Uralita and asbestos removal in the province of Málaga

What is uralita, and why does it matter if you own property in Spain?

In Spain, «uralita» is the everyday word for fibre-cement – grey corrugated sheets, tanks and pipes made of cement reinforced with fibres. Uralita was the name of a Spanish manufacturer, and the brand became the generic term, much as «Hoover» did in Britain. The products that matter are the older ones, made as asbestos cement (fibrocemento con amianto), in which asbestos fibres were mixed into the cement.

You will find it on the roofs of country houses, garages, carports and porches, as water tanks on flat roofs, as downpipes and chimney flues on façades, as buried water mains on rural plots and as the roof of almost every older farm building or small warehouse. Many buyers only discover it when a surveyor, a builder or a neighbour points it out.

The concern is not the grey sheet sitting quietly on a roof; it is the fibres released when the material is broken, cut, drilled, sanded, pressure-washed or simply left to crumble. That is why the removal is regulated and why it is not a weekend job. If you are not sure what you are looking at, our guide on how to recognise uralita shows the typical shapes, markings and places to check – without touching anything.

Who is allowed to remove asbestos in Spain?

Only a company registered in the RERA (Registro de Empresas con Riesgo por Amianto) may demolish or remove materials that contain asbestos, and it must do so under a work plan approved by the labour authority of the province where the job takes place. The rules are set by Real Decreto 847/2026, in force since late October 2026, which replaced Real Decreto 396/2006 – so older articles quoting the 2006 decree are now out of date.

In Andalusia the RERA is kept by the Junta de Andalucía, and work plans for a job in Málaga are approved by the provincial labour authority (the Delegación Territorial of the regional labour department). The start of the work is notified in advance. A general builder, a handyman or a gardener cannot legally take your uralita roof down, however careful they promise to be.

Our guides on the RERA register and on the asbestos work plan and who approves it go into detail, and the post on red flags with contractors who lack RERA registration lists the warning signs we hear about most often.

How the job is organised: one contact, two specialist phases

Most uralita jobs are not only about asbestos. A garage roof comes off and the garage itself has to go; a water tank is removed and the concrete plinth under it must be broken out; a warehouse loses its roof and then its walls. We split the work so that each part is done by the right people and you deal with a single contact throughout.

1. First look. You send photos, the address and a rough idea of sizes; we tell you which elements are likely asbestos cement and what else will need demolishing.
2. Asbestos phase. The RERA-registered subcontractor visits, prepares its work plan, files it with the labour authority and, once it can start, removes the asbestos-containing material, wraps it and takes it away as hazardous waste.
3. Demolition phase. Only when the asbestos is out do we demolish what remains – walls, slabs, structures, outbuildings – by hand, with machinery or combining both.
4. Waste and clean-up. The remaining rubble is sorted on site, loaded and taken to an authorised facility, and you receive the delivery receipts.

When two companies work on the same site, Spanish health and safety rules (Real Decreto 1627/1997) expect the promotor – usually you, as owner – to appoint a safety coordinator during the works. In practice your architect or technical adviser sorts this out, and we fit our dates around theirs and the subcontractor's.

What we remove: roofs, pipes, tanks, warehouses and shared buildings

The same material appears in very different situations, so each type of job has its own page with the details that matter for it:

If the property is going to be demolished completely afterwards, the house or villa itself is handled through our sister site Demoliciones Málaga, with the asbestos phase scheduled first.

Managing an asbestos job while you live abroad

A large share of the uralita on the Costa del Sol and inland sits on properties whose owners live in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia, Germany or the Netherlands. You do not need to fly over for every step. What usually works is a simple routine agreed at the start:

• You write to us in English; we talk to the subcontractor, the neighbours and, if needed, the town hall staff in Spanish.
• Access is arranged once – a key holder, a gardener, a property manager or a lockbox – and we tell you in advance when anyone will be on site.
• You get photos by WhatsApp or e-mail before, during and after each phase, so you can see the roof come off and the site left clean.
• Documents such as the delivery receipts for the waste are sent to you by e-mail, ready for your files or your technician.

For municipal and tax paperwork connected with the works, the owner identifies with their DNI, NIE or NIF. If the whole property is being knocked down rather than just stripped of its uralita, the page on managing a demolition from abroad explains the wider process.

