What building refurbishment is and where it starts
Refurbishing a building in Barcelona means working on its shared elements: facade, balconies, roof, structure, soil stacks and the common electrical installation. The client is the comunidad de propietarios, not an individual owner, and the trigger is usually the ITE report (Inspecció Tècnica de l’Edifici) or a failure that forces the owners’ meeting to act.
The ITE records defects and how serious they are, but it is not a quote. Between “render is coming away from the facade” and the real scope of work there is a separate survey. We explain the inspection itself in our ITE guide; this article covers what happens next.
What the scope usually includes
Facade: loose render, cracks, cornices, balcony slabs with rusted reinforcement or corroded steel joists. In older Eixample buildings, balconies and galleries are a common reason for formal notices. Roof: flat azotea, waterproofing, parapets and drainage.
Services: soil stacks and water risers, the common electrical supply, the meter room. If the stacks are fibre cement they may contain asbestos, and only a company registered in RERA may remove them. That is a line of its own in the quote, with its own work plan.
Some communities add accessibility (a lift or ramp) or facade insulation to the same project. Decide early: putting up scaffolding twice costs more than widening the scope once.
The order of a refurbishment project
The order that saves the community money: survey, a project that defines the solutions, the owners’ vote, the licence from the ajuntament (plus a scaffolding and pavement occupation permit where needed), choosing a contractor against one shared scope, the works, and handover.
The most common mistake is to start by collecting quotes. Three firms receive a vague “fix the facade”, each prices its own idea, and the meeting ends up comparing numbers that have nothing in common. With the scope defined in a project, quotes can be compared line by line.
The project is signed by an architect or arquitecto técnico. We work alongside them: they answer for the technical solutions, we make sure those solutions can actually be built in that building, with its stairwell, courtyard and neighbours.
The owners’ vote and the community’s money
Work on shared elements is approved at the owners’ meeting. The majority required depends on the type of work; in Catalonia horizontal property is governed by the Catalan Civil Code, and your property manager will confirm which threshold applies.
The meeting needs three things: what will be done and why (with photos of the damage), what it costs by section, and how it will be paid. That is usually a derrama, a special levy split according to each flat’s share coefficient. We structure the quote so it can be split into phases: scaffolding and facade, roof, stacks. The community then sees what it pays for at each step, and payments follow the contract and actual progress.
For grants on energy refurbishment, ask the property manager or a gestor: schemes change, and the conditions are worth checking before the vote.
People keep living in the building
Unlike renovating an empty flat, the building is occupied. Scaffolding covers windows and gives access to balconies, so everyone needs a clear schedule: which vertical strip of the facade is being worked on this week, when access to a flat is needed to replace a section of stack, when the water goes off and for how long.
We appoint one site lead who deals with the property manager and the residents. Notices in the stairwell are in Spanish, and we brief Russian-speaking owners in Russian. It sounds minor, but this is where most disputes start: the neighbour had no idea someone was coming on Thursday to cut the stack in their bathroom.
The mistakes that cost the most
Painting the facade without fixing the cause. If the cracks come from rusting balcony joists, they will be back within a couple of winters and the paint budget will already be spent.
Doing the facade without the roof. A leaking azotea soaks the top of the walls, and the new render on the top floor will be the first to suffer.
Picking the lowest price on different scopes. A cheap quote often just leaves out asbestos removal, scaffolding in the inner courtyard or waste disposal.
Not setting aside a contingency. In an old building there is always something behind the render. The reserve and the rules for using it belong in the contract from the start, not in a discussion on the scaffold.
Next step
Send us the ITE report if you already have one, photos of the problem areas and the property manager’s contact. We reply to enquiries within an hour, visit the building and prepare an initial technical and cost proposal the owners’ meeting can discuss. We run projects in Spanish and Russian.