How to obtain the Occupancy Certificate in Mallorca

The Occupancy Certificate is the document that certifies that a property with the qualification of "housing" complies with the Law of Habitability that corresponds to it. The Law of Habitability is fixed by the date of construction of the property (eg: Law 141/2012 of Habitability, for homes built before August 11, 1984).

In this article we are going to summarize in 7 points the necessary steps so that a novice in this procedure can get a general picture of the procedure, so necessary nowadays in renting or buying and selling operations.

Table of contents

• Check that the property does not have a valid certificate of occupancy.
• The applicable surface area is the usable surface area
• Date of construction of the property
• The habitability law
• The certificate of habitability
• Processing of the certificate of habitability
• Approval of the certificate of habitability

Check that the property does not have a valid certificate of occupancy.

This point seems a truism, but at Epic construction company, it took us many years ago with this type of work, to start to not trust word of the clients who assured us that "their house did not have the certificate of habitability". It only took two visits of an hour and a half, measurements, checks and travel included, and the scare two weeks later in charge of a notification from the Housing Agency that said "you cannot issue a certificate of a property that has a valid certificate".

Therefore, as soon as you receive an order of certificate, check if it is valid and ask for a duplicate if the property has a valid certificate.

The applicable surface is the useful surface

The first figure that you have to calculate to process an occupancy certificate is the useful surface of the property.

The useful surface of a property is the one that can be walked on, excluding of course walls and partitions, with height superior to 1.90 meters and, above all, the interior, the one enclosed in four walls and susceptible of being air-conditioned. A laundry room, balcony, terrace or outside boiler cupboard can never be counted as useful surface.

Date of construction of the property

You have to look at the year of construction of the property to establish the Habitability Standard that is applicable to it. This information appears in the file of the same one in the Electronic Headquarters of the Cadastre.

The law of habitability

During the visit, you have to have present a copy of the Law of Habitability that corresponds to the property of which you are going to process the occupancy certificate and to go verifying article by article that all the requirements to process the occupancy certificate are fulfilled.

Any unfulfilled article of the Law has to be explained to the client documentation in hand. Like defects that come from the own inadequate morphology of the building (illegal construction, perhaps).

Epic constructions always try to make the most of the possibilities of the regulations and always look for a way out.

The certificate of habitability

After the visit, in the office you have to draw up the certificate of habitability as the main document to attach to the processing of the occupancy certificate. This document, which has to be endorsed at the College of Architects includes:

• The applied Law of Habitability
• The useful surface of the housing
• The cadastral data of the dwelling (postal address, cadastral reference, multi-family or single-family...)
• Number of bedrooms ordered according to their surface area (between 5 and 8 m2, between 8 and 12 m2, over 12 m2).
• Number of bathrooms and kitchens
• If it is standard, duplex or triplex
• Existence of living room or living room integrated with the kitchen
• Unclassifiable rooms (corridors, halls, hallways, distributors...)
• The responsible declaration of antiquity

Very important: The certificate of habitability is not equivalent to the occupency certificate. It is a necessary document for the Housing Agency to issue it. The first one is drafted by the architect or technical architect, the occupancy certificate is issued by the Housing Agency.

Processing of the occupancy certificate

Once all the documentation has been gathered, it can be processed in two ways:

• Telematically through the corresponding channel
• Presentially in the Offices of Housing.

The telematic presentation is always preferable because it is faster and requires mechanisms such as the Digital Signature or electronic ID.

Occupancy certificate approval

After about three weeks or a month in Mallorca, the Housing Agency will send to the certifying technician a notice by email or SMS that the occupancy certificate has been approved. You will only have to download it in digital format in a private link provided for the management itself. The process is finished at this moment, with the delivery of the document to the client.

Feel free to reach out to us at Epic constructions with any questions, we are always happy to help.