Renting in a Costa Rica Condominium: Tenants and Owners

Translated from the Spanish original. If there is any discrepancy between the two versions, the Spanish text prevails. Read the original in Spanish.

An engineer who has relocated to San José for work signs a lease for an apartment in a high-rise condominium. During her first week, the security guard asks her to register her car and warns her that her dog, a breed the bylaws do not allow, cannot stay. At the end of the month, the administration charges the owner a fine because some garbage bags were left in the hallway overnight. The owner, who lives in Heredia, does not know whether she should pay it herself or take it out of the security deposit, or whether it gives her grounds to end the lease. Meanwhile, in a horizontal condominium of houses in San Carlos, a physician who rents out his house by the night on a digital platform receives a letter from the administration asking him to stop taking bookings.

In both scenes, two legal relationships that know nothing of each other meet over the same unit (finca filial): the owner’s relationship with the condominium, governed by the condominium law and the internal bylaws, and the owner’s relationship with whoever occupies the unit, which is almost always a lease. The tenant did not sign the condominium’s deed, and the condominium did not sign the lease; even so, all three run into one another in the hallway, at the pool and, sometimes, in court. This study explains how those pieces fit together: which condominium rules bind the person who rents, who answers for their violations, who pays the fees, what the tenant can do at the assembly, how the lease ends when someone breaches it, what changes when the stay lasts only a few days, and what the lease should say. It is written for two readers at once: the person who rents a unit and the owner who leases it out.

Why two laws govern a leased unit at the same time

The starting point is Law 7933, the Condominium Property Regulatory Law (Ley Reguladora de la Propiedad en Condominio), which organizes the relationship between the unit owners and the community they form. Its Executive Regulations, Executive Decree 45214-MIVAH-MEIC-TUR, in force since January 19, 2026, define the unit owner (condómino) as the “owner or concessionaire of one or more units” (Article 3.27 of Decree 45214). The tenant, therefore, is not a unit owner. The law treats the tenant as a “non-owner occupant” and devotes a single provision to that figure, Article 22, which begins by noting that the obligations of the regime are enforceable against the owner “directly, even if the owner does not personally occupy the property” (Article 22 of Law 7933). The occupant category covers the tenant, the relative who lives in the unit on loan from the owner, the employee who is given housing and, nowadays, the guest who arrives through a digital platform.

The second piece is Law 7527, the General Law on Urban and Suburban Leases (Ley General de Arrendamientos Urbanos y Suburbanos). A lease exists when one party grants the temporary use and enjoyment of a thing and the other pays a certain and fixed price (Article 8 of Law 7527), and the law applies to every lease of real property, oral or written, whether for housing, commerce, offices or other purposes (Article 4 of Law 7527). It is a public-policy law: agreements that contradict its mandatory provisions are treated as unwritten, and the rights it grants tenants cannot be waived (Articles 2 and 3 of Law 7527). For condominiums it contains a rule of its own, Article 25, which opens with a simple sentence: “A floor, apartment or commercial space in a condominium building may be leased.” Its other three paragraphs, which come up throughout this study, deal with the tenant’s subjection to the bylaws, with who pays the condominium’s expenses and with the tenant’s participation in the assembly.

A cross-reference to a law that no longer exists

Anyone who reads Article 25 of Law 7527 will find that the tenant must abide by “the Horizontal Property Law, No. 3670, of March 22, 1966.” The same reference appears among the grounds for terminating the lease (Article 114(c)(ii) of Law 7527). The explanation is chronological: Law 7527 dates from 1995, and four years later Law 7933 expressly repealed Law 3670 “and its amendments” (Article 41 of Law 7933), but no one updated the cross-reference. In our view, there is no reasonable doubt about how to read it: it should be understood as referring to Law 7933, which governs the same subject matter and replaced the earlier law. No one can hide behind the fact that the law cited has disappeared.

Not every occupant is a tenant

The distinction matters because the rights differ. Law 7527 excludes from its scope guests of hotels and similar establishments, certain tourist homes rented by the season, gratuitous loans for use (comodato) and occupancy by mere tolerance, and housing assigned to employees by reason of their position (Article 7(a), (b), (f) and (g) of Law 7527). A relative who lives in the unit without paying rent does not enjoy the three-year minimum term the law gives tenants; a platform guest is governed by a different law, discussed below. The situation also changes when the person leasing the unit is not the owner but a usufructuary: a usufructuary may lease, but the lease lasts only as long as the usufruct, unless the recorded title authorizes leasing for a longer period, and the usufructuary must tell the tenant so (Articles 23 and 73 of Law 7527).

Henry Campos’s critique and what still holds

In the 2006 book by the Chair of Property Law (Cátedra de Derechos Reales) at the University of Costa Rica, Henry Campos Vargas, in his essay on the subjective structure of condominium property, pointed out a gap that is still plain to see. The law, he wrote, rests on a “single-owner paradigm” (paradigma unipersonal): it assumes that each unit has a single titleholder and says nothing about cases in which several people hold rights over it, such as co-owners or usufructuaries. It does mention the tenant, but in only one provision. Campos proposed filling those gaps with each condominium’s bylaws or, failing that, with the general law, and he devoted a separate section to the tenant. The book’s introduction sums up his approach as the study of the persons who take part in the condominium, including through personal rights with effects on property, such as a lease. The idea is precise: the tenant holds only a personal right against the owner, a claim to use the property, but that right has effects on the whole community, because the person exercising it lives in the building, uses the common areas and is subject to its rules.

The essay was written around 2000, although the book was reprinted in 2006. Since then, Law 7933 has been amended five times, and none of those amendments touched Article 22 or the position of the occupant. Decree 45214, which replaced the 2005 Executive Regulations, did not fill the gap either: its chapter on the operation of the condominium (Articles 86 to 94 of Decree 45214) speaks only of unit owners and contains no provision on leases, tenants or occupants; it mentions guests only when regulating condo-hotels (Article 59 of Decree 45214). Campos’s diagnosis still stands, and the gaps are filled with four materials: Articles 22 and 34 of Law 7933, Article 25 of Law 7527, each condominium’s bylaws and the lease itself. That is why this study places so much emphasis on the lease.

