For property managers (administradores de fincas) and presidents of communities of owners (comunidades de propietarios, the owners of a building acting together) across the province of Málaga. Painting a building is not like painting a flat: there is an owners’ meeting (junta de propietarios) that decides, neighbours who keep using the stairs, and common areas with rules of their own. Here is what needs approving, how a building is painted while it is in use and what the regulations ask of the paint in an entrance hall or a garage.
If what is due is repairing the whole facade, with a project, a licence and works in phases, the full route is set out in facade restoration.
Four areas that are quoted for, approved and painted separately, even though they are often done as part of the same job.
It is the face of the building and the area that takes the most wear: pushchairs, bicycles, people moving in and out. It needs a paint that can be washed, a lower band that can take knocks and a colour that does not show every mark. And it usually has things that are not painted and have to be protected: letterboxes, mirrors, the entryphone panel.
A lot of narrow wall, sloping ceilings over the flights and a banister from top to bottom. It is the job residents notice most day to day, because everyone goes through it, and the one that needs the most care so as not to leave the stairs unusable.
Block or concrete walls, pillars that get hit by cars and, sometimes, the floor and the parking bays. It has its own fire requirements, stricter than those for an entrance hall, and it is worth knowing them before choosing the paint.
The big part, the one that needs scaffolding or a platform and, sometimes, an architect or surveyor. How it is handled in a community, from the meeting to signing it off, has its own page, and so does damp coming in through the walls.
For the facade: the community’s works, step by step and where water gets into the walls.
“The meeting has to approve it” is something you hear in every community, and it is not always true. The Horizontal Property Act (Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, LPH, the law that governs communities of owners) separates maintaining from improving, and asks for very different things for each.
Repainting what has deteriorated falls under the duty of maintenance (deber de conservación), which the Act expressly extends to the building’s appearance. That work is compulsory and does not wait for an agreement: the meeting only shares out the special levy (derrama) and decides how it is paid.
At the other extreme, an improvement that nobody can demand needs three-fifths of the owners and of the ownership shares. And if it costs each owner more than three months of community charges, anyone who votes against is left out of paying for it.
Saving energy has a rule of its own: efficiency measures, such as insulating the facade with a SATE system (external wall insulation), are approved by a majority that is easier to reach.
Horizontal Property Act (LPH)
What the owners’ meeting needs for each job
Maintenance
Repainting a flaking stairwell; making good and painting a run-down entrance hall.
Compulsory, including the building’s appearance. The meeting only decides how the special levy (derrama) is shared out and how it is paid.
No prior agreement
Art. 10.1.a and 10.2.a
Energy efficiency
Insulating the building envelope with a SATE system backed by the energy performance certificate.
Of owners and of ownership shares, provided the yearly cost to each owner, after grants, is no more than twelve months of community charges.
Simple majority
Art. 17.2
All other decisions
Choosing between two quotes, approving the schedule of works.
Of all owners and of all shares. At the second call, a majority of those present, provided they hold more than half of the shares present.
Majority
Art. 17.7
An improvement nobody can require
Replacing a sound entrance hall with a decorative finish nobody needed.
Of owners and of shares. If each owner’s share of the cost is more than three months’ charges, an owner who votes against does not have to pay it.
Three-fifths
Art. 17.4
The examples are only a guide: if the community cannot agree on what kind of work it is, the law leaves the owners’ meeting itself to decide.
A community is not emptied out to be painted. What sets a well-run job apart is what goes on around the brush.
Before starting, a notice in the entrance hall and, if the community uses one, a message to the residents’ group chat: which area is being painted each day and which way to go in the meantime. It heads off complaints and saves the property manager explaining the same thing ten times.
A residential staircase cannot be closed. The work goes section by section and wall by wall, always leaving one side clear and marked, and the banister is painted once the flight is finished, so that nobody has to lean on wet paint.
The floor of the entrance hall and the landings, the front of the letterboxes, the doors of the flats, the lift surrounds and its buttons. They are covered at the start and uncovered as each area is finished, not at the end of the job: the entrance hall is still in use every day.
In a stairwell the smell lingers. That is why the work is done with water-based paints low in solvents, with the front door and the windows open while painting, and the enamels for banisters and doors are chosen with that in mind too.
A colour seen on a card is not the same in the light of an entrance hall. A sample is painted on the wall, the president or the meeting looks at it, and the choice is put in writing. That way nobody argues about the colour once it is on.
None of this makes the job longer: it keeps it in order, and the neighbours notice.
Inside the flats the table does not apply. In the common areas it does: the Spanish Building Code (Código Técnico de la Edificación, CTE) sets a minimum reaction-to-fire class for wall, ceiling and floor finishes.
| Where | Walls and ceilings | Floors |
|---|---|---|
| Entrance halls and corridorsUnprotected common areas | C-s2,d0 | EFL |
| Protected stairs and corridors | B-s1,d0 | CFL-s1 |
| Garages | B-s1,d0 | BFL-s1 |
This is table 4.1 of the Building Code’s Documento Básico on fire safety. The first row includes circulation areas that are not protected and expressly excludes the inside of dwellings. And the requirement applies when the finish covers more than 5% of the walls, the ceilings or the floors of the space.
In practice, what you need to do is ask for the product data sheet to state its class. It matters most for things that are not paint: vinyl wallpaper in the entrance hall, timber panelling, a decorative plastic wall covering. That is where an attractive finish may not be up to the standard of the area where it goes.
Entrance hall, stairs, garage and facade separately, each with its square metres, its paint and its number of coats. That way the meeting can approve one part now and another later, and compare offers item by item instead of a total that tells you nothing.
With a community, decisions go through the property manager or the president. It helps if the company also has one person for everything: the schedule, the notices and residents’ questions, rather than each resident asking a different worker.
Scaffolding in the courtyard, materials in a storage room, part of the garage cordoned off. The law provides for this: when the work is maintenance, the use of the common elements while it lasts is compulsory too. The sensible thing is to agree where and for how long before starting.
If the work follows an unfavourable building inspection (the ITE, Inspección Técnica de Edificios), what it obliges you to do and the deadlines are in our article on the ITE in Málaga.
If it is maintenance — the paint has deteriorated and needs redoing — the law says it is compulsory and does not require prior agreement; the meeting simply shares out the special levy and sets how it is paid. Choosing a quote or a schedule is another matter: those are majority decisions. And replacing something that is in good condition with an improvement nobody needs takes three-fifths.
They count as votes in favour if, once informed of the decision, they do not express their disagreement to the community secretary within 30 calendar days, by a means that leaves a record. The law excludes this in some specific cases, such as costs that cannot be passed on to those who did not vote in favour.
For improvements, the law says so expressly: levies are payable by whoever is the owner at the time they can be demanded. So if there is approved work and a sale under way, it is worth settling the point in the sale contract.
The Building Code requires wall and ceiling finishes in a car park to have a reaction to fire of B-s1,d0, and floor finishes BFL-s1, when they cover more than 5% of the surface. That is stricter than what it asks for in an entrance hall or an ordinary corridor. The class is given on the product data sheet: you have to ask for it.
Without visiting the building there is no figure: it depends on the square metres of each flight, the height of the ceilings, the state of the walls and whether there are banisters and doors to enamel. We come, measure and deliver the quote broken down by area so that the meeting can decide.
The address, how many floors it has, which areas you want painted and whether it has already been approved at a meeting or you need the quote to take to one. We will prepare it broken down by area, ready to put to the owners.