Propter Rem Obligations Doctrine and Condominium Maintenance Fees

Abstract

In Brazilian Civil Law, the maintenance fee charged on the owners of condominiums is frequently labelled as a propter rem obligation. The aim of this article is to investigate the legal significance of such qualification, through the analysis of the structure and the function of propter rem obligations. As to the former, it is shown that propter rem obligation is not an authentic legal concept: Brazilian statutory law intentionally ignores it and legal scholarship has never agreed on fundamental issues concerning propter rem obligations, such as its amplitude or the special rules that govern that alleged obligational category. Nevertheless, propter rem obligation has become an elementary notion within the condominium legal scheme, to the extent that it served as the underlying basis for the introduction of norms that facilitate the collection of condominium fees. Therefore, it can be stated that propter rem obligations carry out several functions in resolution of conflicts arising from condominiums, all of them aimed at protecting condominium associations against defaulting owners.