The condominium bylaws also bind the person who rents

If the tenant is not a unit owner, the first question is why the tenant must obey bylaws they never signed. The answer comes by three routes. The first is Article 34 of Law 7933: “Whoever acquires rights in a condominium shall be subject to the existing bylaws.” The provision has the buyer in mind, but its wording is broad, and a tenant acquires a right of use over a unit. The second, more direct, is Article 25 of Law 7527, which requires the tenant to use the property “in strict compliance” with the condominium law and the bylaws, together with Article 44(e) of that law, which requires the tenant to abide by the applicable regulatory provisions. The third is Article 22 of Law 7933, under which those who live in, use or occupy the unit “shall answer for violations.”

The Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional) applied these rules in the case of a tenant in a high-rise condominium in San José who had a dog of a breed banned by the bylaws and claimed it was an emotional support animal. The administration ordered her to remove it within seventy-two hours, and the Chamber dismissed her petition: her lease required her to abide by the bylaws, she knew of the ban and, in the words of the decision, she had accepted “to submit, voluntarily” to that rule; nor did she provide the disability certification or proof that the dog had been trained (Constitutional Chamber, decision 11979-2025, applying decision 12619-2022). The ruling does not say that banning breeds is valid in every case; it says that the matter did not infringe fundamental rights and that the dispute belongs before the ordinary courts. What bylaws may prohibit, and where their limits lie, is analyzed in the study Living in a Condominium. Here one conclusion is enough: the tenant has no more rights than the owner. If a rule is valid for the owner, it is valid for the person who uses the unit by the owner’s grant; if it is not, the tenant can challenge it when someone tries to apply it.

Assembly resolutions the tenant knows about and those that come later

Article 25 of Law 7527 contains a nuance that often goes unnoticed. In addition to the bylaws, the tenant must abide by “the general resolutions of the owners’ assembly that the landlord communicates to the tenant when the lease is entered into.” The law has in mind the resolutions in force when the lease is signed, and the owner handing them over. What happens with a later resolution, for example one that changes the pool hours or limits move-ins to certain days?

In our view, two levels must be distinguished. As against the condominium, the occupant must respect the rules of use in force at any given time, because the occupant’s right derives from the owner, who is bound by everything the assembly resolves (Article 26 of Law 7933), and no one can transfer to another more rights than they hold. As against the owner, by contrast, the ground for termination based on “disregard of the general resolutions” operates “in accordance with Article 25” (Article 114(c)(ii) of Law 7527), that is, with respect to the resolutions that were communicated to the tenant. A later resolution the tenant never knew about is a weak basis for ending the lease. The solution is for the lease to bind the tenant also to the resolutions the owner notifies in writing during the tenancy, and for the owner actually to notify them.

There is another reason for the owner to hand over the bylaws and get a signed receipt. Decree 45214 presumes that whoever acquires a unit knows and accepts the bylaws and the fee (Articles 18 and 86 of Decree 45214), but that presumption reaches the buyer, not the tenant. In the dog case, it mattered that the lease referred to the bylaws and that the tenant knew of the ban; without that proof, the owner is exposed to a tenant’s claim that no one ever told them the rules.

Who answers when the occupant commits the violation

If the bylaws bind the tenant, the next question follows: when the tenant breaks them, whom does the condominium charge? Article 22 of Law 7933 answers with two responsible parties. When the owner does not live in the unit, “those who live in, use or occupy it shall answer for violations, without prejudice to the joint and several civil liability of the owner.” The occupant answers for what they did; the owner answers as well in civil terms, that is, for the financial consequences of the violation, and because that liability is joint and several, the condominium can claim full compensation from the owner. Whether it also extends to fines, which are penalties rather than compensation, is more doubtful: the law speaks of “civil” liability, and Article 23 governs the penalties imposed on an owner who commits a violation, not those imposed on someone for the acts of another.

Campos already distinguished between liability to penalties, which he called personal, and the owner’s financial liability, and he warned that the latter could run up against the Constitution, because a tenant could “ruin their landlord” by piling up violations punished with heavy fines. Article 22 has not been amended, and we know of no ruling that has examined its constitutionality. What reduces that risk today is the requirement of due process before any sanction. Article 23 of Law 7933 provides that sanctions are imposed by the assembly, under the regime set out in the bylaws and “after due process has been followed.” That article, moreover, is being challenged before the Constitutional Chamber in a 2024 case that, according to SINALEVI, has not yet been decided.

No fine without notice of charges, even when the tenant is at fault

The civil courts have taken that requirement seriously. In a residential condominium in San José, the administration was charging the owner of a unit fines for her tenant’s conduct, such as improperly disposed garbage, loose pets and badly parked vehicles, without stating the violation, the rule broken or the evidence. The court upheld the ruling that the fines had to be revoked and the amounts paid refunded, because the circumstances required “at least a brief, summary investigation with notice of the charges” (traslado de cargos) before the penalties were imposed, and it gave weight to the fact that the owner was being sanctioned for her tenant’s acts, in which she had no part (Second Civil Court of Appeals of San José, decision 513-2025). The other requirements of the disciplinary procedure, such as describing the violation precisely, not punishing the same act twice and leaving the decision to the assembly, are explained in the study Living in a Condominium.

These rulings make clear that the joint and several liability in Article 22 does not authorize the administration simply to add fines to the owner’s account without further process. In our view, when the occupant commits the violation, the procedure should charge the occupant with the facts, since they can defend themselves on what happened, and should notify the owner if the aim is to make the owner answer with their assets; both should have access to the evidence and time to respond, and the decision, with stated reasons, should be made by the body that the assembly and the bylaws designate.

