Renovating a flat in a doorman building on upper Diagonal and Pedralbes

What are the rules for renovating in a building with a doorman?

The rules come from the building's statutes, its internal rules (reglamento de régimen interior) and book five of the Catalan Civil Code (Codi civil de Catalunya), which takes the place of the Horizontal Property Law in Catalonia. The doorman authorises nothing himself: he sees that the rules are followed, logs workers, receives deliveries and keeps track of lift use. Decisions are made by the property administrator (administrador de fincas) and the community president.

Buildings on upper Diagonal and in Pedralbes put up between 1960 and 1980 are nothing like a villa with a garden. There are common areas, a garage, one or two lifts, shared risers and neighbours who live there all year. Any noise, dust or dirt in the lobby is seen by the whole entrance. Read those rules before the first meeting with a contractor, not after.

The doorman's post is also defined by the community. The three-fifths rule for creating or abolishing the service comes from Spanish state law; the Catalan Civil Code sets no special majority: if the statutes do not have to change, a simple majority is enough (art. 553-25), and if they do, or the doorman's flat is to be released from common use, four-fifths are needed (art. 553-26). So do not ask him for what is outside his duties: storing materials, holding the keys to your flat or supervising workers without the administrator knowing.

Do you have to leave a deposit with the community?

A deposit (fianza) is not asked for everywhere: the condition comes from the statutes or from an owners' meeting decision. Without your reglamento no figure can be given, and it is best agreed in writing together with the conditions for its return.

With or without a deposit, the owner is liable for damage: the law requires compensation for harm caused by their fault or by people they answer for. The contractor's workers fall into that category. So the contractor's civil liability insurance is requested before work starts, and you check not just that a policy exists but its limit and whether it covers the building's common areas.

A second step you cannot skip is to document the state of the lobby, lift, stairs, garage and entrance with photos before work begins. It is done together with the doorman or administrator and signed by both sides. When a scratch appears on the marble two months later, you will have a document and not an argument.

How do you get approval from the administrator?

Send the administrator a written notice before work starts and wait for a written reply. The law requires you to inform the community's representative of the works in advance, and an owner cannot change anything outside their own flat.

It takes four steps. First, ask for the statutes, the internal rules and the latest minutes of owners' meetings: they hold the working hours, the lift rules and the penalties. Then send a letter describing the works, start and end dates, the contractor, the list of workers, the insurance and the contact of the person in charge on site. If the work touches common elements, meaning risers, ventilation shafts, the facade, floor slabs or structure, a letter is not enough: an owners' meeting decision is needed. With the reply in hand, give the doorman the list of authorised people and the schedule.

Also warn the neighbours above and below in person: a short note on the door with the dates of the noisy phases removes half the complaints. Replacing a drain stack on your floor affects the neighbours beneath you and common property, so it is handled as common work, not as your own.

How do you bring in materials when there is only one lift?

Reserve time slots for the site, protect the cabin and split the load between what goes in the lift and what goes another way. Without that, the crew waits while neighbours wait for the lift with a pushchair.

First measure the inside of the cabin, the door opening and the maximum load. Long and heavy items (stone slabs, door leaves, glass) may not fit, and then the decision is made in advance: a different format, fabrication in parts, or carrying by the stairs. Small materials are delivered in batches, not in one truck for a week ahead: space in the flat is limited and storage in the entrance hall is not allowed.

Check the height of the garage entrance: a loaded van may not clear it. A skip in the street needs the city's permit to occupy public space, arranged in advance. Waste leaves the building in bags in the lift, at the times when residents need it least, and many communities close it to the site during the morning rush.

What do 1960s to 1980s buildings hide, and what should you know before the estimate?

Floor slabs are thinner than today's, risers are shared, ventilation shafts restrict the routing, and pipes and insulation of that period sometimes contain asbestos. These questions are settled before the estimate, not during the work.

A thin slab and a thin screed handle impact noise poorly, so the floor in such a flat is often built as a floating structure with a resilient layer, and the acoustic insulation of the ceiling and walls is calculated in advance. We expand on this in the article on sound insulation between neighbours. The kitchen extractor is routed to the intended shaft, not to the facade, and connection to a shared stack happens only with the community's knowledge.

Fibre-cement pipes and sheets containing asbestos do turn up in buildings of that age, although its use has long been banned in Spain. If there is a suspicion, a sample is sent to a laboratory before demolition and, if it is confirmed, work follows a special procedure. Structural beams and columns are not cut without an engineer's calculation: a building from the sixties was not designed for twenty-first-century alterations.

How do you protect the common areas during the renovation?

Cover the lobby floor, the lift cabin and the stair corners, put a dust barrier at the flat's door and clean the entrance every day. This is not a formality: a scratch on marble costs money, and an argument over who made it sours relations with the building for years.

Protection usually means panels for the floor and the cabin walls, corner guards, film on doors and carpet runners along the routes. The flat's door is sealed during demolition and a lobby is left so dust does not drift onto the stairs. Workers pass through the doorman's list, change shoes or wear overshoes, and dirty tools are not left in the lobby. Common areas are cleaned twice a day during dusty phases.

Noisy work stays within the hours set by the city's ordinance, and the building may be stricter. The hours are confirmed with the city and in the reglamento, not in a chat with the doorman. In the garage, parking for the crew and a loading space are agreed separately.

How do you start a renovation in a doorman building when you do not live in Barcelona?

Hand the correspondence with the administrator and the delivery schedule to one person who is on site every day, and confirm everything in writing. That way you do not need to learn the building's rules, and the doorman and administrator know whom to contact.

BCN YARD runs projects in Russian and Spanish: we can take on the notice to the community, the lift schedule and the handover of common areas before and after the work, and one person is responsible for the project. As a price guide: Premium from 1,000 €/m², Luxury from 2,000 €/m² and Signature from 3,000 €/m², excluding VAT; the exact price comes in the estimate after a visit and measurements. VAT on renovating a resale home in our estimates 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). We reply to an enquiry within an hour.