We renovate older, resale, inherited and rental apartments in Málaga and along the Costa del Sol. The job starts with what is hidden — wiring, supply pipes, waste and heating — and finishes with layout, kitchen, bathroom, floors and paint. One contractor coordinates every trade, authorised partner installers handle and certify the electrics, and the quote is itemised and free. Photos and the approximate floor area are enough for a first assessment by email or WhatsApp.
Why does an apartment renovation need a different approach from a house?
A flat is part of a building. Its pipes join a shared stack, its electrics start at a meter in a common cupboard, its walls and slabs carry sound to the neighbours, and everything that leaves the job goes down the same stairs or lift the residents use every day. A house renovation is mostly a conversation between you and your builder; an apartment renovation also involves the community of owners — the comunidad de propietarios — and the people living above, below and next door.
That changes the planning. Debris has to be bagged and moved at agreed times, noisy work is concentrated into the hours the community allows, and anything that touches a shared element is flagged before it is touched. We plan these points at the quote stage, not halfway through.
What does an older Costa del Sol apartment usually hide?
Much of the housing stock along the coast was built between the 1960s and the 1990s. Some of it has been updated sensibly; a lot of it has been patched. When we open walls in flats of that age we commonly find some of the following:
- Wiring without an earth on every circuit, undersized cables feeding the kitchen, or a fuse board with no residual-current protection.
- Supply pipes in galvanised steel or old copper, joined in places to newer plastic sections by previous repairs.
- Waste pipes with poor falls, especially where a bathroom was moved without opening the floor properly.
- Heating that is either missing, electric panels on a weak circuit, or radiators fed from a boiler that has not been serviced for years.
None of this is visible at a viewing. It is the reason our guide to services in older apartments exists, and the reason we ask for a photo of the fuse board before anything else.
You have just bought a resale flat. What comes first?
Start with safety and the things that are hard to change later. If the electrics are old, they go first. If pipework is suspect, it is renewed while the floors and walls are open. Only then is it worth choosing tiles, kitchen fronts and paint colours.
The second priority is the layout. Moving a kitchen or knocking two small bedrooms into one changes where services run, so it has to be decided before the first fix. Our page on resale apartment renovation walks through the order we follow, and the guide on what to check before buying is useful if you have not signed yet.
Who carries out and certifies the electrical work?
Electrical installations in Spain must be carried out and certified by an authorised installer under the low-voltage regulations; on our jobs, that is a partner installer. We do not certify electrics ourselves: the electrical work on our jobs is done by authorised partner installers, coordinated by us within the same schedule and quote.
At the end, the installer issues the electrical installation certificate — the certificado de instalación eléctrica or CIE, still widely called the boletín — where the scope of the work requires it. Which cases need one, and what it means when you change your electricity contract, is explained in our guide to the electrical certificate.
Plumbing and heating: what is renewed and why?
We renew supply pipes from the flat’s stopcock onwards, waste runs from each fitting to the connection with the building’s stack, and the heating circuit if there is one. The shared stack itself belongs to the community, so changes there are discussed with the administrator first.
Heating in Costa del Sol flats is often an afterthought. If you want radiators or underfloor heating, the decision has to be taken before floors and walls are closed. The heat source — a boiler or another generator — is connected and commissioned by an authorised partner installer. Details are on our plumbing and heating pages.
Can you change the layout of an apartment?
Usually yes, within limits. Partition walls between rooms can normally be moved; load-bearing walls, pillars and beams cannot be touched without an architect or building engineer assessing them first. In many blocks from the second half of the 20th century the structure is a concrete frame, and internal brick walls are partitions — but that is something to confirm on the drawings or on site, never to assume.
Opening the kitchen to the living room, turning a third bedroom into a dressing room or a second bathroom, or reclaiming a corridor are the most common requests. Our layout guide explains what is involved and when a technician is needed.
How do you work inside an occupied building?
Respectfully and predictably. Before we start we ask the administrator about permitted working hours and any community rules on lift use. We protect the lift and common areas, bag debris on site and remove it in planned runs rather than piling it on the landing. Noisy phases such as chasing walls and breaking tiles are grouped together so the disruption is concentrated rather than spread across the whole job.
The guide to renovating in an apartment block covers this in detail, including what the law says about informing the community before work starts.
How do you quote without knowing what is behind the walls?
Honestly. After the visit we send an itemised quote — presupuesto por partidas — in which every task is a separate line with its unit and quantity. Where something cannot be known until a wall is opened, we say so in the quote and explain how it will be handled. If something unexpected appears, we photograph it, describe the options and add a separate line, and that point does not proceed until you approve it.
We do not publish prices on this site because two flats of the same size can need completely different work. What moves the figure up or down is explained on our sister site presupuestoreforma.eu.
What do we not do?
Being clear about this saves everyone time. We do not draw up architect’s projects, process planning licences on your behalf or issue energy performance certificates; those belong to architects, engineers and certifying technicians. We do not install air-conditioning, build new properties or remove asbestos — if fibre-cement pipes or panels turn up in an old flat, a registered specialist such as retiradauralitamalaga.eu has to deal with them.
If what you need is only an interior strip-out without a renovation afterwards, see demolicioninteriormalaga.eu. For a villa or townhouse rather than a flat, our sister site reformavillascostadelsol.eu is the better starting point.
Can I start the process from abroad?
Yes, the first step works well at a distance. Send photos of every room, the fuse board, the bathroom and the kitchen, plus the approximate square metres, by email or WhatsApp, and we will give you a first assessment. For the final itemised quote we visit the apartment, so someone will need to give us access — you, a neighbour, an agent or a key holder.