Damage to the common areas

Damage is different from a fine. If the tenant’s moving truck knocks down the gate, the condominium can claim the cost of repair from the person who caused it, because anyone who causes harm through fault or negligence must make it good (Article 1045 of the Civil Code), and from the owner by virtue of the joint and several liability in Article 22. Between owner and tenant, the tenant is liable for damage caused by the tenant and by the tenant’s family members, workers, guests and visitors (Article 47 of Law 7527), so an owner who pays the condominium can recover from the tenant. That is what the deposit is for: unless otherwise agreed, security deposits secure all obligations arising from the law or the lease, not just the rent (Article 59 of Law 7527). The prudent course is for the lease to say so expressly with respect to fines and damage attributable to the tenant.

Who pays the condominium fees

Just as the owner answers for the occupant’s violations, the owner answers for the fees, and here the law leaves no room. Owners are required to pay the costs of administering, maintaining and operating the common property (Article 13 of Law 7933), and that obligation is enforceable against them directly even if they do not occupy the unit (Article 22 of Law 7933). The unit itself stands as security: unpaid fees, together with the fines and interest they generate, constitute a statutory lien (gravamen hipotecario) on the unit, and a certification issued by a certified public accountant (contador público autorizado, CPA) is an enforceable instrument (título ejecutivo) for foreclosure (Article 20 of Law 7933). How the fees are set and collected is explained in the study Condominium Fees. The consequence for this study is straightforward: any agreement between owner and tenant about the fees is valid between them, but not against the condominium. If the tenant does not pay, the condominium collects from the owner and, if necessary, forecloses on the unit.

What owner and tenant can agree

Between the parties to the lease, the law allows the cost to be shifted. “The parties may agree that the expenses pertaining to the leased dwelling or its accessories shall be borne by the tenant and treated as part of the rent” (Article 25 of Law 7527). The First Chamber of the Supreme Court (Sala Primera) upheld a judgment against a tenant who abandoned a store in a shopping center organized as a condominium before the lease term ended: the lease said she would pay the maintenance fee to the administration, and she had to reimburse the owner for the fees the owner proved she had paid while the store sat empty, up to the end of the term. The Chamber endorsed the view that it is “perfectly lawful” to agree that the fees are an obligation of the tenant in favor of the owner (First Chamber, ruling 140-2016).

Treating agreed fees as part of the rent has concrete effects: failure to pay them is a ground for terminating the lease (Article 114(c)(iii) of Law 7527) and opens to the owner the lease payment-order proceedings (monitorio arrendaticio), subject to the conditions discussed below (Article 110.1.2 of the Civil Procedure Code).

That said, “the expenses pertaining to the dwelling” certainly include the regular maintenance fee. Special assessments for useful improvements or for reconstruction (Articles 14 and 37 of Law 7933) increase or restore the value of property that belongs to the owner. In our view, if the lease speaks only of “the maintenance fee,” special assessments remain the owner’s responsibility, for two reasons: the tenant’s obligation arises from the agreement, which should not be stretched to cover what it does not say, and Law 7933 places the expenses on the owner. There is a third reason when a special assessment pays for necessary repairs to common elements: Law 7527 requires the landlord to make necessary repairs “without the right to raise the rent on that account” (Article 34 of Law 7527), and charging the tenant for those works through a general clause looks very much like a rent increase for repairs. If the parties want something different, they must put it in writing clearly. For the same reason, a fine or interest imposed on the owner for the owner’s own conduct, such as failing to pay on time a fee the owner was supposed to pay, cannot be passed on to the tenant.

Fee increases and the cap on rent adjustments

For housing, Law 7527 caps the annual rent adjustment and declares void any agreement that exceeds the cap, “regardless of who the obligor is or the type of document in which the obligation appears,” provided its connection with the rent is proven (Articles 67 and 68 of Law 7527). If the fee is treated as part of the rent and the assembly raises it by thirty percent, can the owner pass the entire increase on to the tenant? There is no sure answer, and we know of no case law that resolves the question. In favor of passing it on, one can argue that the increase is decided not by the landlord but by the assembly, and that what the tenant took on was paying an expense of the unit, as with utilities, which the law also treats as part of the price (Article 64 of Law 7527) without anyone regarding a utility rate hike as a rent adjustment. The opposing argument carries as much weight or more: Article 25 treats those expenses as rent, Article 68 is drafted to prevent the cap from being evaded by any means, and the owner is not entirely a stranger to the increase, because the owner votes in the assembly that approves it.

In our view, the risk that a judge will void the portion of the increase that exceeds the legal cap is real, and the owner should not take for granted that it can be collected. The prudent course is for the lease to identify the fee as an item separate from the rent, to state that the tenant will pay whatever fee the assembly approves and to provide for delivery of the approved budget; that improves the owner’s position but does not make it safe, and when the increase is steep, the sensible thing is to negotiate it before it turns into a lawsuit. If the owner instead offers a single rent “with maintenance included,” any fee increase is the owner’s cost, and any adjustment to the price is subject to the legal cap.

Direct payments to the administration and utilities

Tenants commonly pay the fee directly to the administration. The arrangement is convenient, but it carries a risk. A tenant in a high-rise condominium in San José, whose owner lived abroad and owed back fees, was left without water because the administration applied every payment to the old debt and refused to accept payment of the current fees; the Constitutional Chamber declared the petition inadmissible and sent the matter to the ordinary courts (Constitutional Chamber, decision 17877-2026). To avoid this, before signing, the tenant should require the owner to provide a statement from the administration that the unit is current on its fees, ask for a receipt for each payment and agree in the lease on how the tenant will prove payment to the owner.

