Commercial premises renovation in Barcelona

Two kinds of client come to us with a commercial unit and no permanent presence in the city: the investor who has bought a local to let, and the operator opening a Barcelona branch from another country. The questions are different, but both turn on the same three documents.

The unit sits in a residential building, and that building has a say

A ground-floor local is your private property, but the building around it belongs to the comunidad de propietarios. Anything you attach to or pass through communal elements — an extraction duct running up the rear façade or the light well to roof level, a new opening in the façade, a shopfront that changes the building’s appearance, an air conditioning condenser — needs the association’s authorisation, voted at a junta. Some buildings go further: the statutes registered against the property may expressly prohibit particular activities, most commonly bars and anything generating noise or smells. That prohibition is enforceable and it is checked before you sign a lease, not after. Note the direction of the money here — you fund your own fit-out entirely, and no derrama is involved, but you cannot proceed without the vote.

The extraction duct is the deal-breaker for food and drink

A restaurant or bar needs its extraction taken to above roof level, and in a Barcelona building that means a duct crossing several floors of communal space. If the unit has no existing duct, you need both a physical route and the junta’s consent to use it. This single item has ended more Barcelona restaurant projects than any budget problem, and it is entirely knowable in advance. We establish it in the first visit, before any design work is paid for.

Landlord or tenant: who pays for what

If you are letting the unit, the lease should state clearly which works are the landlord’s, which are the tenant’s, and what condition the premises must be returned in. Spanish commercial leases are freely negotiated on this point, so silence is expensive: reinstatement at the end of a tenancy can cost as much as the original fit-out. If you are the tenant, establish before signing whether the activity licence exists and is transferable — buying a business with a valid licence in place is worth a great deal more than the same premises without one, and the difference is not visible from photographs.

How we run it without you in Barcelona

• A feasibility check on the address and the activity before design fees are spent
• The technical documentation prepared and filed by us, with the reference sent to you
• Weekly photo reports and a written record of every cost-affecting decision
• Access, delivery and working hours coordinated with the building administrator
• Nothing touching a communal element started before the authorisation is in writing