Buying an older property with uralita: what to look at before you sign

Fibre-cement is one of the most common surprises in older Spanish property, especially fincas, cortijos and villas built several decades ago. It is rarely a reason to walk away, but it should be part of your sums and your timeline. Before you commit, it helps to:

• walk round the outside and list every grey corrugated roof, tank, flue and downpipe you can see – on the house and on any outbuildings;
• check the roof of the garage, the pump house and the old water deposit, which are often forgotten;
• ask the seller whether any roof has been replaced and whether there is paperwork for it;
• photograph each element from a safe distance and send the photos to a professional before the price is final.

Our post on what buyers wish they had known about uralita collects the questions people ask most after completion, and whether it is worth removing uralita that is still in good condition helps you decide whether to act now or plan it for later.

Permits, the town hall and the community of owners

Before any work starts, the owner or their technician checks with the town hall which procedure applies – a declaración responsable or a licencia – and, if a skip or scaffold will stand in the street, an authorisation to occupy the public road is needed. Under Andalusian planning law, since Decreto-ley 3/2024 total or partial demolition is generally carried out by declaración responsable, except for protected buildings, buildings in a protected setting or in archaeological zones, which still need a licencia. Each ayuntamiento sets the exact documents in its own ordinance.

We are the contractor: we do not draft projects, sign technical reports or obtain licences. We work with the documentation your técnico prepares, tell you what the town hall usually asks for and coordinate dates with your architect.

In an apartment block the community of owners has its own say. Under the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, works affecting common elements such as the roof or the shared tanks need an agreement of the owners' meeting. Our guide on asbestos in a community of owners explains how that decision is usually prepared. Town halls, for their part, had to draw up a census of installations and sites with asbestos under Ley 7/2022; the guide on municipal asbestos inventories explains what that census means for a private owner – and what it does not.

Where does the asbestos waste go?

Asbestos cement is hazardous waste, listed as 17 06 05* (construction materials containing asbestos). Ley 7/2022 requires hazardous substances, and asbestos in particular, to be handled safely and never mixed with other waste. The RERA-registered company wraps and labels the material and delivers it to an authorised waste manager separately from everything else on site.

The rest of the demolition waste follows the general sorting rules: wood, mineral fractions such as concrete, bricks and tiles, metals, glass, plastic and plaster are separated on site, and selective demolition has been compulsory since 1 January 2024. The town hall may also require a deposit or guarantee for construction waste, returned once delivery to an authorised manager is proven – which is exactly what the delivery receipts we hand over are for. The full picture is in our guide on asbestos waste disposal in Spain; heavy concrete and brick rubble from larger jobs is covered by our sister site's page on rubble removal and skips.

What affects the price of removing uralita?

We do not publish prices, because two jobs that look alike in a photo can be very different on site. The figure depends on a handful of factors you can already think about:

• the surface of roof sheets or the number of tanks, pipes and flues;
• height and access – a low garage roof beside the drive or a tank on a sixth-floor roof;
• the condition of the material, since broken or crumbling sheets need more preparation;
• what else must be demolished once the asbestos is gone, and how much rubble it leaves;
• access for vehicles, distance and whether the street can take a skip;
• whether a new roof or cover has to go on straight away.

The post on what affects the cost of removing an uralita roof goes through each factor, and our sister site explains asbestos removal costs and offers a demolition cost calculator for a first, rounded idea.

After removal: a new roof, or a clear site

Once the uralita is gone, you face one of two situations. Either the building stays and needs a new roof, or the structure underneath is coming down as well. In the first case the roof should be replaced quickly so the building is not left open; our guide on replacing an uralita roof compares the usual options – sandwich panels, metal sheet, tiles on a new deck – and what to agree with your builder in advance.

In the second case we carry on with the demolition ourselves and leave the ground clear of rubble. Where an old pool, terrace or garden wall also has to go, our sister site for terraces and outbuildings covers that work.

Where we work in the province of Málaga

We cover the whole province of Málaga: the Costa del Sol from Manilva to Torremolinos, the city of Málaga, the Axarquía, the Valle del Guadalhorce, the Antequera area, the Serranía de Ronda and the Sierra de las Nieves. Coastal jobs tend to be villa roofs, garages and community tanks; inland, fibre-cement is typical on farm buildings, old water deposits and buried pipes on large plots.

Our areas page describes the typical situations in each district, for example on the western Costa del Sol or in La Axarquía. Wherever the property is, the first step is the same: send us photos through the contact page.