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Housing Glossary

You will find information here on all topics relating to housing in Barcelona

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Accrued interest

The interest applied as a penalisation when the debtor does not comply with repayment obligations. The amount must be established in the contract.

Active supermortgage

This allows the client to choose their loan's benchmark index (MIBOR at three months, six months or a year) so that payment can benefit from lower interest rates sooner.

Adaptable instalment

Characteristic of UCI superloans that allow the borrower to not pay one instalment a year for the first three years if there are problems due to holidays, extraordinary expenses, etc.

Advanced cancellation fee

A commission arising from the financial risk involved in the advanced cancellation of an operation. The applied commission compensates the financial institution for its financial losses.

AEDE

Direct state aid for paying the deposit on a property.

Affordable housing

Group of social housing or dwellings from social renovation projects that are sold or rented at below-market prices.

Affordable rent

The cost of renting these dwellings is below market prices after being included in operations concerning the rented flat pool, social renovation or social housing promotions.

Amortisation

Payment made to repay a loan.

Amortisation period

The duration of the loan. The contract establishes the date of the first and last payments. The longer the period, the lower the payments are, but the higher the interest. You therefore pay more in the end. The monthly instalment should not exceed 35% of your net income.

API

Estate agent. A qualified professional who acts as an intermediary between the two interested parties to facilitate the signing of a real estate contract, which can be a rental agreement, a sales agreement or another similar contract. They usually charge a percentage of the sales price as compensation or commission.

Applicant

A citizen who makes a registration application to the Barcelona Social Housing Applicants Registry, and who represents the other members of the dwelling unit included in the application.

APR

Annual Equivalent Rate. Effective annual cost of the mortgage in terms of interest, commissions and the repayment period. To compare loans, it is not enough to just look at the lowest APR, you also have to compare the conditions, the repayment period and the distribution of instalment payments.

Arbitri municipal de plusvàlua

Former denomination of the capital gains tax on landed property.

Assessment

The value of a dwelling certified by a specialised assessment company, in accordance with the mortgage market law. This certificate not only indicates the real value of the property, it also serves as a reference for obtaining the necessary financing.

Authorisation

Document in which the owner authorises the tenant to carry out building work in the dwelling's interior.

Close glossary

Housing offices only offer face-to-face assistance by prior appointment, so check out the “Housing calls you” service here to receive the most appropriate personalised assistance. If you also need assistance in energy rights, book an appointment with an energy-advice point (PAE) by clicking here. On the other hand, if you reside in an IMHAB public dwelling you can consult our contact, management and processing channels here.​

FREQUENT ASKED QUESTIONS RENOVATION 2021 (FAQs)

Call 2021

1. Who can apply for the grants?

For buildings with rented flats, only properties that prove the following can receive grants:

  • They have a rental contract covering a minimum term of five years, beginning from the certified date of the end of construction. If applicable, the owners must prove this condition with the end of construction certificate and provide the contracts or agreements in which the rental period is extended without any increase in the rent.
  • Only homes with rental prices below the maximum amount foreseen in the rental prices reference index of the Housing Agency of Catalonia can receive grants.
  • When dealing with horizontal properties, in the cases mentioned in the previous sections, the grant reduction will be applied according to the percentage of participation in the shared expenses corresponding to the affected homes, as stated in the deed, or according to the percentage of participation in the payment of the works that are certified by means of a certificate issued by the president of the community when the percentage is higher than what is stated in the deed.

2.What is competitive concurrence?

It is a subsidy-granting procedure which compares the applications submitted in order to establish an order of priority between them, in accordance with a series of evaluation criteria stipulated in the announcement.

In this way, a score will be assigned for each action comprising the application. Based on the score obtained, the applications for subsidies will be classified in decreasing order, admitting them in this order until exhausting the budgeted endowment of the announcement.

3. In the event of a tie between several applications, what deciding criterion is taken into account?

In the event of a tie in the scores obtained by two or more applications, they will be classified on the basis of the order of entry into the municipal register of the completed file, giving priority to applications submitted online.

4. When can registration applications be submitted?

The deadline for submitting grant applications for this call, which is provided for in Article 17 of the Regulatory Rules, will open the day after the publication of this call in the DOGC and will end after 30 calendar days.

