What is the “assabentat” or notice of works and when is it enough?

When it is enough and when it is not

Barcelona's ordinance on building works also calls it a type III notification. It is enough for:

• Works inside homes, commercial premises, entrance halls and communal stairwells that do not alter the layout, the structure or the façade. For example, painting, replacing the floor or the tiles, replacing the bathroom fittings or the kitchen units without moving partition walls or renewing the services inside the flat.
• Clearing and tidying gardens and vacant plots without felling trees.

It is not enough in the following cases, which need a more demanding procedure:

• If a partition wall is removed or moved, because the layout changes. A type II notification is needed.
• If the structure or the façade is affected, including balconies and windows. Depending on the works, a type II or type I notification or a permit is needed.
• If the building is listed or protected, even if the works are inside.
• If a new home is created or commercial premises are converted into a home, which require a permit. Nor can the “assabentat” be used to turn a home into a holiday let, which in the 262 municipalities covered by Catalan Decree-Law 3/2023, including Barcelona, requires prior planning permission.

If scaffolding or a skip has to be placed in the street, a permit to occupy the public highway is also needed. Notifying the owners' association (the “comunidad de propietarios”) before carrying out works in the flat is a different matter and must also be done. Outside Barcelona, each town council regulates in its own ordinance how works that do not require a technical design (“proyecto”) are notified, under names such as “comunicado de obras” (notice of works) and sometimes with several levels.

Notifying is not asking for permission

With the “assabentat”, as with any prior notification, the right to carry out the works arises from the notice given by the person notifying them, not from a decision of the council. In a judgment of 20 April 2026, the “Tribunal Supremo”, Spain's Supreme Court, made clear that a prior notification is not a permit or a council act that can be appealed as such. Nor is it turned into a permit by the “toma de conocimiento” (acknowledgement of receipt), the letter in which the council sometimes merely records that it has received the notification. This has several consequences:

• Whoever submits the “assabentat” is responsible for ensuring that the works are of a kind it covers and that they comply with the rules.
• The council can check and inspect the works afterwards. If they were not covered by the “assabentat” or do not comply, it can order them to be stopped, require the procedure that applied or order them to be undone. It can also impose a fine, because carrying out under an “assabentat” works that needed another procedure is the same as doing them without permission.
• A neighbour who feels harmed cannot appeal against the “assabentat” itself. They can ask the council to inspect and then appeal against whatever it decides or against its failure to act.

The judgment points out that the council can carry out checks at any time while the notified activity continues. When what was notified is works that have already been completed, the consolidated text of the Catalan planning act (the “texto refundido de la ley de urbanismo”) gives it six years from their completion to order them to be regularised or undone, except in green spaces, streets and protected non-developable land.