- Plate 02
- Section From the files
- Published 12 Aug 2026
- Reading 9 min
A townhouse advertised at 210 m² where no permit since 1904 records the top floor. We measured it, read three permits, and refused the file.
SM
Section comparing as built, four storeys to plus 11.20 metres, against as permitted, three storeys to plus 8.40 metres. The fourth storey has no consent.
On the permits Built, not consented Drawn from our survey and the 1904, 1962 and 1998 permits.
The file came to us in September, forwarded by an owner who had grown tired of two agencies and eleven months of viewings that went nowhere. A townhouse on a walled lane in the old town, five bedrooms, a garden of eighty-four square metres, and a price that had already come down forty thousand once. Everything about it read well.
The deed was clean. The cadastral extract matched the deed. There were no charges, no inherited co-owners, no community debt. On the paperwork that most buyers and most agents look at, this was a straightforward resale.
The number that did not agree
Our surveyor measured it on a Tuesday. Two hundred and ten square metres of habitable floor, which matched the listing exactly — and that was the first thing that bothered her, because listings and lasers almost never agree to the metre. They agreed because whoever wrote the listing had measured the building, including the top floor.
The permits do not include the top floor. Not the original 1904 licence, not the 1962 rebuilding consent after the flood, not the 1998 works that put in the current bathrooms. Three permits across a hundred and twenty years and none of them records a fourth level.
Permits on file
| Year | What it covers | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 1904 | Original building licence — ground, first, second | Three floors |
| 1962 | Rebuilding consent after the flood — same envelope | Three floors |
| 1998 | Interior works, bathrooms and services | No change of volume |
| — | Any consent for a fourth floor | Not found |
What the owner knew
Nothing, as far as we could establish. He bought the house in 2011 with the attic already there, floored, plastered and connected to the heating. His own deed describes the property by its boundaries rather than its area, which is common in stock of this age and is exactly how an unconsented floor survives four decades and two sales.
The two agencies that listed it before us did not ask. Neither, apparently, did the buyers who viewed it eleven times — or if they did, they were told what the seller believed to be true.
Why it matters at completion
An unconsented floor is not merely a paperwork problem. It cannot be mortgaged as habitable area, so a lender valuing at 154 m² will lend against 154 m². It cannot be insured as living space. And in a regularisation it may need to come out, at the owner's cost, if the municipality decides the volume exceeds what the street allows.
That is the number this piece exists for. Not a technicality, not a disclosure footnote — a third of a million euros of value that a buyer would have paid for and could not have used, financed or insured.
Where it stands now
The owner has applied to the municipality to regularise the fourth floor. It is not a hopeless application: the volume is within what the street permits and the structure passed our engineer without comment. If it is granted, the file comes back with 210 square metres and a permit reference. If it is refused, it comes back at 154.
Either way it comes back with a number we can stand behind, which is the only condition on which it goes on the register at all.
The refusal · 18 Aug 2026
We did not publish it, and we told the owner why in writing.
The file stays refused until the fourth floor is regularised or removed from the advertised area. If it comes back, it comes back at 154 m², not 210 — with the permit reference that makes the difference, or without the floor.
- 56 m² Unconsented area
- €312 k Value at risk
- 11 mo Listed before we saw it
Every figure in this piece comes from documents we hold. The survey, the three permits and the refusal letter are available to any buyer who asks for the file. Request the file
Replies6 on this file
What readers asked.
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BR
Béatrice Roux
Architect · Palermo
The volume test is the part people miss. In Palermo the street's permitted envelope is measured from the cornice line, not the ridge, so an attic inside the roof pitch can pass where a raised floor would not. Worth asking the municipality which one they applied.
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SM
Sofia Marchetti
Verification desk
Correct, and it is why we did not call the application hopeless. The survey puts the fourth floor inside the pitch. We have asked for the cornice reference in writing and will print the answer either way.
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IP
Iván Pérez
Agent · Marbella
Lic. ES-2098
On the register
We had the mirror of this last year: deed short, building long. The lender valued on the deed and the buyer walked. Publishing the refusal is the part nobody else does, and it is the part that would have saved them four months.
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AV
Anneke de Vries
Buyer · Amsterdam
Naive question: if the regularisation is granted later, does the price go back to the 210 m² figure, or does the history of the refusal stay attached to the file?
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SM
Sofia Marchetti
Verification desk
The area changes, the history stays. The file would be republished at 210 m² with the new permit reference, and this piece stays linked from it. We do not delete a refusal because it was later resolved.
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TF
Tomás Ferrer
Regulation desk · AVAVA
On the register
For anyone reading this in Portugal: the equivalent is the área bruta privativa on the caderneta. Same failure mode, different document, and the caderneta is the one that lags.
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