The admission period may be modified according to the budgetary availabilities at a date before or after the established date. The closure of the registration admission period will be carried out by means of a decision of the General Manager of the Barcelona Housing Consortium, which will be published in the DOGC and the BOPB.

The submission of a registration application does not entail any economic right.

5. What actions are subsidisable?

The subsidisable actions correspond to four fields:

  • Structure

​Rehabilitation works on structural pathologies, understood as lesions affecting the solidity and safety of the building. For this announcement, replacement and/or reinforcement works will be considered.

  • Reduction of the building’s energy demand
    • FAÇADES: Rehabilitation and restoration works on façades in accordance with the technical conditions. The possibility of changing the windows is contemplated, provided this possibility is contemplated for the whole façade if the façade is in a good state of repair.
    • ROOFS: Rehabilitation and restoration works on roofs in accordance with the technical conditions.
    • PARTY WALLS: Rehabilitation and restoration works on party walls in accordance with the technical conditions.
    • AIR SHAFTS AND COURTYARDS: Rehabilitation works on air shafts and courtyards.
  • Common installations
    • WATER, GAS, ELECTRICITY AND SANITATION: Rehabilitation and adaptation works on the common installations of sanitation, water, gas and electricity supplies and fire protection equipment. This also includes unification of aerials, reorganisation of air-conditioning units and unification of smoke extraction systems from kitchens to the roof.
    • DIRECT WATER: New community installations of direct sanitary water.
    • ELIMINATION OF OBSOLETE ASBESTOS ELEMENTS: Removal and adaptation works on the support elements in any asbestos elimination works which cannot be included in any other subsidisable action.
    • GREEN ROOFS: Actions which transform 50% of the roof surface into a green roof, excepting skylights and air shafts, in accordance with the technical conditions.
    • INSTALLATION OF SOLAR ENERGY: Actions which entail reduction of energy consumption from non-renewable sources or from the conventional energy grid by means of solar power systems. Thermal capture devices for production of hot water, photovoltaic capture devices for generating electricity and modernisation of obsolete elements.
  • Accessibility
    • LIFTS: Installation of lifts in multi-family residential buildings which do not have them, both inside and outside the buildings. The buildings must have at least a ground floor and three upper floors, regardless of the number of stops.
    • ACCESSIBILITY IMPROVEMENTS: Works to remove architectural barriers and install lifts in multi-family residential buildings with ground floor plus three upper floors, and to increase the number of stops in buildings which already have a lift.
    • STAIRWAYS AND VESTIBULES: Rehabilitation works in vestibules and stairways which may be necessary for the correct conservation of the element.

6. Can conservation and rehabilitation works which do not reduce the building’s current energy demand be subsidised?

They can apply for subsidies provided they comply with the particular conditions and requirements laid down in the announcement for each action.

7. Can subsidies be obtained if there is a rented apartment in the building?

In the case of horizontal properties which contain rented homes, subsidies will only be granted to homes which certify:

  1. That they have at least one rent agreement with a minimum life of five years counted from the date of the final works certificate. In this respect, if applicable, the owners have to certify this condition with the final works certificate and provide any contracts or agreements in which the duration of the rental is extended, with no increase of the rent.
  2. That the price of the rent is below the maximum established in the scale of the Rent Price Reference Index of the Catalan Housing Agency. In this respect, if applicable, the owners have to certify this condition within a maximum of three months counted from the date of the final works certificate and provide the corresponding rent agreement or addendum to the current agreement and a proof of the amount of the last rent receipt.

In the case of owners’ communities, the total of the subsidy will be reduced by the percentage corresponding to the homes assigned to rental which do not fulfil the above points, in accordance with the corresponding percentage of participation in the common expenses as stated in the deed or in accordance with the percentage of participation in the payment of the works, certified by means of a certificate issued by the president of the community when the percentage is higher than that stated in the ownership deed.

In the case of vertical properties, if the rented homes do not fulfil points (a) and (b) above, the subsidy will be refused.

8. Can subsidies be obtained if there is an empty apartment in the building?

In the case of buildings containing empty homes at the moment of submitting the application for registration to this announcement, the grant of the subsidy will be conditional on the inclusion of the said homes into the Barcelona Social Rental Pool for a period of five years. The fulfilment of this condition must be certified at the moment of presenting the final works certificate by means of a certificate issued by the competent department of the Barcelona Municipal Housing and Rehabilitation Institute.

