Guides

Checking the building before you take a mandate

The check, in two minutes

Ask for the property's full cadastral reference, the 20-character one. Keep the first 14: they identify the parcel, which is the building. Count how many tourism-register entries begin with those same 14 characters, and you have the building's exposure.

If the seller's paperwork shows only a 14-character reference, you are not looking at their flat - you are looking at the building. It works for this count and it does not work for checking the dwelling's licence, which is a different check.

Two different checks, and it pays not to mix them

The first is a compliance check and it is about the dwelling: does the registration exist, is it current, is it the number that will be published? That is the one that exposes the agency. In Andalusia, Ley 13/2011 penalises advertising tourist services without registration (art. 30.4) and attributes liability to whoever carries out the conduct "even by simple non-observance" (arts. 71.2 and 73.1). In the Valencian Community, Ley 15/2018 directs liability at whoever carries on the activity and leaves the owner subsidiarily liable (art. 88).

The second is about the building and it is descriptive: how many holiday lets are on record around it. It is not a compliance verdict, and no rule penalises a building for holding many. You run it for a commercial reason, not a regulatory one, and confusing the two is the fastest route to an advert that asserts something the register does not say.

Why before you sign and not after

Because the two things that can switch the activity off are decided without you, and almost never appear in the seller's paperwork. The community can ban tourist letting with three-fifths of owners holding three-fifths of the participation quotas, and the licence stays on the register while the vote is stopping it: a registry check will keep saying the property is registered.

And the town hall may have frozen the area. From July 2026 Málaga suspended new registrations for three years across 43 neighbourhoods where tourist housing exceeds 8% of the housing stock. In a zone like that, a lapse is not recoverable. Knowing this before the mandate changes the asking price and the pitch; knowing it afterwards only changes the conversation with the owner.

What to ask for at the viewing

• The 20-character cadastral reference, not the building's
• The tourism registration number exactly as it reads, to check separately
• The minutes of any community meeting that voted on the activity, with the date
• The community statutes, in case they already contained a ban
• In Andalusia, the municipal urban-planning compatibility declaration

Where this check does not exist

Only three regional registers publish a cadastral reference per entry: Andalusia on 94% of the rows in our mirror, the Valencian Community on 99% and Murcia on 72%. Every other Spanish register publishes none at all, so for a mandate in Madrid, Catalonia, the Balearics or the Canaries there is no building count to give.

Write it that way in the file. "Not in the registers we read, as of" is not the same as "there are no others in the building", and that difference is what stops a limit of ours travelling as a claim about the property. Where the check does work, the number is a floor: a row with no reference cannot be placed in any building, and a home let without being registered is not in the register.

What the count does not license you to write

Not in the advert and not in the report to the buyer. The count does not say the building is in breach, does not say the other dwellings are irregular, and says nothing about the licence of the one you are selling. It is a context figure, it is dated, and it is presented as what it is.

The neighbours' details do not travel either. You get the count, not the other registration codes in the building and not their addresses - and the holder, the phone number and the email we do not hold at all: they are dropped at ingest even where the source register publishes them.

Sources

• Ley 13/2011 del turismo de Andalucía, arts. 30.4, 71.2 and 73.1 — advertising without registration, and liability attributed to whoever markets
• Ley 15/2018 de la Comunitat Valenciana, art. 88 — liability on whoever carries on the activity, owner subsidiarily liable
• Ley 49/1960 de Propiedad Horizontal, art. 17.12 — the three-fifths majority
• Málaga PGOU amendment (modificación puntual 28), BOP of 24 July 2026 — the 43 neighbourhoods above 8% of the housing stock; the bulletin keeps no permanent link per notice
• Decree 31/2024, of 29 January (Andalusia) — the urban-planning compatibility declaration and the statement about the statutes
• Catastro online office - cadastral reference lookup
• Registro de Turismo de Andalucía (OpenRTA), open data CC BY 4.0
• Registre de Turisme de la Comunitat Valenciana, GVA open data (CC BY)
• ITREM public register

Verified against the sources above on 2026-09-27. LicenceDesk is operational guidance, not legal advice.

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