When your house is built, we need to obtain all the legal certifications so you can live in it and access the necessary supplies of water, electricity, gas, telecommunications, etc. To do this, a series of documents and certificates must be processed that certify that the construction work has been completed and is prepared at all levels to be able to live in the house.
What process needs to be followed to be able to live in a new home
Documents such as the Construction Completion Certificate, the Record of Receipt, the First Occupancy License, the Certificate of Habitability, the Energy Certificate and the registration of the property before a notary will be necessary. Below we detail the different steps to follow and the requirements to be fulfilled in order to complete the project.
Construction Completion Certificate.
This certifies the completion of the construction work and allows the house to be handed over to the owners. Our project manager, the architect, assumes the responsibility for validating that the house has been built under their management and following the previously planned project. Then, our executive director of the construction work, the technical architect, records the tasks performed with respect to the material used in the construction process and also according to the project presented.
Next, we send this Construction Completion Certificate to the College of Architects of Catalonia. There are a number of requirements that the project must fulfil for the certificate to be approved:
- The work must be finished completely.
- All actual construction sizes must match the sizes stipulated in the project plans.
- The construction logbook must be included in the documents presented (a record of each step carried out during the entire construction process).
- The orders project must be submitted.
- The final plan must be presented with all the modifications made, all the contributions of the different professionals and all the signatures of the construction project managers.
With the Construction Completion Certificate we also request the First Occupancy License and the Certificate of Habitability and we draft the Energy Certificate.
The Energy Certificate and the Certificate of Habitability.
The Energy Certificate is the document that states the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of your home.
The document must show the total annual energy consumption necessary to meet the water, heating, lighting and ventilation requirements of the home under normal conditions. Our architects draw up this certificate once the construction work is finished and present it to the Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN), which issues the energy efficiency label and registers the certificate in the register. The certificate is valid for 15 years.
The Certificate of Habitability is the administrative document that shows that your home is suitable to be used for residence.
It also certifies that your new home meets the technical conditions of habitability according to current regulations. Once the certificate is requested, we can use it to register the house in the Property Registry and also to connect the water, electricity, gas, telecommunications and other services.
Connecting the definitive energy and water services.
Another important procedure that needs to be done once we have the Certificate of Habitability is to convert the temporary water and energy supplies to the definitive supplies. In the case of electricity, you also need the Certificate of Electrical Installation issued by the electrician who did the installation. It is a document that indicates the power that we need to request. With this information we can choose the power company and the plan that best suits your needs.
The chosen power company will install the final electricity meter and will start issuing the corresponding invoices. We need to request water from the water utility of the corresponding village or city, who will ask for the water meter number to make the change from temporary supply to the definitive supply for living.
Finally, it is advisable to change the construction insurance to home insurance. This step is not mandatory, but it is recommended in case of any accident that may occur. However, our chartered architects always have their civil liability insurance, which covers both structural damage to the house (for 10 years) and defects in construction materials (for 3 years).
The process of preparing a property so that it can be inhabited seems complicated and long, which is why FASE Construction Management also accompanies you throughout this final process, making it easy and comfortable, so you can enter and live in your new home with total peace of mind.
