Which is better: hiring trades separately or one company for the whole renovation?
For a luxury renovation, especially if you live outside Spain, one company under one contract is the better choice. Hiring trades separately gives cheaper line items, but the coordination, the idle time and the arguments about who is liable land on you, and they come back as money and months.
A 100 m² flat in the Eixample typically involves 8 to 12 trades: demolition, electrician, plumber, plasterer and pladur, tiler, joiner, painter, parquet fitter, HVAC, windows and glass, stone. Each trade waits for the one before it. If you hire the trades yourself, you also hold the order of work yourself.
Is it cheaper to hire the electrician, plumber and tiler separately?
On the line items often yes; on the final budget less often. A tradesman's price looks lower than the line in a contractor's quote because it leaves out what the contractor takes on: the schedule, a replacement when someone drops out, storage, cleaning, and responsibility for the result.
Here is what comes back to the owner as cost. Idle time: the tiler cannot start until the screed and waterproofing are dry, or the electrician closed the chases late; a gap between trades is usually a week or two, and each gap pushes back your move-in. Rework: the plumber has left, the tiler has finished the wall, and it turns out a water point sits 3 cm off. Purchasing: if you buy the material, you pay retail and answer for quantity, batch and delivery date. Helpers: the tradesman often brings his own people, so you end up with a subcontractor and no contract with him.
Who is liable for defects when the trades are different?
Each trade answers for its own part, and nobody answers for the joints between trades except you. If a tile cracks because the plumbing frame was set badly, the trades will point at each other and you will have to prove the cause, usually with an independent expert report.
Spain's building law (LOE, art. 17) sets liability periods from handover: 10 years for structural damage, 3 years for defects that affect habitability, and 1 year for finishing defects. Where the cause of damage cannot be pinned on one party, liability is joint. How the LOE applies to your project is for your architect or lawyer to say. For this choice something else matters more: with several contractors you assemble the chain of responsibility yourself, with a general contractor there is one chain. A contractor who subcontracts part of the work remains directly responsible to the client for its defects (art. 17.6).
Do you need a health and safety coordinator if there are several trades?
Yes, and it is a cost owners usually discover late. Royal Decree 1627/1997 (art. 3.2) requires the client to appoint a health and safety coordinator for the execution phase whenever more than one company, a company plus self-employed workers, or several self-employed workers are on site.
Legally, the client is you. An electrician, a plumber and a tiler hired separately make at least three contractors, so the coordinator is required, and you hire and pay him: a technical professional, usually an architect or an aparejador. He must be appointed before work starts or as soon as a second contractor appears. A coordinator is also needed with a general contractor and subcontractors. The difference is that with separate trades you choose the professional, pay him, and make sure each trade follows his instructions.
Can you coordinate the trades yourself while living abroad?
You can, but it is a full-time job and it cannot be done by video call. A coordinator is on site every day: he receives material, checks hidden work before it is closed up, and rebuilds the schedule when a tradesman does not show.
Hidden work (pipes, wiring in chases, waterproofing, sound insulation inside walls) is visible only before finishing. If neither you nor your representative looked at it before closing, the mistake turns up a year later as a stain on the ceiling of the neighbour below. For an owner abroad there are two realistic routes: a single contractor with one person responsible, or an independent site supervisor (arquitecto técnico or aparejador) who checks the trades on your behalf and is paid separately. The second works, but it adds another budget line and another person between you and the crew.
When does it make sense to hire trades separately?
When the scope is small, you know the people and their work barely overlaps. Replacing a worktop, painting, redoing a single bathroom without moving any points: that is one or two trades, and an individual tradesman is cheaper and faster there.
Individual craftsmen also make sense in restoration. A plaster-moulding specialist, a restorer of hydraulic tiles or a blacksmith for an original railing work piece by piece, and the owner or the interior designer often brings them in. You still need one person who fits them into the schedule and signs off the handover. If you hire a trusted acquaintance, ask for liability insurance (seguro de responsabilidad civil), proof of registration as self-employed (autónomo) and a written contract. Without those, towards the neighbours and the community of owners you are the only one answerable.
What should you ask a contractor so the single-company route works, and how does BCN YARD work?
Ask who the one person responsible for the site is and how to reach him; which trades the in-house crew does and which go to subcontractors; how the handover of hidden work is documented and who signs it; who appoints the safety coordinator; how stage payments work and what happens to the schedule if one stage slips; what the quote includes and what is carried as provisional sums. Red flags: a price without a list of works, an advance larger than the first stage, a contractor who will not say who you will see on site.
At BCN YARD each project has one person responsible, an in-house crew plus vetted subcontractors, and payment by stages under contract. We run projects in Russian and Spanish and reply to an enquiry within an hour. Reference levels: Premium from 1,000 €/m², Luxury from 2,000 €/m², Signature from 3,000 €/m² excluding VAT; on secondary-housing renovations the VAT in our quotes is usually 21%. The 21% applies because in our renovations materials usually exceed 40% of the taxable base; when they do not, renovating a private individual's home is taxed at 10% (Law 37/1992, art. 91). The exact price comes in the quote after a site visit and measurements.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to hire the trades myself than to use a full-service company?
Each trade's line items are lower, but the total often evens out. Idle time between trades, rework, retail prices on material, the safety coordinator and your own time all get added. The saving is real on a small job with one or two trades. On a full renovation of a flat or a house, the balance usually tips towards a single contractor.
Who is liable for a defect where two trades meet?
When the cause cannot be pinned on one trade, the LOE spreads liability jointly, and the client has to prove where the error lies, most often with an independent expert report. With a general contractor you claim from one person under one contract, and he deals with the people who did the work.
Do I need a safety coordinator if I hire several tradesmen?
Yes. Under Royal Decree 1627/1997 the client appoints a health and safety coordinator when more than one company, a company plus self-employed workers, or several self-employed workers are on site. He is a technical professional you hire and pay before work starts. A coordinator is also needed with a general contractor, but there the client does not have to put the arrangement together himself.
Can I run the renovation myself if I live abroad?
Technically yes; in practice it is hard. Someone has to be on site every day, checking hidden work before it is closed and keeping the schedule. Without that person, mistakes are found after finishing. The real options for a non-resident are a single contractor with one person responsible, or an independent site supervisor you hire separately who watches the trades on your behalf.