A tenant carried out work on a rented house without any urban planning license or authorization from the owner and, in the end, it was the landlady who was forced to carry out the demolition. The decision was confirmed by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia and reinforces an essential principle of urban planning law: legal responsibility falls, as a rule, on the owner of the property, even when he was not the one to carry out the works or authorize them to be carried out.
According to Noticias Trabajo, a Spanish website specializing in legal and labor matters, the case dates back to an unlicensed intervention in a house located in Barcelona, which led the municipality to issue an order to restore urban legality. The owner contested the decision, claiming that the house was rented and that she had not carried out the works.
The demolition order came from the city council
According to the same source, the sentence of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, dated April 7, 2025, states that the Ayuntamiento of Barcelona had issued an order to restore urban planning legality upon detecting unauthorized works in the house. The order was addressed to the owner as the registered owner of the property, regardless of who had actually carried out the work.
The landlady filed an appeal, arguing that she could not be held responsible for acts carried out by third parties and that, furthermore, she did not have possession of the house or access to the interior of the house to carry out the demolition. The municipality upheld the decision and the case went to the contentious-administrative court.
First instance ruled in favor of the owner
Initially, the Administrative Litigation Court No. 13 of Barcelona ruled in favor of the owner. The judge understood that the lack of possession of the property constituted a practical obstacle to the execution of the demolition order, considering that it was unreasonable to require the landlady to carry out the works while the property was occupied by the tenant.
Superior Court clarifies who responds urbanistically
When analyzing the case on appeal, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia concluded that the absence of possession does not exempt the owner from his urban responsibilities. According to Noticias Trabajo, the judges recalled that article 122, no. 1, of Decree 64/2014, which regulates the protection of urban legality in Catalonia, establishes that the duty to comply with restoration orders falls on the registered owner of the property, even if he is not the material author of the work.
The court emphasized that, faced with the tenant’s refusal or difficulty in access, the owner should have resorted to appropriate legal means to obtain authorization to enter the property, instead of limiting herself to contesting the administrative order. The tenant’s actions do not eliminate the owner’s obligation and allowing the owner to escape the duty of demolition because she does not have possession would empty the urban legislation of its content, the judges concluded.
Decision still allows appeal
The decision thus confirmed the validity of the demolition order, determining that it is up to the landlady to carry out the necessary work to restore urban legality. Even so, the sentence is not definitive, as it allows for a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court, according to .
And in Portugal?
In Portugal, the principle is similar. According to the Legal Regime for Urbanization and Building (RJUE), the competent administrative bodies, especially municipal councils, have the duty to adopt measures to protect and restore urban legality whenever there are illegal works, and may determine the embargo, correction of works or the demolition and replacement of the land.
Demolition is ordered by the municipality and carried out “on behalf of the offender”, a concept that, in practice, covers the owner and/or whoever promoted the works. Portuguese jurisprudence has come to understand that, before the Administration, the owner is responsible for restoring legality, even if the works were carried out by a tenant without authorization, and it is then up to him to demand compensation from the tenant for the losses caused.
If the tenant prevents access to the property, the landlord can go to court to obtain judicial authorization for entry, without this suspending the obligation to comply with the urban planning order. In short, as in the Spanish case, responsibility before the public authority falls, first and foremost, on the owner, who assumes the burden of restoring the legal situation and only then can discuss internally, in civil matters, who bears the costs.
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