In short: notice or a meeting resolution
If the renovation stays inside your flat and does not affect the structure, the facade or shared services, Spain's horizontal property law only requires you to notify the community's representative in advance, usually the property manager. If the works touch common elements — the facade, load-bearing walls, stacks, the roof, the courtyard — you need a resolution of the owners' meeting.
This is separate from the council permit. The ayuntamiento checks planning rules; the comunidad protects the neighbours' rights and the shared property. The same renovation may need both documents, and one does not replace the other. What the council requires is covered in our articles on permits.
What usually only needs notice
New floors, tiling, sanitaryware and kitchen, new wiring from your own board, non-load-bearing partitions, painting, internal doors, bespoke furniture. All of this is work on your private element. Notify the property manager in writing, before starting, with a short description and the timeline.
Even then the letter helps for a practical reason: the comunidad has rules on using the lift, the entrance hall and working hours, and the manager will flag them straight away. Neighbours who learn about the works from a letter, not from a hammer drill at eight in the morning, react far more calmly.
What needs a meeting resolution
Anything that changes the look of the facade: windows in a different colour or pattern, balcony glazing, air-conditioning units on the facade, awnings outside the common model. Work on load-bearing walls or floor slabs. Connecting to the shared stack at a new point or moving it. Running services through common areas, the roof or a light well. Annexing part of a shared space to the flat.
Most of these resolutions need a specific majority, and it differs from case to case. Which one applies to you is for the manager to confirm under the bylaws and the law. Do not start work on a verbal 'nobody minds': the resolution has to be in the minutes of the meeting.
Load-bearing walls in the Eixample
In Eixample buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many interior walls are load-bearing and the floors rest on them. Opening the kitchen to the living room or merging two rooms is the most common request in these flats, and it almost always runs into the structure.
The order is this: first a technician identifies the load-bearing walls and designs a reinforced solution. Then that solution, with drawings, goes to the meeting. With the comunidad's approval, the permit application is filed with the ayuntamiento. Only then does work begin. Trying to make the opening 'carefully and quietly' without that chain can end with an order to rebuild the wall at your own cost.
How to prepare the request
The letter to the property manager should include: the address and flat number, a plain-language description of the works, which common elements are affected and how, drawings or a sketch where structure or facade is involved, start and end dates, and the contact of the person running the site. For structural work, attach the technician's report.
We prepare the works description and schedule for that letter, and neighbours' questions during the works go to our site lead, in Spanish. The decision itself and the running of the meeting are for the owners and the manager.
Timing and rules during the works
The ordinary meeting is held once a year and an extraordinary one is called on request, which takes weeks. So raise the works with the comunidad as soon as the scope is clear, not a week before starting. If a permit is also needed, plan both lead times one after the other in the programme.
During the works the comunidad usually sets its own rules: protecting the lift and entrance, hours for noisy work, where the skip and rubble bags can go, who cleans the stairs. Ask about them up front and put them into the contract with your builder. In central Barcelona, with small lifts and narrow streets, these details affect the programme as much as the works themselves.