Flat renovation: permits, neighbours and house rules
The Abimeister team · Updated · 3 min read
Most flat renovations need no permit at all. But three things do — and those three are exactly what people most often do before asking. This overview does not replace your municipality's answer, but it tells you when to ask for one.
What needs no permit
Finishes — painting, wallpapering, changing floor coverings, tiling — need neither permit nor notice. The same goes for replacing furniture, sanitaryware and internal doors in the same positions.
Electrical and plumbing work inside the flat needs no building permit, but it must be done by a competent trade, and the test report is worth keeping. It is the document asked for in insurance claims and when selling.
What needs a permit or a design
Touching a load-bearing wall — even a small opening — requires a structural design and a building notice or permit. A load-bearing wall holds up that part of the whole building; opening it without a calculation is not risky, it is prohibited.
Moving wet rooms — relocating a bathroom or WC — affects tanking and drainage and normally needs approval. So does altering ventilation, which affects an entire riser.
Changing the facade, including replacing a window with a different pattern or glazing a balcony, normally needs an association decision and often municipal approval, particularly in a heritage area.
- Opening a load-bearing wall: design + building notice/permit
- Relocating a bathroom or WC: approval required
- Altering a ventilation riser: not without a design
- Changing the facade or balcony: association decision
- Altering the heating system: association, often a design
Neighbours and house rules
The building's house rules set when noisy work is allowed. Typically that is weekdays 9–18 or 8–20, with weekends restricted or excluded. Check your building's rules before the first complaint, not after.
The simplest way to avoid conflict is a notice in the stairwell: what is being done, how long it will take and one phone number. It costs one sheet of paper and settles most problems before they start.
The documents worth keeping
When the work is finished the paperwork feels irrelevant, but two moments make it matter: an insurance claim and selling the flat. In both cases you are asked for exactly the documents nobody thought to keep.
The single most important one is the electrical test report. Without it the insurer is entitled to ask who did the work and whether they were allowed to; with it, the answer is on one sheet. The same applies to plumbing and tanking — there the report's equivalent is photographs taken before the tile went on.
Keep them in one folder with the invoices. A digital folder in your email is entirely adequate; what matters is that it can still be found in five years, when a buyer's conveyancer asks when the bathroom was done.
- The electrical test report with the electrician's certificate number
- Photographs of the tanking and pipework before they were covered
- Invoices with the itemised work and the guarantee terms
- Association or municipal approvals, where any were needed
- Product documents, especially tile and flooring batch numbers
If you are not sure whether a wall is load-bearing, that is not a question to settle by knocking on it. Get the building's drawings, or have it looked at.