Utilities follow a similar rule. The parties decide who pays for water, electricity and other services; absent an agreement, the tenant pays them, except for the basic water charge, and their payment is treated as payment of rent (Article 64 of Law 7527). Where water comes through a shared meter and is paid as part of the fee, the lease should make clear whether the fee the tenant assumes includes it.

The following table sets out who answers for each item, both as against the condominium and between the parties.

Item	As against the condominium	Between owner and tenant
Regular maintenance fee	The owner, with the unit as security (Articles 13, 20 and 22 of Law 7933)	The owner, unless an agreement places it on the tenant (Article 25 of Law 7527)
Special assessments and improvements	The owner (Articles 13, 14, 19(d) and 37 of Law 7933)	The owner, unless an express agreement includes them
Fines for the occupant’s violations	The occupant; the owner answers in civil terms, and whether that joint and several liability reaches fines is debatable; always subject to due process (Articles 22 and 23 of Law 7933)	The tenant, if the lease so provides or as damage resulting from the tenant’s breach (Articles 44(e) and 59 of Law 7527)
Damage to the common areas	The person who caused it and, jointly and severally, the owner (Article 22 of Law 7933; Article 1045 of the Civil Code)	The tenant, for the tenant’s own damage and that of the tenant’s family, guests and visitors (Article 47 of Law 7527)
Utilities for the unit	Not a debt owed to the condominium, unless the service comes through a shared meter	Whatever they agree; absent agreement, the tenant, except for the basic water charge (Article 64 of Law 7527)

When the condominium cuts off a service because of the owner’s debts

That leaves the situation that worries tenants most: they pay their rent, but the administration cuts off their water or restricts their access because the owner owes fees. The Constitutional Chamber, whose case law on these cutoffs is analyzed in the study Condominium Fees, has not been consistent. In 2013 it held that only the entity in charge of the water system may interrupt the water supply, and that water cannot be used to pressure a tenant over the owner’s debts (Constitutional Chamber, decision 2084-2013). In 2026, by contrast, it found that suspending service because the unit owner is delinquent may be valid if it does not entirely deprive the occupant of water, because a common tap was available (Constitutional Chamber, decision 13296-2026). The limit is clearer when it comes to access: preventing the vehicles of the owner of a delinquent storage unit and of her tenants from reaching the unit was characterized as an abusive mechanism to force payment (Constitutional Chamber, decision 13256-2004). In our view, none of those decisions authorizes the condominium to cut off services: at most, they say that under certain conditions a cutoff does not violate a fundamental right.

Given that uncertainty, the tenant’s strongest tool lies not in constitutional case law but in Law 7527. The landlord may not eliminate or reduce the services needed to use the property, and if a third party interferes with them, the landlord “must remove the obstacles”; a landlord who fails to do so violates that prohibition and is liable for damages (Article 31 of Law 7527). A cutoff caused by the owner’s delinquency is, in our view, exactly that situation, and the same goes for a restriction on access, because the landlord may not prevent or restrict access either (Article 31(b) of Law 7527). The owner cannot rely on the rule that the landlord does not guarantee against third parties’ interference by force (vías de hecho) (Article 32 of Law 7527), because here the obstacle stems from the owner’s own debt. The tenant can demand that the owner bring the account current and, if the owner does not, seek termination of the lease and damages, after first serving a formal demand to cure (intimación) (Articles 115(d) and 116 of Law 7527).

Common areas, parking, alterations and repairs

From the fees we turn naturally to what they pay for: the common areas and their upkeep. The owner of a unit is entitled to use the common property according to its purpose, and no owner may be restricted in its reasonable use (Articles 8 and 9 of Law 7933). That right cannot be separated from the unit: it cannot be sold, encumbered or transferred on its own (Article 12 of Law 7933; Article 63 of Decree 45214). When the unit is leased, Law 7527 provides that the lease includes its “installations, services, accessories and incorporated unbuilt spaces,” which a written lease must describe (Articles 11(c) and 20 of Law 7527). In our view, the use of the general common areas goes with the leased unit even if the lease is silent, because without it the unit cannot serve its purpose. What must be agreed is whether the owner will keep any simultaneous use, for example of the pool, which some bylaws limit while the unit is leased.

With limited common areas (restricted use), the question is more delicate. Parking spaces and storage units assigned to a unit are common property whose use is limited to one or more unit owners (Article 3.5 of Decree 45214), and they may only be carved out of excess common areas (áreas comunes en demasía) (Article 62 of Decree 45214), as explained in the study Owning a Condominium Unit. If the lease does not identify which space belongs to the unit, a dispute is all but guaranteed. Law 7527 excludes from its scope the rental of a stand-alone parking space, but not one linked to the lease of a local (Article 7(d) of Law 7527), a word that the same law also uses for housing (Article 1 of Law 7527): that space is part of the lease and enjoys its protection.

Alterations inside the unit

A tenant who wants to install mesh on the balcony or open up a wall needs two permissions. As against the owner, making alterations that change the form of the property without the owner’s express authorization is a breach of the duty to preserve it (Article 48(b) of Law 7527). As against the condominium, no one may touch the structure or the essential elements, or interfere with common services (Article 16 of Law 7933), and facades are governed by the bylaws (Article 33(g) of Law 7933). What the owner cannot do, the owner cannot authorize either. Conversely, the owner may not change the form of the leased unit without the tenant’s consent (Article 40 of Law 7527), even if the assembly has allowed it.

Who repairs what

Repairs are where the dual relationship is most noticeable. For the tenant, the obligor is always the landlord, who must maintain the property and make the necessary repairs without raising the rent, unless the deterioration is attributable to the tenant (Articles 26, 33 and 34 of Law 7527). For the landlord, by contrast, the obligation may belong to someone else. Common elements, such as the main pipes, roofs or elevators, are repaired by the condominium through its administration (Article 10 and Article 30 of Law 7933; Articles 83 and 84 of Decree 45214). Maintenance work on floor slabs, floors and party walls is borne by the owners of the affected units (Article 18 of Law 7933). And the interior of the unit is the owner’s responsibility.

