The ITE step by step: what it is, deadlines and what gets checked

The letter from the Generalitat arrived on a Tuesday, and by Thursday three different neighbours from the same building had already called me, each with their own version. Was it a fine? Were they being forced to do building works? Could they lose their homes? The reality was far less dramatic and, at the same time, more serious than they thought: the building had turned forty-five, and it simply had to undergo the inspection the law has required since 2015. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Technical Building Inspection —the ITE, or IITE by its Catalan name— produces that mix of fear and confusion precisely because almost nobody knows what it actually is until it's their turn. And when it is, it usually arrives in a hurry, with a residents' association arguing in the dark.

So let's put it in order, with no small print: what it is, who it applies to and from when, what the building engineer actually looks at once they're up on the roof, and what happens afterwards with that certificate everyone names but few know how to read. I'm writing from the other side: I'm the one who signs these reports.

What the ITE is, in one sentence

The ITE is a mandatory, periodic health check on a building's state of repair, carried out by a competent professional, that ends in a report and, from it, in a certificate issued by the authorities. Think of it as the MOT for a building: it isn't about the building being brand new, but about confirming it is safe and setting down in writing what needs fixing and how urgently.

There is no single UK equivalent that covers every block the way the ITE does, so if you know English property from the other side of the Channel, a couple of reference points help. The nearest in spirit is the periodic building-safety regime introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022, under which higher-risk residential blocks in England must hold a Building Assessment Certificate signed off by the Building Safety Regulator — a certificate of fitness by another name. The ITE is broader in reach (it applies to ordinary older blocks, not only tall ones) but narrower in scope (structure and fabric, rather than the full fire-safety case). Different name, familiar logic.

In Catalonia the framework is set by Decree 67/2015, of 5 May, on promoting the duty of conservation, maintenance and rehabilitation of residential buildings. That decree orders three things that go hand in hand: the technical inspection, the building logbook and the certificate of fitness. Behind it stands Law 18/2007 on the right to housing and, deeper still, the repairing obligation that the Civil Code of Catalonia places on all property. It isn't red tape for its own sake: it's the practical form of a duty you already had by the mere fact of being an owner.

Who is obliged, and from when

The general rule is easy to remember: every residential building more than 45 years old must undergo the ITE. The age is counted from the date construction was completed, and from then on the inspection is renewed every ten years.

Decree 67/2015 set out a calendar to bring the existing building stock in gradually, staggered by year of construction. By this point in 2026 that calendar is almost fully rolled out: if your building was completed in 1981 or earlier, the obligation has already reached you or is about to. From there the rule is simple: each building must undergo the inspection in the year it turns 45.

With single-family houses you have to be more precise, because they don't all fall in the same box. Decree 67/2015 leaves detached houses out of its scope — those set 1.5 metres or more back from the public road, public-use areas and neighbouring properties, which is most houses on estates: these don't have to undergo the ITE at all. The ones that are covered are terraced or semi-detached houses, or any that don't keep that 1.5-metre separation. And for those there's a further let-off: as long as they hold a valid habitability certificate (cèdula d'habitabilitat) when they reach the qualifying age, they aren't required to file the ITE until that certificate expires. It's the point that generates the most queries, because the idea that "houses aren't affected" gets around — and the reality has rather more nuance.

What the building engineer checks, exactly

Here it's worth deflating a myth: the ITE is a fundamentally visual inspection. There's no opening-up or intrusive testing as a matter of course. The building engineer walks the building, observes, documents with photographs, and gives a professional judgement on the condition of the common parts. If something needs deeper study, they record it and recommend specific testing — but that is a separate step.

What gets looked at are the major systems the safety of the whole depends on:

• Structure and foundations. Columns, beams, floor slabs, load-bearing walls. We look for cracks that actually mean something, deflections, structural damp, signs of reinforcement corrosion or — where the era and construction type warrant it — of high-alumina cement (the same HAC trouble British readers will remember from 1970s system-built blocks).
• Façades, party walls and anything that could fall. This is, by a distance, the most sensitive chapter: balconies, cantilevers, cornices, cladding, railings. Anything that could fall onto the public street gets special attention, because here we're not talking about aesthetics but about risk to people.
• Roofs and terraces. Waterproofing, junctions, drainage, coping and edge details. The leaks a residents' association lives with as a nuisance are often the first warning of a bigger problem.
• Communal installations. The general state of the water, drainage, gas and electrical networks, and elements such as the lift or ventilation, in whatever is observable and affects safety.
• Entrances, courtyards and communal stairs, as routes of daily use and evacuation.

The result of all this isn't a pass or fail, but a graded diagnosis. And that's the part that really matters to understand.

The deficiency grades: the key to reading the report

The building engineer sorts each defect found into one of four levels. That classification is what later determines which certificate the building obtains and how much of a hurry there is. I explain it to associations exactly like this:

The process, step by step

From start to finish, a well-run ITE has five steps. It isn't complicated; what usually fails is that no one is steering it.

