How to Change The Use of a Property

URBANISM

Dec 23

Written By Francisco Javier Muñoz Fuentes

Currently, in a market in which housing prices are increasingly high, the search for alternatives is very frequent, such as the acquisition of a commercial premises to transform it into housing, either for own use, for long-term rental or for rent for tourist purposes. If this is your case, but you do not know the requirements that these places must meet or what the procedure is, we recommend that you stay and read this post, in which you will learn everything you need to know about changes of use.

WHAT USES CAN BE CHANGED?

The most common change of use is the one that transforms a commercial premises into a home, since in general the cost of purchasing the premises added to the cost of the reform is usually cheaper than what it would cost to buy a home with the same characteristics . But this is not the only possible change, since you can also make changes of use from home to commercial premises, from home to office, from garage to commercial premises and vice versa, etc.

In this post we will focus on the explanation of the change of use from commercial premises to housing, as it is the most common. However, the procedure to follow is analogous to other types of changes of use, with some specialties. In any case, we recommend that you contact an architect who will accompany you throughout the process and advise you on your specific case.

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS?

As you may have already imagined, not all commercial premises can be transformed into housing. For the Urban Planning Management to accept the change of use, it has to meet a series of requirements that we will divide into two groups: urban regulations and housing regulations.

Urban regulations

The first step is to check that the commercial premises are on a plot where residential use is allowed (this is generally the case in commercial premises located on the ground floor of a residential building, but not always in those located in office buildings. /commercial). Once this has been verified, it will be necessary to analyze the density of dwellings that the building has to know if it admits one more dwelling or not.

What is the maximum density of houses?

The maximum density is a parameter that we find in the General Urban Planning Plans (PGOU) of each municipality and that regulates the maximum number of houses that can be built on a plot based on the maximum buildable area assigned to it. As an example, the Malaga PGOU establishes that the maximum density of dwellings is the result of dividing the constructed area for residential use (and related uses, excluding commercial premises, parking, offices…) by 70m².

Let us suppose that we want to buy a commercial premises in a building for which residential use is allowed and that has 1,150m² of constructed area for this use and 15 dwellings. If we divide 1,150 / 70, we obtain that a maximum of 16.42 homes is allowed for that building, so that, as far as urban regulations are concerned, if it is possible to build one more home.

Housing regulations

Once we know that, urbanistically, the change of use is allowed; We must analyze the shape and characteristics of the commercial premises to ensure that, once it has been transformed into a home, it can meet the minimum conditions of habitability. The following aspects must be taken into account (among others):

Free height: Each PGOU establishes a minimum free height that the dwellings must have (both structural and free height between floor and finished ceiling).
Lighting and ventilation: It must be taken into account that every habitable room must have direct lighting and ventilation either from the outside or through a patio that meets the minimum conditions established in each municipality.
Minimum stays: As a minimum there must be a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom and a toilet. These rooms can be distributed in a single loft-type space or in a more traditional distribution with divided rooms. In any case, they must comply with the minimum surfaces for each room that are established in the corresponding PGOU.

We recommend that, prior to the purchase of the premises, you contact an architect, since he will be able to analyze the different possibilities of future distribution of the house, so that you can decide if he is interested in buying it or not.

TELL US WHAT YOU NEED

DO I NEED THE APPROVAL OF THE COMMUNITY OF OWNERS?

The obligatory nature of this approval will depend on what the community's own statutes provide, so they will have to be verified before acquiring a premises in view of its transformation into housing. In general (and as indicated by jurisprudence) we can say that the owners cannot be deprived of the use of their right to ownership of the property as they consider more appropriate unless this use is legally prohibited or the change destination appears expressly limited by the regime of said horizontal property, its constructive title or its statutory regulation.

That is, when the community statutes establish that either changes of use are prohibited, or they are limited to prior approval by the community, if an agreement from the community of owners will be necessary to make the change of use.

Ok, my place meets all the requirements… Now, what is the procedure?

The procedure begins by requesting an occupation or use license from the City Council of the town where your premises are located, together with an execution project in which the works to be carried out are perfectly defined and it is justified that the house complies with all the applicable regulations.

Once the license has been obtained, and the works carried out, a responsible declaration must be submitted in which it is declared that the works have been carried out in accordance with what is indicated in the building license, enabling this declaration to occupy the finished house (without prejudice to the subsequent Administration can inspect that what is actually declared conforms to urban legality).

After the presentation of this responsible declaration, it will be necessary to go to the Notary to grant a deed of change of use of the premises, so that the property is recorded as a home instead of as a commercial premises. Finally, we can go to the Cadastre to process the alteration of the cadastral data for the same purpose.

As you can see, although the change of use procedure is relatively simple, it is necessary to take into account many aspects of different regulations prior to carrying out the project to know that this change can actually be carried out, so you should contact with an architect, who will be in charge of carrying out all these procedures for you.

At Munoz Barcia Arquitectos we have extensive experience in projects of this type, so if you have any questions we encourage you to contact us to resolve any questions without any kind of commitment.

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