An example: in a high-rise condominium in San José, a leak appears in the ceiling of the leased apartment, coming from the floor above. The tenant must notify the owner immediately (Articles 34 and 52 of Law 7527), and it is the owner who must take the matter up with the neighbor and the administration; the owner cannot answer the tenant that the problem belongs to someone else. If the repair interrupts the use of part of the apartment, the tenant may ask for a proportional reduction in rent for as long as it lasts (Article 38 of Law 7527), and the law gives the same right when the disturbance comes from a neighbor’s work on the dividing walls (Article 39 of Law 7527).

Law 7527 allows the tenant to carry out, at the tenant’s own expense, urgent repairs that the landlord has not begun within ten business days after being notified, and to deduct their cost from the rent (Article 35 of Law 7527). In our view, in a condominium that power is limited to the interior of the unit: the tenant cannot work on a common pipe or a structural element, which not even the owner may do, because work on common areas requires a resolution of the assembly or, if urgent, action by the condominium administrator (Article 16 of Law 7933; Article 64 of Decree 45214).

Finally, the owner may inspect the unit once a month or whenever circumstances warrant (Article 51 of Law 7527). Entry by the administration to inspect common installations is not regulated by law and depends on the bylaws.

What the tenant can do at the assembly

The rules on the common areas are set by the assembly, so the tenant has a stake in what is decided there. Law 7933 does not mention the tenant, but Law 7527 does: “The tenant has the right to participate, without a vote, in the deliberations of the condominium owners’ assembly. In the landlord’s absence, the landlord may authorize the tenant in writing to participate with a vote in matters directly related to the use of the dwelling or premises the tenant occupies and the services the tenant uses” (Article 25 of Law 7527). The rule therefore has two levels: a voice always; a vote only with the owner’s written authorization, only if the owner does not attend and only on matters of use and services.

Campos argued that this limitation gives way to freedom of contract: if the owner can authorize anyone to represent them, nothing prevents the owner from authorizing the tenant to vote on other matters. Law 7933 still does not regulate representation at the Owners’ Assembly (Asamblea de Condóminos), which is left to each condominium’s bylaws, so the debate remains live. In our view, two different figures must be kept apart. One is the vote that Law 7527 grants the tenant as such, within the limits the law sets. The other is the power of attorney the owner grants to any person to vote on the owner’s behalf; if the bylaws allow representation, the proxy votes on whatever the power of attorney covers, but as the owner’s representative, not as a tenant. Campos’s conclusion is correct only in this second sense.

The tenant’s voice, on the other hand, is a right granted directly by a public-policy law (Articles 2 and 3 of Law 7527). In our view, bylaws cannot abolish it, although they can regulate how it is exercised. The law does not require the administration to give notice of meetings to tenants, nor does it say how tenants take part in virtual assemblies, whose notice must state how to access the meeting and establish one’s credentials (Article 24 of Law 7933, as amended by Law 10746). The practical solution is for the owner to forward the notice and for the lease to provide for it.

There is one thing the tenant cannot do alone: challenge a resolution. A challenge to the assembly’s resolutions belongs to “any owner who considers their rights harmed,” within three months after the resolution becomes final (Article 26 of Law 7933). A tenant harmed by a resolution must ask the owner to challenge it. The procedure and its deadlines are explained in the study Who Decides in a Condominium.

Eviction, removal and deadlines when someone breaches

Everything said so far works as long as the parties perform. When they do not, the grounds for terminating the lease come into play, along with the proceedings of the Civil Procedure Code (Law 9342, in force since 2018), which replaced those of the 1989 code. The Judicial Collection Law (Ley de Cobro Judicial), Law 8624, has also been repealed (Article 183.2 of the Civil Procedure Code); accordingly, the references in Law 7527 to the “summary executory proceeding” (proceso sumario ejecutivo) or the “mortgage executory proceeding” (ejecutivo hipotecario) (Article 123 of Law 7527) are read today as references to payment-order proceedings (proceso monitorio) and to foreclosure proceedings (ejecución hipotecaria) or chattel-mortgage foreclosure under the current code.

The grounds on which the owner can end the lease

Law 7527 contains a special list for condominium leases. In addition to nonpayment of rent and deterioration of the property, the landlord may seek termination of the lease for “violation of the obligations arising from the Horizontal Property Law or the condominium bylaws, or disregard of the general resolutions of the owners’ assembly,” and for “nonpayment of the condominium’s expenses” (Article 114(c) of Law 7527). To those grounds are added general ones that are common in condominiums: abusive use (goce abusivo), which the law defines as activities that are “notoriously disturbing, noisy, scandalous, harmful, dangerous, unsanitary or unlawful” (Article 54 of Law 7527); a change of use without written authorization (Article 45 of Law 7527); and subleasing or assigning the use without express authorization, which leads to “personal eviction” (desalojo en lo personal) (Article 78 of Law 7527).

For several of those grounds there is a prerequisite that many people forget. Article 116 of Law 7527 provides that, in the cases of termination “established in Article 114, paragraphs 2), 3), subparagraphs ii) and iii), and in Article 115,” the interested party, “before bringing the corresponding action, must serve a formal demand on the other party to perform its obligation.” The demand is made by notice, the obligation must be performed within a period of no more than thirty days, and the notice document is filed with the complaint (Article 116 of Law 7527). The numbering does not match that of Article 114, which identifies its paragraphs with letters. In our view, paragraph 2) is paragraph (b), deterioration of the property, and paragraph 3) is paragraph (c), with its subparagraphs (ii) and (iii): violation of the condominium law, the bylaws or the resolutions, and nonpayment of the condominium’s expenses. It is the only reading that makes sense of the mention of subparagraphs, which exist only in paragraph (c). The demand can be served through a notarial record (acta notarial) or by delivering the document at the residence or at the address designated in the lease (Article 19 of Law 7527). It is not required, however, for nonpayment of rent, which the tenant may cure within the seven calendar days following the due date of each period (Article 58 of Law 7527).

