Looking for some advice, myself and wife are looking to purchase a villa in Spain.

The property needs a fair amount of work but the structure is completely fine – built in 2011 it looks like it was almost completed and the owner ran out of cash – it has sat empty for 5 years and the property has been broken into and all the wiring has been ripped out the walls and ceilings.

I was wondering how much it costs in Spain to re-wire a large villa (400Sqm) and re do the ceilings and walls.

I have the funds just wanted a rough idea before a get a few locals builders in for a quote also.

Thanks in advance.

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Please let me know if you need any further help.

Rosemary

I notice that you have put the same details in another thread so will remove that one for you now seeing that you have opened your own thread on the subject.

Rosemary

It all depends if the trunking is still in the walls or not.

It would probably be a few thousand plus the cost of ceilings - another few thousand.

You then need the 'consumer unit', boletin, and connection to the grid - another couple of grand.

If you need a better price, find a local (Spanish) electrician and he can give you an estimate initially and then a quotation later.

"Couple of grand" to connect to the grid? We have looked at a LOT of properties, budget-priced because they aren't on the grid, and have had getting connected quoted on many occasions. The cheapest quote we've ever seen is about €22k. The most expensive was €112k. But they had to put up almost 200m of cable on poles in that case.

We did a cost analysis of the actual costs of connecting to the grid, in the most expensive case. The cable costs about €4 per metre at retail shop prices. Poles to string them on are about €400 each, with all the suspension bits (again at retail shop prices, which the electric company doesn't pay, likely half that). If you figure 6 poles and 200m of cable, that comes to under €3500 in base costs. Then add €1000 for the boxes, interrupters, connections, misc. and it adds up to under €4500. Then add labour. Let's figure it takes 5 men (2 of which don't actually do anything), charging, say €100 per hour each, and it takes say, 12 hours. That's another €6000. So, now were up to €10500. My question is, what does the remaining €100k+ get charged for?

But then, after paying a small fortune just to connect to the grid, you now pay €30-€50 per month in standing charges. Before you even consume 1 watt of power.

I don't know. I tried to reckon it out, but my calculator blew up.

Don't forget you will almost certainly need to get planning permission to do anything to the property, even replacing the walls and ceilings, so your bargain will probably end up costing you more than flattening it and rebuilding, of course this always assumes that the building was legal in the first place.

Just what the OP wanted to hear!

And that alone can be expensive. Around here, planning permission for even the most minor of work starts at about €200. The bigger the project, the more you have to pay them for their "permission". And as long as you're willing to pay, they're happy to grant you the luxury of improving your home in some way.

So many things have improved a lot in Spain in the past decade, but councils are still pretty greedy. Still living in the times of Franco.

At our place we were given a quote of 40,000 euro to connect to the mains. I also couldn't see how they came up with this sum. I asked them and they said virtually "It is what it is".
We ended up with off grid solar, which is nice because I don't have any bills, but we also can't run aircon or any electric heaters.

... whereas for us it was 150€. It just depends how far away the supply is!

May be different in your neighbourhood, different regulations, etc. But I've never heard of anything less than 5 digits even when the nearest supply is right outside the door.

Perhaps you are referring to a supply that's already installed? Just changing the name on the contract?

Some of the cost may be due to having to install a transformer as the nearby supply is high voltage. I too am shocked at the high cost of connection.

A neighbour has "weak" electric. To rectify it he has to pay 4000 euros for the overhead cable from our pylon to his house be renewed.

Doh!

We had no meter and they had to run a cable from the street, to our box and then install a meter.

Changing the name on the contract costs nothing unless you need a new boletin.