Apartment Renovation Guide for Mallorca
Key takeaways
- Inside your own walls you decide. Beyond them, the community does.
- Raise anything touching the building long before you want to start.
- Moving a bathroom is a drainage question, not a wall question.
- Most of the risk on a flat sits in the first two weeks, not the last.
Almost every constraint on an apartment renovation comes from the building rather than from the flat. Materials and waste travel through a shared entrance. Noise is limited to hours somebody else decided. Water, drainage and ventilation run in risers shared with the flats above and below. None of that makes a flat harder to renovate than a house, but it does mean the order of operations is different.
Work out what is yours to decide
The line is roughly this: what is inside your own walls and does not touch the structure, the risers or the outside is generally yours. Everything else involves the community of owners. That includes work on a terrace where it forms part of the exterior, which surprises people more than anything else on the list.
| What you want to do | Who decides | What it usually turns on |
|---|---|---|
| New kitchen or bathroom in place | You | Nothing beyond hours and access |
| Move a bathroom | You, if drainage allows | Where the riser is, and the fall to it |
| Remove an internal wall | You, unless it is structural | What is carrying the floor above |
| Change anything on the facade | The community | What has been agreed in that building before |
| Enclose or glaze a terrace | The community | Precedent in the building, and the elevation |
| Put a unit outside | The community | Whether it is visible, and from where |
Start with the community, not with the design
Anything needing agreement has to reach a meeting, be agreed, and then be arranged, and each of those steps runs on a timetable that has nothing to do with yours. A year ahead is not unusual for something touching the outside of a building. Owners who understand this early stop being frustrated by it and start raising things long before they need them.
It is worth asking the administrator two questions at the same time: what your proposal needs, and what the building is already planning. Where work is scheduled anyway, sharing scaffolding and access can save a great deal.
Then the practical constraints
- The hours the building allows work, and which days it allows none.
- How materials come in and waste goes out, and through whose entrance.
- Whether the lift may be used, and how it has to be protected.
- Where a vehicle can stop, and for how long.
- How the common areas are protected, and who reinstates them.
- Which neighbours are directly affected, and whether anyone is elderly or works nights.
These belong in the quote, because they are real time. A company that works in buildings prices them; one that mostly works on villas frequently does not, which is one reason two quotes for the same flat can differ so much.
Drainage decides the layout
The single most common request is moving a kitchen or a bathroom, and the answer is about drainage rather than walls. Waste needs a fall to a riser and the risers are fixed. A company that has worked in buildings of the same age will tell you quickly whether a move is straightforward, awkward or structural.
Penthouses are a different problem
Mostly the terrace and the roof. Waterproofing, drainage and insulation above the living space are where the cost and the risk sit, and they are also the parts the community is most likely to have a view on because they are usually common elements.
The apartment renovation page covers what a request contains, and Palma covers the access problem in the city.
How far ahead should I raise something with the community?
Further than feels necessary. A proposal has to reach a meeting, be agreed and then arranged, and none of those steps moves faster because you are ready. For anything touching the exterior, think in terms of a year.
Can I live in the flat during the work?
On a small job sometimes. On a full renovation with the services replaced, generally not, and the neighbours are usually happier with a short intense programme than a long quiet one.
What can I do without asking anybody?
Generally what is inside your own walls and does not touch the structure, the risers or the outside. Even then the building sets hours and access rules, and those are worth knowing before agreeing a start date.
Why is a flat renovation so expensive per square metre?
Because a real share of the work is access and protection rather than building. Waste in bags down a shared stair, materials up in a lift that was never sized for them, and limited hours all cost time that a villa on its own plot does not.
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