1. Commission and prior documentation

The association —usually through its managing agent— commissions the inspection from a competent professional: an architect, a building engineer (the Spanish arquitecto técnico, closest to a chartered building engineer here) or a building-engineering graduate. Whatever exists is gathered: deeds, plans, old permissions, previous ITEs if there were any, known problems. The better this basis, the sharper the report.

2. Technical site visit

This is the heart of the job, and it doesn't stop at the common parts. I go through the building top to bottom —entrance, staircase, courtyards, roof, plant room, service cupboards— but I also need to get inside the flats: many of the defects that really matter only show from within. Two floors are especially telling. The ground floor, where foundation problems, rising damp and the base of the structure come to the surface; and the top floor under the roof, the first to reveal leaks and the true condition of the roof covering. So access to a representative sample of flats is arranged with the residents, with particular attention to those two floors. A photographic record is made and everything observed is noted.

3. Drafting the report (IITE)

With the visit done, the Technical Building Inspection Report is drafted: description, diagnosis, photographs, classification of deficiencies by grade and, very importantly, the precautionary measures to adopt if any. The report also guides the order and urgency of the repairs.

4. Electronic submission to the Generalitat

The report is uploaded to the portal of the Agència de l'Habitatge de Catalunya (Catalan Housing Agency). This is the step many skip without realising: having the report in a drawer is not having done the ITE. The inspection only counts once the report has been submitted to the authorities.

5. Applying for the certificate of fitness

From the submitted report, the building's certificate of fitness is requested from the Agency. That certificate is the document that proves, to everyone, that the property has met its repairing obligation. And its content depends, once again, on the deficiency grades found.

The certificate of fitness and its deadlines

The certificate is not just a stamp: it states the building's situation and how long it remains valid. Broadly, it works like this:

• Fit. When there are no deficiencies, or only minor ones. The clean scenario, valid for ten years.
• Fit with significant deficiencies. The building is fit, but carries pending repairs and is obliged to undergo periodic technical checks confirming those deficiencies aren't worsening.
• Provisionally fit. When there are serious or very serious deficiencies but the precautionary measures that remove the immediate risk have been taken. It's a "fit with conditions": shorter validity, periodic monitoring and, above all, the obligation to carry out the underlying works within the deadline.
• Not fit. When there are serious or very serious deficiencies and the necessary precautionary measures have not been taken. This is the situation to avoid, because it opens the door to intervention by the authorities.

And after the report, what?

If the ITE finds deficiencies that call for works, the building can't simply sit on its hands. The association must approve a refurbishment programme setting out the works and their deadlines, and under commonhold ownership it is obliged to build up a reserve (sinking) fund to be able to pay for them. In practice, the ITE is often the nudge that finally organises the upkeep a block had been putting off at its meetings for years.

There's a bright side worth keeping in view: the ITE report is also the key to refurbishment grants. The grants —regional, municipal and those from the European Next Generation funds— require the inspection to have been done first. Approached well, the ITE stops being merely an obligation and becomes the lever to carry out, with public money, works that sooner or later would have to be done anyway.

What happens if it isn't done

Ignoring the ITE doesn't make the obligation disappear; it makes it worse. The authorities can serve notice on the owners to carry it out and, if there's no response, step in to have the inspection done at the owners' expense and impose escalating financial penalties until they comply. Breaching the repairing obligation is, moreover, an offence with its own penalty regime.

But, to be honest, the consequence that weighs most is usually not the fine. It's everything else: without an ITE there is no access to subsidies, any sale becomes more complicated —an informed buyer will ask for it— and, if an element in poor condition causes harm to a third party, the association's liability is far more exposed for having failed a duty it knew about. The inspection stops being expensive the day it prevents any one of these three things.

A note on Barcelona and on the IEE

Two professional clarifications. First: in the city of Barcelona the process has its own route and its own refurbishment grant programmes tied to the inspection, so it's worth handling it with that channel in mind. Second: it's worth clearing up a common confusion with the Building Evaluation Report (IEE). The IEE was a figure that Spanish national law (Law 8/2013, now in the 2015 consolidated text) tried to generalise, adding an accessibility and energy-efficiency assessment on top of the conservation inspection. But the Constitutional Court, in judgment 143/2017, made clear that regulating the conservation and evaluation of buildings is a matter for the regions, not the State. So in Catalonia the instrument in force is the ITE under Decree 67/2015: it is the ITE — not a national IEE — that evidences the duty of conservation. If some procedure asks you for an "IEE", in Catalan practice it is covered by the ITE itself, accompanied where relevant by the energy performance certificate and an accessibility assessment.

Jorge Muñiz · Building engineer, member of CATEB (no. 14,822). Technical building inspections, refurbishment and building conservation in Barcelona.