Hi
Having experienced the awful situation of having a fire in my apartment and then having to deal wtih the consequences I learnt that:
If you are in a complex and pay community fees then a percentage of your community fees is paid towards a communal buildings insurance. I had buildings insurance and had to give my details to the communtiy office. Both the assessor of my insurance and the community insurance came to look at the damage and all claims from surrounding apartments had to be put into the community administrators. The assessors had to agree on a payment for my apartment, the communal areas and any other claims from the apartments. My fire had damaged the rug of the apartment above (smoke damage) so I simply told them to put the claim into the community office and the claim would be put to my insurance and the communtity insurance assessors.
i have to say that I didn't know any of this though until I had my fire so it is sometimes worth checking out with your community administrators.
If you are renting out your apartment I would always advise builiding, contents and 3rd party liability insurance.
I have spoken to people about the pros and cons of fire safety equipment, I was told that in Spain it is not required by law but if you put in such items and they are not checked and serviced regularly then if something happens and it doesn't work correctly you can be charged for the failure to maintain such items. So just be aware that if you put up a smoke alarm and you don't test it and a fire breaks out and the smoke alarm doesn't work because the batteries have ran out then you can end up in more trouble than if you had not put one in the apartment to start with.
In the complex where I had my fire there were no smoke alarms anywhere, the fire brigade had to knock on doors to get people out of the block, as a consequence of this the community installed smoke alarms on every landing and by every lift shaft. So sometimes it may be better to suggest that the community provide fire safety equippment and then they can maintain it properly.
I too find the Marbella story a little far fetched.
I hope this helps!
Lisa
Property Manager