Ours are in our portfolio, and the people who answer for them are in our management team. The wider set of questions is in how to choose an operator before signing.

The six failings we see most

1. Mixed funds between condominium, hotel operation and administrator. The most serious, and the one that makes any later audit impossible.
2. Meetings without minutes, or minutes that do not record the votes. Every agreement then hangs on the memory of those present.
3. Informal staff without contracts or social security, a contingency growing silently each year.
4. No reserve fund, which turns any major breakdown into an emergency capital call.
5. Outdated policies, with sums insured from ten years ago against today’s reconstruction costs.
6. Free use of common areas by the hotel, with no meeting resolution and no consideration.

Conclusion: administration is a technical function

Administering a tourist condominium requires separate, auditable accounting, employment and tax compliance, governance that works with absentee owners, and a clean boundary with the hotel operation where one exists. It is a technical function, not a matter of trust to be resolved with goodwill.

The quickest test of whether a condominium is well administered is not to visit the building: it is to ask for the minutes of the last meeting, the accounts for the last quarter and the reserve fund balance. If all three appear without friction, the administration works. You can see how we approach that function in NEXUM Condos, in our solutions and in our collaboration process.

Frequently asked questions about tourist condominium management

Which law regulates condominiums in the Dominican Republic?

The regime was established by Law No. 5038 of 1958 on condominiums, complemented by Law 108-05 on land registration for recording the declaration and the titles. Each building’s own regulations set the specific rules within that framework.

Can the administrator authorise works without a meeting?

No, except in emergencies affecting the safety of the building, and even then they must report and submit them for ratification at the next meeting. Major works decided by the administrator alone are an expense any owner can challenge.

Is a reserve fund compulsory?

Its specific enforceability depends on each condominium’s regulations, but in practice it is indispensable in a tourist building: without a fund, any major repair forces an emergency capital call on owners who are out of the country.

Can owners vote remotely?

Only if the regulations provide for it. In a tourist condominium it is practically indispensable, so if the regulations are silent, the first amendment worth pursuing is to incorporate proxies and verifiable electronic voting.

Who is responsible for the building staff?

Normally the condominium as employer, with the obligations of the Labour Code: contract, social security, Christmas bonus, holidays and severance. Engaging someone “for services” who works fixed hours and takes instructions does not avoid those obligations, it only defers them with interest.

Can the hotel use the condominium’s pool and lobby?

Only with a resolution approved in meeting and with consideration attached. Without it, owners outside the rental programme are financing a commercial service from which they derive no income, and that imbalance reliably ends in litigation.

How do you collect from an owner living abroad?

With late-payment interest set in the regulations, suspension of non-essential services where permitted, set-off against their rental statement if the unit is in the hotel programme, and ultimately judicial collection with the corresponding debt certification.

Can the condominium administrator be the same company that operates the hotel?

Yes, and it brings real coordination advantages: a single point of contact, unified maintenance and purchasing scale. But the arrangement is only sound if three verifiable conditions hold: separate ledgers and bank accounts, a meeting resolution pricing the hotel’s use of common areas, and owners’ audit rights over both sets of accounts. Without those three, concentration stops being efficiency and becomes an unchecked conflict of interest.