Many residents in Spain assume they have to grit their teeth until 10pm, or even 11pm, before an inconsiderate neighbour’s racket becomes anything more than their own problem. Now, a Madrid property lawyer says that the clock-watching habit rests on a rule that simply does not exist. 

There is no single hour that makes noise illegal

Roberto Mangas, a lawyer and legal adviser to the Madrid College of Building Administrators (CAFMadrid), has moved to correct a persistent piece of folk wisdom about Spanish noise rules. There is no fixed national hour, he said, after which all neighbour noise automatically becomes something a resident can report.

The confusion often centres on a specific hour. Spain’s noise regulations set a reference night-time period running from 11pm to 7am for measuring acoustic quality and planning purposes. But that reference period is a technical tool for zoning and noise limits, not a blanket licence for neighbours to make as much noise as they like before or after those hours.

Being annoying is not the same as being illegal

Mangas draws a clear line between a nuisance and a breach of the rules. Irritating noise can disturb rest or daily life, he said, but not every annoyance on its own amounts to an infringement. Noise only becomes reportable when it exceeds acoustic limits or breaches the schedules and prohibitions that apply locally, not simply because a neighbour finds it irritating.

That also goes both ways. A baby crying occasionally, footsteps overhead or one noisy evening are unlikely to meet the ‘infringement’ bar on their own. However, persistent drilling, amplified music, repeated late-night parties or any unusually loud activity that keeps happening are a different matter, whatever time of day they occur. 

Why your town hall’s ordinance decides the real limits

Because the state only sets a general framework, Spain’s autonomous communities and individual town halls are free to set their own schedules, decibel limits and lists of banned activities through local ordinances, and these can vary considerably between neighbouring municipalities. Some coastal towns already enforce their own strict summer quiet hours that go beyond the national reference period. 

Anyone unsure which rules actually apply to their address is better off searching their town hall’s website for its ordenanza de ruido (noise ordinance), ordenanza de contaminación acústica (acoustic pollution ordinance) or ordenanza de convivencia ciudadana (civic co-existence ordinance), rather than relying on the common misconception of “I’m pretty sure they can do whatever they like until 11pm”.

What to do while the noise is happening

For a disturbance happening in the moment, Mangas recommends calling the Local Police rather than waiting it out. Officers who attend while the noise is still going on can witness it directly, identify its source and, where relevant, take a measurement or draw up an official record, which carries far more weight later than a resident’s own memory of events.

For anything more persistent, he suggests keeping a log of dates, times and duration, retaining recordings where they are lawfully made, noting any witnesses and holding on to police incident numbers or written reports. That evidence becomes essential if a dispute escalates towards mediation or the courts, and Euro Weekly News’ full guide to escalating a noisy-neighbour dispute sets out those next steps in more detail.

When the community itself can step in

Beyond the police, Spain’s Horizontal Property Law (Ley de Propiedad Horizontal) gives a community of owners its own route. Article 7.2 lets a building’s president demand the immediate end of any activity that is banned by the community’s own rules, damages the building or breaches general provisions on nuisance, unhealthy, harmful or dangerous conduct, acting either on their own initiative or at a resident’s request.

If the resident responsible ignores that demand, the president can seek authorisation from a duly convened owners’ meeting to bring a formal acción de cesación, a court action that can force the activity to stop, award damages and, in serious and repeated cases, bar the resident from using their home for up to three years. Spanish courts have already used this same law to order the owner of a persistently barking dog out of a property, so the power is not theoretical.

That three-year ban, rather than the clock on the wall, is the real threat a persistent noise problem in Spain can escalate to. So next time a neighbour’s excessive noise is recurring and breaches local rules, the ideal first step is to approach them with good intentions and speak to them in person to resolve the issue. However, if this proves unsuccessful, official advice is to keep a log of the disturbances and report them to the Local Police when possible.

Spanish shoppers are about to get another major online retailer to compare before handing over their money, with millions of products, thousands of categories and another big European name entering an already crowded market.

For anyone who regularly checks several websites before buying electronics, furniture, clothes, garden equipment or household goods, the arrival could mean more choice and another opportunity to find a better price. The Spanish launch is initially an online marketplace, with hopes of a physical store in the near future.

What is actually coming to Spain?

The company behind the move is Kaufland, the German supermarket giant owned by the Schwarz Group, which also owns Lidl. With their online marketplace customers will be able to shop from third-party sellers across more than 6,400 product categories. The range includes electronics, fashion, home and household products, gardening, DIY, sports equipment and other non-food goods.

Sellers list their own products and fulfil orders directly, while Kaufland handles the marketplace, payment processing and customer service. That makes the Spanish operation much closer to Amazon or AliExpress than a conventional supermarket website. Kaufland is also explicitly positioning the marketplace as a European alternative to the major international e-commerce platforms, rather than simply another place to buy groceries. 

How big is it?

This is not a small retailer testing the Spanish market with a few hundred products. In Germany, Kaufland’s marketplace has more than 15,000 international sellers offering over 45 million products, attracting up to 32 million visitors every month. Spain and the Netherlands are being added to its marketplace network, taking the number of European markets to nine and giving sellers potential access to around 220 million online consumers. 