When payment-order proceedings apply and when summary proceedings do

The Civil Procedure Code offers two paths to recover the unit. The faster one is the lease payment-order proceedings, which are available when the lease is in writing and the ground is expiration of the term, nonpayment of rent, nonpayment of utilities or nonpayment of the condominium’s expenses (Article 110.1.2 of the Civil Procedure Code). Once the complaint is admitted, the judge orders the removal and, at the owner’s request, the precautionary seizure of the tenant’s property (retención preventiva) (Article 112.2 of the Civil Procedure Code). The tenant may oppose only by alleging payment proven in writing, the statute of limitations (prescripción), the nonexistence of the obligation or that the term has not expired (Article 112.3 of the Civil Procedure Code). If the ground is expiration of the term, the owner must prove that they gave written notice of their intention not to renew at least three months in advance (Article 110.1.2 of the Civil Procedure Code; Article 71 of Law 7527).

For the condominium’s expenses, the code sets three conditions of its own. First, the lease must provide that they are borne by the tenant. Second, the accounts must be certified by a certified public accountant “in accordance with Article 20” of Law 7933. The third is stranger: the defendant “may invoke exhaustion of the provisions of Article 23 of the cited law before this payment-order proceeding may go forward, although the judge may assess whether it should be heard through summary proceedings” (Article 110.1.2 of the Civil Procedure Code). Article 23 of Law 7933 is the one on internal sanctions: a written warning, a fine and the obligation to vacate, imposed by the assembly with due process. Read literally, the sentence allows the tenant to object that the payment-order proceedings cannot go forward until that procedure has first been exhausted, and leaves the judge the option of sending the matter to summary proceedings (proceso sumario), where it can be argued more fully. The code does not explain what must be exhausted when what is being collected is a fee, which is not a sanction, nor who should have done it, the condominium against the owner or the owner against the tenant, and we know of no case law interpreting it.

In our view, two practical consequences follow from the provision. If the certified account includes fines or charges for violations, the tenant can demand proof that they were imposed through the Article 23 procedure. And the prudent course for the owner is to come to court with proof of having warned the tenant in writing before suing, which coincides with the formal demand under Article 116 of Law 7527. The code does not say whether that demand is necessary before these payment-order proceedings, but the lease law requires it “before bringing the corresponding action” for nonpayment of the condominium’s expenses, without distinguishing among proceedings, and the code applies to payment-order proceedings the admissibility requirements set by special laws (Articles 104.3 and 112.4 of the Civil Procedure Code). In our view, it should be served.

When the ground is something else, in particular violation of the bylaws, abusive use or a change of use, the path is summary eviction proceedings (desahucio) (Article 104 of the Civil Procedure Code). They may be brought by anyone who proves they are the owner, the lessor or a possessor with legitimate title, and the complaint must establish ownership and the lease (Articles 104.2 and 104.3 of the Civil Procedure Code). From the time of service, the tenant must deposit with the court the rent falling due after the complaint, on pain of immediate removal (Article 104.4 of the Civil Procedure Code). A judgment granting the complaint sets a reasonable period for surrendering the unit, and the owner may then collect in the same case file, through an ancillary motion, the rent, utilities and expenses the tenant left unpaid (Articles 104.5 and 104.6 of the Civil Procedure Code).

The path also runs the other way: the tenant may seek termination of the lease for the owner’s breaches, such as failing to repair the unit or disturbing its use, through summary proceedings and after a formal demand (Articles 115, 116 and 122 of Law 7527; Article 103.1.2 of the Civil Procedure Code). An amparo petition (recurso de amparo), by contrast, is rarely the right route. The Constitutional Chamber granted one against a landlord who cut off his tenant’s electricity while the eviction was pending, because that service cannot be left “to the discretion of a private party as a means of pressure” to vacate the property (Constitutional Chamber, decision 13296-2026); but in disputes over fees and services it frequently sends the parties to the ordinary courts, as in decision 17877-2026, cited above.

The administration against an occupant who disrupts community life

Up to this point, the person suing is the owner. Sometimes, however, it is the community that suffers the problem, and the owner, who lives far away, does nothing. For that case there is the final paragraph of Article 22 of Law 7933: “The condominium administration, once granted a power of attorney by the respective unit owner, may bring eviction proceedings against the non-owner occupant who repeatedly violates the condominium bylaws or disrupts the normal coexistence of all the unit owners.”

The provision does not give the condominium a cause of action of its own. The administrator acts as the attorney-in-fact of the owner, who is the one with standing to evict (Article 104.2 of the Civil Procedure Code), and that is why the administrator needs the owner’s power of attorney. Campos pointed this out: the condominium has no direct eviction action against the tenant and can sue only with the owner’s power of attorney. That idea still holds; what has been overtaken is his argument about a restriction in the 1989 code on who could act as a litigation attorney-in-fact. Today, a special litigation power of attorney (poder especial judicial) may be granted by a simple written document, with the grantor’s signature authenticated by an attorney other than the attorney-in-fact (Article 20.3 of the Civil Procedure Code), and at hearings the party must be assisted by an attorney (Article 20.1 of the Civil Procedure Code).

We know of no judgments applying this eviction brought by the administration, so what follows is the firm’s opinion. In our view, it is processed as summary eviction proceedings under Article 104 of the Civil Procedure Code. If the occupant is a tenant, the ground is violation of the bylaws (Article 114(c)(ii) of Law 7527), and because the action belongs to the owner, even when the administration brings it, the formal demand required by Article 116 of that law must be served first. If what disrupts community life is notoriously disturbing or noisy activity, abusive use may also be invoked (Articles 54 and 114(g) of Law 7527), which is not among the grounds that require a formal demand. If the occupant pays no rent, for example a relative to whom the owner lent the unit, the claim is to end the loan or the mere tolerance (Article 104.1 of the Civil Procedure Code; Article 7(f) of Law 7527). In every case, what Article 22 requires must be proven: repeated violations or a disruption of normal community life, not an isolated incident.

