--- title: "The Residencial Gate Lock: Owner, President or Administrador?" description: "Who decides when a residencial changes its gate or portal lock, who pays, who keeps the master key, and what a single owner can and cannot do about it alone." url: "https://locksmithelcampello.es/blog/who-decides-on-the-residencial-gate-lock/" business: "Locksmith El Campello" --- # The residencial gate lock: owner, president or administrador? The pool gate does not latch, nobody knows how many portal keys are out there, and every neighbour has an opinion. Who decides on a communal lock, who pays, and what one owner can do alone. 1 October 2026 · 5 min read El Campello is a town of residential communities. The list of named buildings the town hall uses to train its local police runs to hundreds of entries: apartment buildings, residenciales, blocks of apartments and bungalow developments, from Muchavista to the urbanisations of the north. Almost all of them have at least one door that belongs to everybody. That is often the problem. A portal that no longer closes, or a pool gate that bangs open in the wind, can go unrepaired for months while each owner waits for someone else to deal with it. ## Private door or common element? In a building divided into flats, Spain’s horizontal property law draws a simple line: - **Your flat door, your terrace door and the lock on your storeroom** are yours. You decide, you pay. - **The portal, the pool gate, the garage pedestrian door, the meter rooms and the shared corridors** are common elements. They belong to the community, and the community decides. The community acts through the **president**, who represents it, and very often through an **administrador de fincas**, who runs its day-to-day business. Larger works and anything that changes how the building is used go to the **owners’ meeting**. ## What usually needs a meeting, and what does not - **Repairs that keep a door working**, such as adjusting a closer, replacing a worn latch or fixing a strike, are maintenance. The president or the administrador normally arranges them without waiting for a meeting. - **Changing the cylinder of a communal door** means new keys for every household. Communities usually agree it at a meeting, and decide how many keys each flat gets. - **A master-keyed system**, where each owner’s key opens their own flat and the communal doors, is a project for the whole complex, and needs an agreement and a budget. Your community’s own statutes may set this out differently, so check them, or ask the administrador. ## What one owner can do - **Report it in writing** to the president or the administrador, with a photo. A written report is harder to forget than a word in the lift. - **Ask for it on the agenda** of the next meeting, if it needs a decision. - **In an urgent case**, such as a portal left open at night or a pool gate that will not shut with children around, call a locksmith to make it safe, tell the president at once, and let the community confirm. Keep it to making it safe; the decision on anything bigger stays with the community. What an owner should not do is change a communal cylinder alone. Everyone else is locked out, and the bill is unlikely to be repaid. ## If you rent or let your flat A tenant deals with the landlord, not the community. A host who lets a flat in the complex needs a key to the communal doors for each set of guests, which is worth raising with the administrador before the season rather than at the gate with guests waiting. Tenants who want to change their own flat’s lock will find their side of it in [renting in El Campello: can a tenant change the lock?](https://locksmithelcampello.es/blog/renting-in-el-campello-can-a-tenant-change-the-lock/), and hosts can read [check-in notes for guests arriving by tram](https://locksmithelcampello.es/blog/check-in-notes-for-guests-arriving-by-tram/). Portal doors, pool gates, garage doors and master-keyed systems, arranged with the president or the administrador and invoiced to the community. [Communal door locksmith in El Campello for residenciales and blocks](https://locksmithelcampello.es/communal-door-locksmith-el-campello/) Two more from El Campello - [Check-in notes for guests arriving by tram](https://locksmithelcampello.es/blog/check-in-notes-for-guests-arriving-by-tram/) · 5 min - [Renting in El Campello: can a tenant change the lock?](https://locksmithelcampello.es/blog/renting-in-el-campello-can-a-tenant-change-the-lock/) · 5 min - [Every guide for El Campello homes](https://locksmithelcampello.es/blog/) ## Rather talk to someone? Ring, or send a photo of the lock and where you are on WhatsApp. Open 24 hours · 7 days [+34 678 583 290](tel:+34678583290) [WhatsApp](https://wa.me/34678583290?text=Hi%2C%20I%20need%20a%20locksmith%20in%20El%20Campello.%20The%20street%2C%20the%20building%20or%20urbanisation%2C%20and%20the%20door%20are%3A)