Catalonia to have a quality certificate for real estate properties

Barcelona (ACN).- Catalonia will soon issue quality certificates for real estate in order to offer more legal guarantees to potential buyers, especially foreigners. The Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, in charge of Housing, Lluís Recoder, announced “a quality label for residential real estate” that “will guarantee juridical safety” when buying a house or an apartment in Catalonia. This way, the buyers can be certain that what they are buying fulfils all the quality and town planning regulations. Catalonia’s real estate market, like the rest of Spain, has a great stock of housing units to be sold due to the construction bubble. The only way to absorb this stock is by increasing demand. Recoder defended that operating within a completely safe legal framework, knowing what is being bought and having the juridical guarantees that the property fulfils all the regulations, might increase the demand, especially among those who are in doubt and among foreigners.

In the near future, foreigners buying houses and apartments in Catalonia that obtain this quality certificate will have all the legal guarantees that what they are buying is perfectly in line with all the construction rules and regulations, as well as the town planning legal framework. With this certificate, Recoder said it was offering a solution to “a petition” expressed by many foreign buyers. According to the Minister, foreign buyers are asking for “legal safety, consumer guarantees and guarantees that [the property] fulfils the town planning and construction quality legislation”. The new certificate will strengthen all these aspects and foreign buyers will be more confident about buying real estate in Catalonia. Recoder explained that his department is still working on the initiative’s details but that it should be ready soon. He added that similar labels in other sectors such as agri-food or the environment are working very well.