The platform has already expanded beyond countries where Kaufland has physical supermarkets. France, Italy and Austria are among the markets where its online operation has been able to grow without a physical Kaufland store network.  That is particularly relevant to Spain because shoppers should not expect to see a Kaufland supermarket suddenly appear in their town as a result of this launch.

Will it actually be cheaper?

This is the question most Spanish shoppers will want answered, but there is no honest blanket answer. Kaufland is a marketplace made up of independent sellers, so there is no single Kaufland price for a product in the way there is for a packet of coffee or a bottle of olive oil at a supermarket. Different sellers can offer the same product at different prices, and delivery costs also need to be taken into account.

The attraction for consumers is therefore the ability to compare another large marketplace against Amazon, AliExpress, Temu and specialist retailers. Kaufland’s scale could also put pressure on sellers to remain competitive. The company provides marketplace tools that allow sellers to monitor prices and compare their offers with competitors.  But shoppers should still compare the final price, including delivery, rather than assuming that a product is automatically cheaper simply because it is being sold through Kaufland.

Why has Kaufland become so popular?

The company already has considerable retail muscle behind it. Kaufland operates more than 1,600 physical stores across Europe, making its online marketplace an extension of an established supermarket business rather than a new internet company trying to build a customer base from scratch. 

Its online sales have also been growing rapidly in some of its newer markets. Marketplace revenue in Austria increased by 439 per cent last year, while Poland recorded growth of 322 per cent, according to figures reported by the company. Electronics are particularly popular in Germany, with desktop computer sales up around 60 per cent year-on-year, laptops up 32 per cent and mobile phone sales almost 30 per cent. Health and personal care products also recorded strong growth. 

What could change for Spanish buyers?

The immediate impact is more competition in online shopping. Spanish consumers will have another large European marketplace to check alongside the established names, while Spanish businesses will gain another route into customers at home and across other European markets. Kaufland says more than 500 Spanish sellers are already active on its marketplaces elsewhere in Europe, meaning the Spanish launch could work both ways: bringing international products to Spanish consumers while helping Spanish companies sell abroad.

For shoppers, however, the real test will come down to something much simpler, whether Kaufland can regularly offer products, prices and delivery options good enough to make people check it before clicking “buy” somewhere else. Its arrival does not mean Amazon, AliExpress or Spain’s existing retailers suddenly have a new supermarket competitor on every high street. It means Spanish shoppers now have another very large online shop to compare before spending their money

The El Valle Wildlife Recovery Centre, located in Alberca de las Torres, Murcia, has recently announced that in 2025, it cared for nearly 4,400 animals, representing a 41 per cent increase from the previous year. This means that, since 2009, the wildlife recovery centre has successfully carried out more than 34,000 interventions, saving vulnerable species and caring for the animals that call the Region of Murcia home.

Recovering and saving wild animals, releasing them back into their natural habitats

The El Valle Wildlife Recovery Centre is a facility in Murcia that focuses on recovering injured or distressed wild animals and returning them to their natural habitat once they are healthy. It has been in operation since 1984, and currently has a staff of 12 animal-loving professionals.

Record year for bird and reptile rehabilitation

In 2025, according to the El Valle Wildlife Recovery Centre, 1,356 animals were released back into the wild after being assessed and treated by the centre. In total, the centre cared for 4,393 animals during 2025, which is 1,287 more than the previous year.

Birds are far and away the most treated species at the centre, accounting for more than 87 per cent of the recorded treatments during 2025. In total, 2,323 birds were treated at the centre in 2025. There were 869 more birds treated at the centre than during the previous year. The most common species at the centre were the common swift (Apus apus) and the pallid swift (Apus pallidus).

As for reptiles, the spur-thighed tortoise, or Greek tortoise, was treated 292 times at the centre. Among the mammals, the species with the greatest presence was the European hedgehog, with 66 animals treated.

Kind-hearted local citizens drive the majority of animal rescues

These statistics are also notable for an interesting reason: nearly 80 per cent of the wild animals that are taken to the centre are brought there by Murcia citizens who stumbled upon them while enjoying the Region of Murcia’s natural areas.

The centre combating endangerment and extinction in Murcia

Of the 1,356 specimens that were recovered and returned to the wild, 80.3 per cent of the animals belonged to species that were included in various protection lists and catalogues, reinforcing the vital role the centre plays not only in helping injured animals, but conserving the wildlife in Murcia and its endangered species.

Plans to expand the centre with €700K investment

This good news for the local fauna comes along with even better news for the future of the El Valle Wildlife Recovery Centre: the regional government is preparing an investment of approximately €700,000 to modernise and expand the centre. One of the projects bookmarked for this investment includes the creation of a specialised area for the hospitalisation of sea turtles.

Educating locals about the importance of wildlife and conservation

But the work done at the El Valle Wildlife Recovery Centre is not limited to animal rescue and rehabilitation. The facility also carries out important environmental education activities for the locals. Activities offered by the centre allow the public to learn more about the work carried out there, as well as the importance of species conservation and the threats the animals face.

The centre’s Information Service received 14,155 visitors during 2025, and this year, between January and June alone, recorded another 9,400 visitors.