The Catalan Waste Agency has published a basic asbestos certificate template to use while the regulation under Law 8/2026 is still being developed. Here's what it says, what the certificate must include, and who can sign it — including myself, Josep Farré Teixidor, a licensed building surveyor in Barcelona.
On 30 September 2026, the Agència de Residus de Catalunya (ARC), Catalonia's waste agency, made a basic template for the certificate of presence or absence of visible asbestos publicly available. The aim is to provide a reference format while the regulation that must develop Law 8/2026 is still pending publication.
Article 21 of Law 8/2026, of 2 July, on the eradication of asbestos, defines the certificate of presence or absence of asbestos as the specific document reporting on the presence or absence of asbestos in a property. The certificate's exact features and who is competent to issue it must be set by regulation, which has not yet been published.
Article 21.3 of the law states that, in the absence of the regulation, any certificate issued must show at least:
In the absence of the regulation, the ARC's basic template states that it can be issued by any of the professional categories set out in Law 38/1999, of 5 November, on building regulation: architecture, building surveying, engineering, and technical engineering, each according to their competencies. As a licensed building surveyor, that's exactly my professional category, so I can issue this certificate using the new official template.
The certificate must be delivered when a property is sold or rented. If it concerns an individual unit within a building — a flat or an office, for example — the certificate refers only to that unit, not the whole building.
The certificate is required for properties built before 2002 (and for land), since from that date onward the marketing of any asbestos-containing material was banned, under the Order of 7 December 2001, which amended Royal Decree 1406/1989 on restrictions on the marketing and use of certain hazardous substances and preparations. Properties built after that date fall outside this obligation.
The basic template is available to download from the Catalan Waste Agency's own website. You can read the original announcement and download the document using the links below.
See the Catalan Waste Agency's announcement →Book an appointment, I'll visit the property, carry out a visual inspection of the usual elements, and deliver the signed certificate following the new official template within a few days, dealing with you directly with no middlemen.
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