A short walk separates Benalmádena Costa from Benalmádena Pueblo on the hill, and Arroyo de la Miel sits between them. Three sub-towns, three different comunidad cultures, three sharply different patterns of 3/5 vote outcomes. We see this from our office in Arroyo de la Miel — most weeks involve a vote-check call from each of the three sub-towns, and the answers are almost never alike.
This piece walks through what the April 2025 amendment has done in each sub-town and what owners and buyers should check.
The rule, briefly
The April 2025 amendment to the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal requires a three-fifths majority of the comunidad de propietarios — 60% of the full ownership share, not just AGM attendees — to approve any new VUT licence in a community building. Existing licences from before April 2025 are grandfathered.
The amendment is national. It applies the same in Benalmádena Costa as in Madrid or Bilbao. What varies sharply is the local comunidad culture that absorbs it.
Benalmádena Costa — the high-density vote
The seafront strip — Torremuelle through to Puerto Marina, including the larger Torrequebrada blocks and the cluster around Reserva del Higuerón — concentrates the municipality's tourist-oriented apartment stock. Comunidades here are heavily international, heavily investor-held, and most had silent or permissive estatutos before April 2025.
The 3/5 vote outcomes in 2025-2026 have been broadly favourable in the Costa-side blocks. The tourist-oriented developments — those that always carried short-let traffic — have ratified the existing reality. A small minority of mixed-character blocks (often the older 1980s towers with a stable long-stay resident core) have leaned restrictive, but they are the exception.
The Torremuelle-Bil Bil zone is more variable, with some buildings voting against. The Higuerón phases vary by phase release date: earlier phases with more long-tenured residents have tended cautious; later more investor-heavy phases have leaned permissive.
Benalmádena Pueblo — the smaller-block calm
The Pueblo on the hill has a markedly different stock profile. Comunidades are small — six to twelve units typically — and owner profiles skew towards Spanish second-home and longer-tenured Northern European primary-residence. Tourist-rental intent here is lower-volume.
Vote outcomes have been informal and pragmatic. We see Pueblo comunidades resolve the question at AGMs without long debate, sometimes adding light conditions around quiet hours. Where votes have been restrictive, it has typically been because the building genuinely has no short-let interest, not because of an organised opposition.
Arroyo de la Miel — mixed-use, mixed outcomes
Arroyo de la Miel is the commercial inland centre and the most mixed of the three sub-towns. Residential blocks near the Cercanías station and around Tivoli span pretty much every owner profile. Vote outcomes track the comunidad-specific demographics. The most useful thing we can say is that there is no Arroyo-wide pattern — the block-level read is what matters.
What grandfathered means in Benalmádena
Existing pre-April-2025 VUTs are grandfathered. In Benalmádena specifically this matters because the municipality has historically had a high VUT density on the Costa side, and many of those licences pre-date the amendment.
For a Costa-side block that has since voted favourably, the grandfathering question is less consequential — a buyer could obtain a fresh licence anyway. For a Pueblo or Arroyo block that has voted restrictively, the grandfathering is real value. The market has begun to price this in the Pueblo's small-block transactions in particular.
A grandfathered VUT can typically transfer with the property on resale, provided the comunidad has not since voted prohibition. If a grandfathered licence lapses — through a missed Modelo N2 over consecutive years, for instance — it falls back under the current regime for any reactivation.
What buyers should check before offering
For Benalmádena, in this order:
- Identify the sub-town first. Whether the property is in Costa, Pueblo, or Arroyo determines which questions matter most. Costa-side: the 3/5 vote and the block's investor-resident balance. Pueblo: the estatutos and AGM minutes. Arroyo: block-by-block.
- Read the comunidad meeting minutes for the past 24-36 months. Look for any vote on "alquiler turístico", "VUT" or "uso turístico". The administrador de fincas can provide them.
- Confirm whether existing VUT licences exist in the building. The Junta de Andalucía maintains the regional register; we can pull it.
- Check the comunidad estatutos for any pre-existing clauses on short-term or commercial use. Some Costa blocks adopted such clauses in the late 2010s, well before the 2025 amendment.
- Ask the seller for their VUT documentation if applicable.
What sellers should know
If you are selling a Benalmádena property with an existing VUT in a comunidad that has since voted restrictively — the more common case in some Pueblo and Arroyo blocks — that licence is genuinely valuable. There is no path for a future buyer to obtain a new licence in that building. Document it carefully and price accordingly.
For a Costa-side seller, the licence is meaningful but less of a scarcity premium, because a new buyer can usually obtain a fresh licence in the same building.
In both cases, keep the licence active through to closing — file the Modelo N2 in any sale year — and provide the documentation as part of the sale dossier.
How we handle the question
For every Benalmádena property we consider managing we read the comunidad minutes for the past 36 months. If the building has voted restrictively, we explain that plainly during the discovery call and discuss long-stay or capital-growth alternatives. If the vote position is unclear, we wait until the next AGM clarifies — we will sometimes attend the AGM as the appointed manager if invited, though we do not vote.
The honest no — when the comunidad has clearly voted against — saves owners from regulatory and platform-delisting headaches that often surface six to twelve months into a misaligned engagement.
