Can a residential complex in Colombia ban dogs? Law 675, the Police Code and the Constitutional Court

Can a residential complex or building ban you from having a dog?

No. Neither the owners’ assembly nor the board of administration of a residential complex (conjunto residencial) can ban you from having a dog in your apartment or house, or penalize you for the mere fact of having one. What they can do is regulate how that dog lives alongside the neighbors in the common areas: leash, cleanliness, noise and safety.

That answer comes from three pieces that fit together: Colombia’s Law 675 of 2001, which governs horizontal property (propiedad horizontal, the regime for buildings and complexes with shared ownership); the National Code of Citizen Security and Coexistence, known as the Police Code (Law 1801 of 2016); and the case law of the Constitutional Court. This text is for information and does not replace a lawyer’s advice in a specific case.

What does Law 675 of 2001 say about pets?

Nothing explicit: Law 675 of 2001 does not mention pets in any of its articles. It sets the general framework: the bylaws cannot conflict with mandatory rules, each owner must use their unit without causing noise or nuisance, and internal penalties require due process. Disputes over dogs are settled with those rules.

The articles that matter are these:

• Article 5, paragraph 1. Clauses of the bylaws that breach mandatory rules are deemed unwritten.
• Article 18, item 1. Each owner must refrain from causing noise, nuisance and acts that disturb the peace of others or affect public health.
• Articles 59 and 60. Penalties for breaching non-monetary obligations require a prior written demand and respect for due process. Fines may not exceed twice the monthly common charges each, or ten times in total.

What has the Constitutional Court said?

That keeping a domestic animal in your place of residence is the exercise of two fundamental rights, the free development of personality and personal and family privacy, and that the bylaws of a co-owned property cannot regulate what does not go beyond the private sphere. The line of rulings begins in 1997 and has held under Law 675.

Ruling C-439 of 2011 is often cited as well. It concerns something else, public passenger transport, but it reiterates that keeping domestic animals is an expression of those same rights. We explain it in traveling with your dog in Colombia.

Can the community rules ban the elevator or the common areas?

No. Since Law 2054 of 2020, Article 117 of Law 1801 of 2016 states that the passage and presence of domestic animals or pets in the common areas of horizontal properties or residential complexes may not be banned. Dogs must be on a leash; those classed as “special handling” must also wear a muzzle and have a permit.

The same Article 117 authorizes administrators not to apply the provisions of the community rules (manual de convivencia) that conflict with it, and orders them to ask the assembly to update the rules. In other words: if the rules of your complex still ban walking through the lobby with your dog or taking it up in the elevator, that rule cannot be enforced.

What can the complex require of you?

It can regulate how you live together, not the decision to have a dog. The community rules can require a leash in the common areas, picking up droppings, controlling noise and answering for damage. Some of those rules are already a legal obligation: anyone who breaks them is also exposed to a police fine.

• Leash in common areas: Article 117 of Law 1801.
• Picking up droppings and not leaving them behind once picked up, including in common areas: Article 124, item 3.
• Not letting the dog scatter the garbage bags: Article 124, item 9.
• Avoiding noise and nuisance that disturb the neighbors: Article 18 of Law 675.

The police fines that go with those behaviors are in Colombia’s Police Code and dogs: leash rules and fines. And when a dog barks for hours, the solution is almost never in the bylaws: there is usually separation anxiety or a lack of activity behind it.

Are there dogs that a complex can ban?

Yes, but only dogs classed as “special handling” (caninos de manejo especial). Article 129 of Law 1801 allows their presence to be banned in gated complexes, housing developments and buildings, at the request of any co-owner or resident and by a qualified decision of three quarters of the assembly or of the board of directors. The Court declared it constitutional in ruling C-059 of 2018.

Under Article 126, “special handling” dogs are those that have had episodes of aggression toward people or have killed other dogs, those trained for attack and defense, and a closed list of breeds and their crosses. Even so, the decision requires due process: in T-155 of 2012 the Court set aside an order to remove a Rottweiler because it was taken without procedural guarantees.

What do you do if the administration fines you or demands that you remove the dog?

Object in writing and step by step. Ask for the basis of the decision, reply with Article 117 of Law 1801 and the rulings, go to the coexistence committee and, if the penalty stands, challenge it. The tutela (Colombia’s constitutional action for the protection of fundamental rights) applies only exceptionally, when a fundamental right is at stake and there is no other effective remedy.

1. Ask for the decision in writing, with the article of the bylaws or community rules it relies on.
2. Reply in writing, citing the law and the rulings in this article.
3. Go to the coexistence committee (Article 58 of Law 675). It proposes settlement formulas and cannot impose penalties.
4. Challenge the penalty before a judge (Article 62 of Law 675) if it stands.
5. Consult a lawyer if the dispute escalates; the tutela is the last resort.

Before choosing a dog for an apartment, it is worth thinking more about living together than about the law: the guide to apartment dogs in Colombia goes over which breeds cope better with that kind of life.