Renovation, Reform, Recommendations!

Hello All,

My partner and I purchased a big old town house in Blanca, Murcia last year (2019). It's completely habitable but it does need work! So far we are doing OK (we've only been here two weeks!) but of course there are questions and uncertainties with a few things!

So this post is to hopefully get some insight to other peoples experiences in various different things.

- products aren't the same here as we expected, however we did not realise just how different they would be! Multifinish plaster just doesn't seem to exist - we have tried various products and they all seem to be big bags of filler type stuff! - Any suggestions?

- the agency we purchased the house through provided a quote for re-rendering the front of the house, it was a whopping amount. My partner was a plasterer by trade and so would be capable of doing this himself with some scaffolding, apparently not allowed. I don't quite understand why we need an architect for a simple job. - Any recommendations or experiences?

- rubble removal! It's fairly straight forward once you know how I can imagine. We are on a pedestrianised street so a skip is not an option. Large rubble bags are, we can find the actual bags, but we don't know how we would get them collected - Any thoughts?

- Licences - I have read that we need a licence even to simply replace a kitchen or change some tiles. Very bizarre, but we want to do things correctly so I have completed a form for the local Ayuntiamiento, just how detailed do I have to be? We we will removing a 'pod bathroom' that I think was probably built without permission within the house, bricking up a door and creating a window into a door and popping up a stud wall along with creating a kitchen upstairs which would mean running pipes, all things we can do with no issues, would this be major or minor licensing? And would we need an architect, again for work that shouldn't need an architect!

- Reclaim yards - I have found some reclaim yards online, they are in other provinces, second hand seems to not be a popular thing here. I have joined fb groups etc but we do not want plates and televisions, reclaimed wood, windows, tiles etc - Any ideas?

- Solar/Water heating - We will be installing a water heating system on one of our roofs, any recommendations of suppliers/installers in the area? Solar we will also be installing at some point, the panels themselves are very affordable here but we would need someone to install.

- Residency - I am in the process of getting the paperwork together for residency, quotes from gestors were silly money and so we will have to do this ourselves - not an issue, CAB have been very helpful. The only issue is the appointments available, I have been reading that they are difficult to get and even after attending the first appointment, the second at the local police station is then impossible to get, rumour has it that hiring a gestor means you get an appointment pretty sharpish - what is the general amount expected to be paid for their service, I am not looking to pay what was quoted (over 500 euros per person!)

Thanks all, hopefully this will answer some questions for other people as well. We are loving what we are doing...so far! And hope to be far more confident in Spanish soon so we can navigate the new ways!