9. Can subsidies be obtained if there is a tourist apartment in the building?

In the case of owners’ communities, the total of the subsidy will be reduced by the percentage corresponding to the homes assigned to tourist use in accordance with the corresponding percentage of participation in the common expenses as set forth in the deed or in accordance with the percentage of participation in the payment of the works, certified by means of a certificate issued by the president of the community when the percentage is higher than that stated in the ownership deed.

In the case of tourist apartments in vertical properties, the totality of the subsidy will be refused.

10. Are commercial and other premises entitled to a subsidy?

The subsidies are addressed to the owner’s community or the vertical property, and therefore a subsidy can be obtained on the basis of the participation of the premises in the community.

The building must comply with the requirements of section 2.1.3 of the announcement, which specifies that in order to apply for the subsidies the building must have 70% of its floor area assigned to habitual residences, excluding the ground floor and the underground surface area. If this figure of 70% is not reached, only the floor area assigned to homes will be taken into account, but the amount of the subsidies is finally deposited in the  bank account of the community, which distributes internally the amounts of the subsidy in accordance with the agreements taken previously and approved by the community on the basis of the entities and coefficients approved for the payment of the works.

11. What subsidy can I obtain for the different types of work?

The following table shows the percentages and the maximum subsidisable amounts for each type of action:

 

12. Do the social cohesion subsidies always cover 100% of the works?

This will depend on the degree of compliance with the economic requirements laid down in section 5.1 of the announcement, which specifies that:

  • The applicant must be the owner or a co-owner of the affected home.
  • This home must be the habitual and permanent residence.
  • The applicant must not have any other home in the city of Barcelona.
  • The maximum income of the family unit must not be more than three times the IRSC, which can be consulted in the current Housing Plan.

The amount of the subsidy will be that complementary to the amount of the individual contribution of the person applying to the owners’ community for the payment of the works, and the coefficient which will be applied to the applicant in the passing-on of any subsidy granted to the community.

13. Where can I find standardised forms?

The standardised forms for the 2021 announcement can be found on the Housing website or that of the Barcelona Housing Consortium.

14. What documentation do I need to apply for registration in the subsidies campaign?

The following documentation must be submitted:

  • Standardised form of the application for registration and technical report (Form 1).

 Accreditation of the applicant

  • DNI, NIE or NIF of the person signing the application.
  • Accreditation of the representation of the entity or person in whose name the application is being made.

Accreditation of the property

  • Owners’ community
    • NIF
    • Certificate of minutes (standardised document)
  • Vertical properties (natural persons)
    • Land registry report
    • DNI, NIF, NIE of the owners
    • Meeting agreement (standardised form)
  • Vertical properties (legal persons)
    • Land Registry report
    • NIF of Company or Owners’ Community
    • Accreditation of representation
    • Constitution of the Owners’ Community
  • Individual homes
    • Land Registry report
    • DNI, NIF, NIE of the owners
    • Appointment of representative (standardised document)
  • Social Cohesion Programme:
    • Land Registry report
    • DNI, NIF, NIE of the owners
    • Certificate of income
    • Certificate of contribution (standardised document)
  • Formal declaration (standardised document)
  • Formal declaration of occupancy (standardised document)

 

Technical documentation

  • Application for planning permission.
  • Company quotation. For quotations over €40,000, 2 additional discarded quotations.
  • Fees quotation. For quotations over €15,000, 2 additional discarded quotations.
  • Report of the Technical Building Inspection (IITE) with certification of submission to the Generalitat.
  • Energy Efficiency Certificate (CEE) with energy classification label.

15. I am drafting the project and I have some technical uncertainties: who can I consult?

A prior appointment can be requested with the technician of the Housing Office of the district where the building or home is located, by calling the citizens’ attention line 010 or via the procedures portal of the Barcelona City Council’s electronic office.

16. When can the works be started?

The works must be executed during the validity of the license or works permit. If this period expires without the completion of the works being notified, the file will be filed. The promoters of the works will have to request the extensions of the work permits in those cases in which the granted term is ending, and before it expires.

17. Must the total amount of the works be declared in the planning permission?

The quotation declared in the technical project which serves to calculate the planning permission tax (ICIO) must coincide with the price of execution and materials of the company contracted to carry out the works. This amount will have a limiting character in the calculation of the subsidies.