• Código Técnico de la Edificación (CTE)
  • The Technical Building Code (CTE) is the regulatory framework that establishes the basic quality requirements that buildings must meet in relation to the safety and habitability requirements established in Law 38/1999 of 5 November, on Building Regulations (LOE), that is, for the basic requirements of “structural safety”, “safety in case of fire”, “safety of use”, “hygiene, health and environmental protection”, “protection against noise” and “energy saving and thermal insulation”.
  • The CTE also deals with accessibility as a consequence of Law 51/2003 of 2 December, on equal opportunities, non-discrimination and universal accessibility for people with disabilities (LIONDAU).
  • The CTE is also an instrument for the transposition of European directives. Thus, Directive 2010/31/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 2010 on the energy performance of buildings has been partially transposed into Spanish law through the amendments to the Basic Document DB-HE carried out by orders FOM/1635/2013 of 10 September and FOM/588/2017 of 15 June. For its part, Council Directive 2013/59/EURATOM of 5 December 2013 has been partially transposed by Royal Decree 732/2019 of 20 December, which introduced a new basic health requirement for protection against radon into the CTE.
  • One of the main novelties of the CTE with respect to previous legislation on building in Spain was the performance approach. Thus, the CTE sets out the criteria that buildings must meet but leaves open the way in which these rules must be met. This particularity allows the configuration of a more flexible regulatory environment. In this way, the CTE encourages the development of research, development and innovation (R&D&I) tasks, as well as an increase in the use of new technologies in the construction sector, by integrating more directly the advances achieved thanks to these activities. Thus, the performance approach allows the use of technical innovations without losing sight of the traditional elements of the construction method.
  • This also applies to interventions in existing buildings, whether extensions, reforms or changes of use. In the event of unfeasibility or incompatibility to strictly comply with the regulatory requirements, in this type of interventions the CTE allows a certain flexibility established both at a general and specific level depending on the requirement affected. The level of service finally achieved must be justified, together with the conditions of use and maintenance of the building derived from said adaptation.
• Technical Protocol Established by the Organismo de Control Técnico (OCT)
  • Considering the building will host one or more new floors, it is necessary to carry out a comprehensive study of its load-bearing capacity in order to identify any elements that will be removed, including obsolete construction like storage rooms, old water tanks, precarious or unstable homes and, sometimes, the upper slab and foundation of the roof. This process allows to create a balance between the extracted weight and added weight, giving the required information to calculate the load of the structure, determining the need (or not) to reinforce the structure or original foundation. The study is done through small excavations in strategic points in the foundation, as well as a geotechnical study of the land, the extraction of a section of the load-bearing wall with which a compression test is done in an approved laboratory, thus establishing useful resistance values for the calculation.
  • These steps make up part of a technical protocol established by the Organismo de Control Técnico (OCT), which allows to obtain Decennial Insurance for safeguarding the quality of the construction.
• Informe de Evaluación del Edificio (IEE)
  • Many vertical extension projects have two parts: the refurbishment of the building and its vertical extension. The objective is to achieve a unitary result, both in terms of its adaptation to composition and its environmental behavior. The intervention is global and must meet the demands of the Informe de Evaluación del Edificio (IEE).

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Catalonia Policies

• LLEI 9/1993, de 30 de setembre, del Patrimoni Cultural Català
  • This Law, which has a precedent in the Law of July 3, 1934, on the conservation of the historical, artistic and scientific heritage of Catalonia, must be considered as the framework within which the different sectoral laws that have established the organization of each specific sector. The Law starts from a broad concept of the cultural heritage of Catalonia, which includes movable heritage, immovable heritage and intangible heritage, whether publicly or privately owned, and the manifestations of traditional and popular culture.
  • Three categories of protection are established, common to movable, immovable and intangible assets: cultural assets of national interest, cataloged assets and the rest of assets that are part of the broad concept of cultural heritage defined by article 1. In accordance with the competence recognized by the Constitutional Court in said Judgment 17/1991, the Government of the Generalitat is given the power to declare cultural assets of national interest, the highest protection category, which corresponds to the of the assets of cultural interest defined by the aforementioned Spanish Historical Heritage Law.
  • The Law creates a second sphere of protection of less relevant cultural heritage assets, cataloged assets, the instruments of protection and control of which fall mainly to the municipalities.
  • This figure is called cultural property of local interest. In relation to immovable property of national interest, the Law regulates different forms of protection, depending on the type of property. Real estate of local interest can not only be cataloged within the framework of this Law, but the protection mechanisms regulated by the urban legislation are also mentioned.
  • The Law also establishes the requirement for qualifications and professional qualifications for certain actions and interventions, with the aim of increasing the levels of protection of heritage assets.