Villa Renovation Checklist for Mallorca

This is the short version of everything else on this site, arranged so it can be worked through rather than studied. It assumes a villa and it applies with small changes to anything else.

Before you speak to anybody

• Write down everything you want changed, in your own words, without ranking it.
• Separate what is forced (failing services, water coming in, movement) from what is wanted.
• Decide roughly when you need it finished, and whether that date can move.
• Decide whether you can be out of the property, and for how long.
• Find any drawings, certificates or paperwork the property came with.
• Note how a lorry would reach the property, and where a skip could stand.

Establish what you have

• Get the structure looked at if the layout is changing. In writing.
• Establish whether the electrical installation is being kept or replaced.
• Establish the same for plumbing, drainage and hot water.
• Have any damp traced to a source rather than treated where it shows.
• Check the roof, and on older property the timber, where it bears rather than from below.
• On rural property, establish water, power, waste treatment and the access track.
• In a flat, establish what the community of owners allows and how long it takes.
• If an extension is part of the plan, establish what the plot allows first.

Write the scope

• One document, plain language, describing what the job contains.
• State explicitly whether the services are in or out.
• State what is being kept, not only what is being changed.
• Say what access is available, honestly.
• Send the identical document to every company.
• Ask each of them to list what they have excluded.

Before you sign anything

• Compare what each quote includes before comparing the totals.
• Ask what each company expects the work to need, who arranges it, and whether it is in the price.
• Ask what happens to the price when something is found behind a wall.
• Ask who the single point of contact is, and who covers when they are away.
• Ask which parts are subcontracted and who holds those contracts.
• Agree how payments are staged, and against what evidence of progress.
• Agree the reporting rhythm, in writing, including what counts as urgent.
• Identify the long lead items and agree when they will be ordered.

While the work runs

• Make the choosable decisions before the trade is waiting for them.
• Visit around first fix if you can, before anything is closed up.
• Photograph what is behind the walls before they are closed. Keep the photographs.
• Keep certificates and paperwork as they are issued, not at the end.
• Raise a concern in the week you have it rather than at handover.

At handover

• Walk it with a list and expect to have one. A snagging list is normal.
• Collect the certificates the installations need.
• Get a record of what is buried where, while somebody still remembers.
• Get instructions for anything mechanical that was installed.
• Agree what happens about anything that appears in the first months.

The questions in the signing section are covered in more depth in questions to ask a renovation contractor, and the whole sequence is explained in the complete guide.