When building a house, there are various procedures to follow in order to legalise the construction of the same upon completion. We present a guide of the steps you will have to follow to fulfil your obligations as a self-promoter, until your house is ready to be inhabited. Procedures before building a house After studying the advantages of building your own house, and once the decision has been made, the first thing to do is to look for a plot of land to be able to build on. As we have previously mentioned, the search for land would be one of the phases of a self-promotion of housing. Before starting to build, you already have to carry out a series of necessary procedures.

Deeding the land To deed the land, a “contract of sale” is needed, which is made public by signing it before a notary, which the seller and the buyer can freely choose. Afterwards, the taxes are settled: VAT (Value Added Tax) in the case of buying from the businessman or professional who developed the land, or ITP (Property Transfer Tax) in the case that the seller is a private individual and AJD (Documented Legal Acts). Once the taxes have been paid, the deed is presented to the property registry for registration.

Hiring an architect to prepare the project Architects are construction professionals in charge of drafting the architectural project necessary to present to any town hall when requesting a building permit. The project for a house has several phases, although not all of them require compulsory professional approval: preliminary study, preliminary project, basic project, execution project, construction management, liquidation and acceptance of work.

Request for urban planning license The town hall of the municipality to which the land corresponds is the one that grants permits to carry out any work, ensuring that the project presented complies with the urban planning regulations in force at the time. To apply for a license, all that is needed is to present a basic project, which does not require a visa, and which is granted a “urban planning license” if it meets all the requirements and municipal regulations. Otherwise, the appropriate modifications must be made. However, with this “urban planning license” the works cannot begin, which will only be authorized by presenting an “execution project”, this time endorsed by a competent professional association.

Professional association endorsement of the execution project To build a house in Spain, the endorsement of the execution project of a single-family home is mandatory, according to R.D. 1000/2010. Professional associations are responsible for the professional endorsement, which in the case of an execution project, will be the Official Association of Architects of the autonomous community to which the land belongs. This endorsement is only a control on: the authorization of the author of the project, formal integrity of the documentation presented, application of the professional association rules and applicable urban planning rules. This means that a professional visa does not verify that the project is suitable for construction or that the structural or installation calculations are carried out in accordance with the Technical Building Code.