Today we are playing Guess Who? — the board game where you flip the faces down one by one until only the right one is left standing — except here the faces are the people who will turn up on the site of your own house. As we have explained in earlier posts, building a house in Spain means working through a series of milestones, and each one brings in a professional with a very specific remit. If you are used to the way this works in the UK or Ireland, the surprise is not how many people are involved. It is how many of them are named in the law itself. Spain’s building act, the Ley de Ordenación de la Edificación, defines each agent and fixes what each one answers for. So, as an architecture practice in Málaga, here is who each of them is, and how far their authority actually goes.
The self-builder (the promotor — here, autopromotor)
This is you: the person who takes on the job of getting the house built. Since you will be the one living in it, the house has to fit your way of life, your requirements and, obviously, your budget.
To count as a self-builder, and to get the tax treatment that goes with it, the aim cannot be to sell or let the finished house. Get that right and VAT (IVA) on the contractor’s price (presupuesto de contrata) is 10% instead of the 21% a conventional developer pays.
The architect (designer)
Designs the house around what you have asked for, what the plot allows and what the planning rules in force permit. And keeps the thing buildable. Normally the same architect takes on the concept design (anteproyecto), the planning-stage design (proyecto básico), the technical design (proyecto de ejecución) and site supervision (dirección de obra) — roughly RIBA stages 2 to 5. Those first three are separate documents with separate legal weight, and we will pull them apart properly in a future post.
Fees for all of that run from 6 to 10% of the PEM: the presupuesto de ejecución material, or bare build cost, before the contractor’s overheads and profit, VAT and professional fees. Worth remembering: what you spend on design is what decides how comfortable the house is for every year you live in it.
The supervising architect (director de obra)
As we said, the architect who designed the house usually takes this on as well, although it does not have to be the same person. The legislation puts it plainly enough: the role is to “form part of the dirección facultativa” — the statutory supervision team — “and direct the works in their technical, aesthetic, planning and environmental aspects”. All of it in accordance with the project that defines the works, the building licence, any other required consents and the terms of the contract, so that the finished building does what it was meant to do.
The title is where people get caught out, in Spanish as much as in English. It sounds as though this person runs the site, tells the trades what to do and takes charge of getting the work built. They do not. They are the general supervisor. Their job is to check that what is going up matches the project, and that the builder is not quietly getting it wrong.
The quantity surveyor (director de ejecución, the aparejador)
The other half of the supervision team, and the closest thing Spain has to a clerk of works with a quantity surveyor’s remit. Where the supervising architect watches the design intent, this one watches the material reality. Detailed control of the works. Continuous monitoring of the site and of the materials arriving at the gate. And verification, on your behalf, that the contractor is doing the job properly.
Fees run between 2 and 4% of the PEM.
The contractor
The agent who undertakes to build the works. Puts up the labour and the materials to construct the house in line with the project, and hires the site manager (jefe de obra) — the one actually giving orders to the trades.
The health and safety coordinator
Coordinates how the general principles of prevention and safety are applied. In practice, they make sure that what happens on site happens in accordance with the safety and control regulations, and that nobody gets hurt. It can happen that the supervising architect and the quantity surveyor take this role on between them. Together, those three functions make up the dirección facultativa. If you know the CDM regulations from home, the instinct is the same; the paperwork is not.
The land surveyor (topógrafo)
The technician who produces the exact survey of the plot, using instruments that guarantee the position of every point on the ground. It sounds like a formality. It is not: it is what makes the drawings match the physical reality of the site.
The geologist
Provides the geotechnical report (informe geotécnico), a document you cannot do without. It tells you what the ground under the house is made of. That decides the foundations and the structure the house will need.
The technical control body (OCT)
Independent bodies that check the quality of the structure. Their involvement is what makes the ten-year structural insurance possible, and a conventional developer is obliged to appoint one. For a self-builder it is optional, as we will see next.
The insurer, for the ten-year structural cover (seguro decenal)
A developer has to carry it, so that any structural problem in the building is covered for whoever buys. A self-builder is their own client, so the obligation can be set aside. There is a catch, and it is the sort that surfaces years later. The deed will carry a note saying that the ten-year structural liability is not insured. If you decide to sell within those ten years, that note will make the sale harder work.
The bank
If you are funding the build with a self-build loan (crédito promotor), the bank and its valuer effectively become site agents like everybody else. The bank releases funds in stages, as its valuer or the supervising architect certifies how much has actually been built.
The valuer (tasador)
Some banks will not take the supervision team’s certificates on their own. They send a valuer to confirm the state of the works month by month before releasing the next slice of the loan.
The town hall
Issues the planning permission (licencia de obras) without which you cannot build. It collects a run of planning taxes and charges along the way: the local tax on construction works (ICIO), waste management, occupation of the public highway during the works, service connections, and so on. It is also where you apply for the first occupation licence (licencia de primera ocupación), which you need before the finished house can go on a deed.
The notary
Draws up the deeds for the house once it is finished. Worth knowing if you are arriving from the UK: the Spanish notary is a public official, not your solicitor. They act for the document, not for your side of it.
The land registrar (registrador de la propiedad)
Registers the deeds at the Land Registry (Registro de la Propiedad). Until that entry is made, the house is real but the register does not know about it.
The tax office (Hacienda)
Several taxes are settled with the tax office across the process, among them stamp duty on documented legal acts (Actos Jurídicos Documentados) and the VAT already mentioned.
And that is the cast. The length of the list should not put you off self-building. There are solid reasons to take this route rather than buy a house someone else has already built or developed. Most of these people appear for one specific stage and then disappear; only a handful are with you from the plot to the keys.
Having someone you trust alongside you is what keeps all of it manageable, particularly in a language and a legal system that are not your own. At our architecture studio in Málaga we work through this list week in, week out, and we are glad to talk it over before you commit to anything.