What if the owner refuses to grant the power of attorney? Then the administration cannot evict the occupant. It is left with the sanctions in Article 23, with due process and with the doubts already noted about applying them to the owner for the acts of others, and with the owner’s joint and several civil liability for the consequences of the violations (Articles 22 and 23 of Law 7933). This eviction must not be confused with the “obligation to vacate” (obligación de desalojo) in Article 23(c), which is a sanction against the unit owner, not against the occupant. A court has already made clear that such removal is not available for delinquent fees, which are collected through the Article 20 route (Second Civil Court of Appeals of San José, decision 49-2026), and the provision is, as noted, under challenge before the Constitutional Chamber. Its scope is analyzed in the study Living in a Condominium.

The one-year deadline that runs for owner and tenant alike

One last procedural point concerns both readers. Under Law 7527, “every right and its corresponding action shall be time-barred after one year,” counted from the time the events occurred or from the time the injured party learned of them (Article 120 of Law 7527). The deadline applies to the tenant seeking return of the deposit or damages, and to the owner who wants to collect from a former tenant the agreed fees left unpaid, the fines the owner had to cover or the damage to the common areas. The asymmetry is dangerous for the owner: the owner’s action against the former tenant is time-barred after one year, while the condominium can collect those fees from the owner within a longer period, which in our view is ten years, as explained in the study Condominium Fees. An owner who lets time pass can end up paying with no way to recover. The precaution is to check with the administration every month that the tenant is current, and to act within the year. To collect sums left outstanding when there was no eviction, the path is monetary payment-order proceedings (monitorio dinerario), if the debt is liquidated and documented (Article 110.1.1 of the Civil Procedure Code).

Rentals by the night, by the season and through digital platforms

Everything said so far assumes a lease under Law 7527, with its minimum term and its protections. A stay of a few days booked through a digital platform is a different arrangement, which must be examined from the standpoint of the person offering the unit, the person renting it and the person staying in it. What the community may regulate or prohibit regarding this activity is analyzed in the study Living in a Condominium; here the focus is on the parties.

Non-traditional lodging and a lease are not the same thing

Law 9742, the Framework Law for the Regularization of Non-Traditional Lodging and Its Intermediation through Digital Platforms (Ley marco para la regularización del hospedaje no tradicional y su intermediación a través de plataformas digitales), defines non-traditional lodging as the provision of tourist services consisting of the rental of houses, apartments, rooms or similar structures “for periods of no more than one year and no less than twenty-four hours” (Article 3(c) of Law 9742). A provider is anyone who engages in that activity habitually and for profit (Article 3(d) of Law 9742). Law 7527, for its part, excludes guests of hotels and similar establishments and tourist homes rented by the season in zones designated by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) (Article 7(a) and (b) of Law 7527). In our view, a stay of a few days booked through a platform is not a lease under Law 7527 but lodging: it carries no three-year minimum term, it does not give rise to a landlord-tenant eviction, and the guest is required to vacate the unit on the agreed date (Article 6(c) of Law 9742).

The boundary, however, is drawn not by the number of days in the listing but by the actual use. Law 9742 defines tourism as recreational, vacation, leisure or business activities carried out away from one’s usual place of residence for no more than one year (Article 3(e) of Law 9742). Duration alone does not settle the matter, because a business trip lasting several months also falls within that definition. What settles it, in our view, is whether the unit becomes the occupant’s home. A person who rents an apartment for six months to settle in and live there while working in the area is not engaged in tourism: that is their residence. That person is a tenant, and the lease is deemed to have been entered into for three years whatever it says (Article 70 of Law 7527); the tenant, on the other hand, may end it earlier with three months’ notice, unless otherwise agreed in writing (Article 72 of Law 7527). Many owners who sign leases “for six months” discover this when they try to get the unit back.

What an owner offering the unit on a platform should know

Law 9742 requires the provider to register with the ICT and as a taxpayer with the Tax Administration (Dirección General de Tributación), and to issue electronic invoices (Article 8(a) to (c) of Law 9742). It recognizes the provider’s right to carry on the activity freely “with no limitations other than those provided for in the legal system” (Article 7(a) of Law 9742), and allows it to operate in residential zones provided it does not disturb the surroundings (Article 16 of Law 9742). But the same law mentions the condominium bylaws three times: the guest has access to services in accordance with them, the guest must respect them, and the provider may restrict the guest’s access only as the law or the bylaws provide (Articles 5(d), 6(a) and 8(f) of Law 9742). The legal system to which the activity is subject therefore includes Law 7933 and the bylaws of each condominium.

For the owner, this means reviewing the use the deed assigns to the unit, because the law prohibits putting it “to any purpose other than the one expressly agreed” (Article 15 of Law 7933), and what the bylaws say about short stays. The owner’s guests are occupants within the meaning of Article 22, and the owner is jointly and severally liable for the civil consequences of what they do. And the owner’s debts to the condominium fall on the guests: the Constitutional Chamber found it was not arbitrary to suspend water service to an apartment rented by the season to tourists whose owner owed fees and the water system charge, because there was a water source a few meters away (Constitutional Chamber, decision 9044-2016).

On whether the assembly or the bylaws may prohibit or authorize this type of rental, there is no verified judicial ruling on the merits. The First Chamber twice heard the dispute in a residential condominium where the assembly authorized the short-term rentals that the bylaws prohibited, but it decided only questions of arbitral jurisdiction and the annulment of the arbitral award, which it set aside, among other reasons, because it affected third parties who had not been heard (First Chamber, rulings 546-2024 and 867-2025). The condo-hotel (condohotel) is a different arrangement: there, lodging is the very purpose of the condominium, at least seventy percent of the time each year, and the bylaws set out the rights of unit owners and guests (Articles 3.16 and 59 of Decree 45214).

