The construction of a building, the execution of works of enhancement, reform or rehabilitation, and its occupation needs the procurement of the obligatory building permit and, when concluded, the occupation permit.

Building Permit

The building permit is the administrative act or decision of the Town council which authorizes to the promoter for the execution of building works, in accordance with the presented project, admitting that the project is in accordance with the local planning and the town-planning legislation, and that the projected building meets the basic requisites of quality.

 Any act of building is subject to the previous procurement of building permit.  The promoter, before the beginning of the works, must deliver copy of the permits to the builder and to the architects.  In any work of building it is, since Monday, 3rd of January 2005, an essential duty to have in the building site a certified copy of the building permit, or, when applicable, the supporting papers of its procurement  by means of the so called “administrative silence”.

 The building permit does not include the necessary planning permits of urban development to provide the plot with the condition of building site –solar- (they must be proceeded in a independent administrative enquiry).

 The building permit is granted without considering the ownership or not of the applicant, and cannot cause detriment to the legitime rights of a third party.

 The granting or the refusal of the building permit must be done with statement of reasons on wich decision is based (indicating the legislation that should justify it).

Unique Decision

 The building permit has the character of unique resolution, and supposes impliedly the authorization of the others neccesary permits (when this permit includes acts, operations or activities that need the procurement of other permits or authorizations, the procedure foreseen for these will be integrated into the same procedure of the building permit).

 In the case of a building which principal use is housing and that complementarily include parking spaces, if they are linked to the housings or to the business premises of the same building, the building permit supposes impliedly the authorization of the permit of activity of the garages (that is to say, it is not applicable in these cases the administrative procedure regulated by the specific legislation of classified activities).

Procedure and Terms

The building permit is granted in compliance of the following rules:

  a. - The application of building permit must be filed together with, at least,  the Basic Project (with copies for each of the departments that should report about technical or juridical aspects of the application) and with any other essential documents to provide with content the decision, as well with the new forms for the building’s activity statistical control. If the town council planning department finds in the filed project diverse curable defects, the request of repair must contain all of them in one unique notification.

  b. - The request of building permit must be decided, as general principle, in the course of two months. (Nevertheless, when there is necessary the procurement of permit of business activity, in turn, for the procurement of the building permit, the term to decide is three months).

c.- The execution of the works with building permit only can begin after filing to the town council the Project of Execution and the Safety and Health Project.

                  Positive Administrative Silence

Passed the term of two month (plus, if applicable, that of the extension as consequence of suspension of the term for deciding when the Town Council  request for repair of rectifiable errors), without being notified the applicant of the decision, there is applicable the legal presumption of positive administrative silence. This concept arises when a public administrative body fails to reply within the stipulated time limit to a complaint lodged against its procedure or a challenge to its decision; it is frequently used as the basis of an appeal through the judicial review procedure of the administration acts; in modern Spanish administrative law, silence means, generally, consent, in the sense that the law establishes the presumption that administrative silence is decisive in favor of the applicant. In the Valencian Planning and Building Laws, and, particularly, in this new Valencia Law about the Quality of the Buildings,  the administrative silence has the effect of presumption of consent to the application.

Finally, the Supplier Companies of urban services (drinkable water, electrical energy, gas, telephony, etc) cannot hire and supply their respective services if the applicant does not prove the building permit.