What to do straight away
First, record everything you have: the contract, payments, messages and the current state of the site. Then send the contractor a formal demand by burofax with certified content. Only after that should you choose a route: negotiation and mediation, consumer bodies, a civil claim or, if there are signs of deliberate fraud, a police report.
The order matters. Most owners do not lose their position in a dispute because their arguments are weak, but because in the first few days they break, throw away or redo something that was evidence.
The first 48 hours: what not to do
Stop paying until the situation is clear. Do not have a showdown on site and do not put threats in writing: anything you write may end up being read by a judge. Do not throw out materials or remove the contractor’s tools, even if nobody has turned up for a week, or you may face a counterclaim.
Keep the full message history. A WhatsApp chat can be exported to a file with dates, and voice notes are worth transcribing. Collect proof of every payment. If you paid cash without a receipt, write down dates, amounts and who was present while you still remember.
Record the state of the site before anything is changed
The most expensive mistake is calling in another firm straight away to “fix everything”. Once the new company has closed up walls or laid tiles, proving what was done and how becomes almost impossible.
Photograph and film every room with dates: exposed services, unfinished work, defects and materials on site. Commission an independent expert report (informe pericial) from a technical architect. They will compare the work done with the contract and the quote and put a value on it. It is the key document in any dispute about money. For the strongest evidence, you can have a notary attend and draw up an acta notarial de presencia, a formal record of what is on site.
The formal demand
A burofax with certified content and proof of delivery (burofax con certificación de contenido y acuse de recibo) is the standard way in Spain to record what you demanded and when. Stick to facts: the contract number and date, what you have paid, what has not been done or has been done badly, what you require and by when. For example, that the contractor returns and finishes the work by a specific date, or refunds what was paid for work not carried out.
Keep emotion and adjectives out of it. This text will end up in the case file.
Breach of contract or fraud
Most renovation disputes are breaches of contract: missed deadlines, poor workmanship, unjustified extras. That is the civil route: negotiation, mediation, a claim in court.
Fraud (estafa) is different. It applies when the deception was there from the start: a firm taking deposits from several clients with no intention of working, using someone else’s company details, or vanishing straight after being paid. In that case you file a report (denuncia) with the Mossos d’Esquadra or at the court. Where the line falls in your case is for a lawyer to assess. A criminal complaint filed purely to put pressure on the contractor rarely helps and can slow down the civil side.
Who to turn to
The municipal consumer office (OMIC) and the Agència Catalana del Consum handle complaints from private individuals against businesses. In Catalonia businesses must keep official complaint forms, and filing one is a simple first step. If the firm has signed up to consumer arbitration, the dispute can be settled there without going to court, although joining is voluntary for the business.
Consumer organisations such as OCU offer general guidance. If the amount at stake matters to you, you need a lawyer who specialises in construction disputes. Smaller claims follow a simpler court procedure; the thresholds, and whether you need legal representation, are for your lawyer to confirm.
Finishing the renovation after the dispute
Once the state of the site is recorded and the demand has been sent, you can start thinking about completion. The new firm should work under a new contract with a precise scope: what is already done, what is being redone and what is still outstanding. Without that, you risk a second dispute on the same property.
We can visit, assess the state of the works and prepare a quote to finish them. The legal assessment of your case comes from a lawyer, not a builder. We work with our own crew, one person in charge of the site, and payments by contract and by stage. We run projects in Russian and Spanish and reply to enquiries within an hour.
To avoid a repeat, we have guides on checking a company’s NIF, what a building contract should include and how to tie payments to real progress.