What the tenant should know, and what the guest should know

A tenant who lists the unit on a platform while traveling commits a serious breach: the law prohibits subleasing or granting use of the property without express authorization, on pain of personal eviction and termination of the lease (Article 78 of Law 7527). And as against the condominium, each of the tenant’s guests is an occupant for whose damage the owner is also liable, in civil terms.

The guest, for their part, is entitled to receive truthful and complete information about the terms of the service before booking, and to file a complaint with the ICT (Article 5(a) and (g) of Law 9742). In our view, if the host did not warn the guest about the condominium’s rules on the pool, noise or visitors, and the guest’s use is restricted as a result, the guest’s claim lies against the host, not against the community.

What to put in the lease of a condominium unit

Law 7527 sets a minimum content for a written lease: identification of the parties, the registry recording data of the property, a description of the property and of its installations and spaces, its use, the price, the term and the addresses for notices (Article 11 of Law 7527). In a condominium, that minimum is not enough. The following clauses resolve in advance most of the conflicts described in this study:

Full identification of the unit, with its unit registration number, and of the parking spaces, storage units and other limited common areas leased with it (Article 11(b) and (c) of Law 7527; Article 62 of Decree 45214).
Delivery of the bylaws and of the assembly resolutions in force, with a receipt signed by the tenant (Article 25 of Law 7527).
An undertaking to abide by later resolutions that the owner notifies in writing during the tenancy.
Use of the unit, consistent with the use set in the condominium’s deed (Article 11(e) of Law 7527; Article 15 of Law 7933).
Who pays the regular fee, whether it is paid directly to the administration and how payment is proven to the owner (Article 25 of Law 7527).
What happens with special assessments, improvements and increases approved by the assembly.
The tenant’s liability for fines and damage caused by the tenant, the tenant’s family, visitors and guests, and their coverage by the security deposit (Articles 47 and 59 of Law 7527).
Utilities: who pays them and whether water comes through a shared meter included in the fee (Article 64 of Law 7527).
The bylaw rules that most affect the tenant: pets, number of occupants, visitors, vehicle registration, moves and the administration’s access to the unit.
Use of the common areas by the owner while the unit is leased.
Participation in the assembly: an undertaking to forward meeting notices and, if desired, written authorization to vote on the matters covered by Article 25 of Law 7527.
An express prohibition on subleasing or listing the unit on digital platforms without written authorization (Article 78 of Law 7527).
Address and email for notices, which will be used to serve the formal demand required before any lawsuit (Articles 11(h), 19 and 116 of Law 7527).

Before signing, if you are the tenant

Anyone about to rent a unit would do well to ask for a copy of the bylaws and read the rules that affect them, particularly those on pets and parking. They should also confirm at the Real Property Registry (Registro Inmobiliario) that the person leasing the unit is the owner or has authority to do so, because a co-owner of undivided property cannot lease it without the consent of the others, and a lease entered into without that authority is void (Article 9 of Law 7527). Finally, ask for a statement from the administration that the unit is current on its fees: it is the best protection against cutoffs and restrictions over debts that are not yours.

Before signing, if you are the owner

An owner who leases out a unit should inform the administration of who will occupy it, deliver the bylaws with a signed receipt and check that the agreed use matches the one in the deed. The owner must decide whether to pass on the fee as a separate item or include it in the rent, knowing that it may go up and that passing increases on to the tenant is subject to the uncertain limit explained above. And the owner should think about conflict from the start: a written lease, with clear addresses and with the fees expressly placed on the tenant, is what opens the door to lease payment-order proceedings. If the owner sells the unit during the tenancy, the lease remains in force against the buyer (Article 75 of Law 7527).

How to structure the relationship among owner, tenant and condominium

This study began with three parties who meet in the same building without all of them ever having signed a single document together. What connects them is a chain of derived rights. The condominium has a direct legal relationship only with the owner: it collects the fees from the owner, requires the owner to comply with the bylaws and sanctions the owner, with the unit as security for whatever the owner owes. The tenant receives from the owner the use of the unit and, with it, the rules that come attached; that is why the tenant is subject to the bylaws and to the resolutions the tenant knew of, answers for the tenant’s own violations and may speak at the assembly, but cannot vote without the owner’s authorization or challenge what the assembly decides. Law 7527 protects the tenant against the owner, not against the condominium; and Law 7933 governs the condominium’s relationship with the owner, reaching the occupant only through its Article 22.

The practical rules flow from that structure. For the owner: an agreement with the tenant about the fees does not release the owner as against the condominium, the owner is jointly and severally liable, in civil terms, for what the occupants do, and the owner has one year to recover what they pay on the occupants’ account. For the tenant: the bylaws are binding even though the tenant did not sign them, a service cutoff over the owner’s debts is a breach by the owner, and subleasing or listing the unit on a platform without permission can cost the tenant the lease. For the administration: a fine imposed without notice of charges is at risk of being annulled, even when the tenant is at fault, and only with the owner’s power of attorney can it seek the eviction of an occupant who disrupts community life. And for everyone: a guest staying a few days is not a tenant, but is not above the bylaws either.

Nearly all of these conflicts can be avoided with a good lease and orderly communication among owner, tenant and administration. Once they have arisen, the right path, and the decision about who should sue whom, depend on the documents in each case. If you own or rent a condominium unit and would like to review your lease or your position under your condominium’s bylaws, you can book a consultation with the firm.

This study is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice for any specific case. To discuss your situation, book a consultation.

Renting in a Condominium: Rights and Duties of Tenants and of Owners Who Lease Their Units