A community in Corralejo voted its façade works in March, the architect delivered the project in April, and in October the file is still waiting for the town hall's technical report. The law says a licence is decided in three months; the Act's own preamble calls the town halls' delay the defect it sets out to neutralise, and names the technical report as its first cause: la demora en la emisión de dicho informe técnico el motivo más relevante de retraso en la tramitación de solicitudes de licencia, the delay in issuing that report is the most relevant cause of delay in processing licence applications. Since 15 August 2026 the Canary Islands have a tool for exactly that wait: the community may pay a professional college or an accredited private entity to write the technical report itself, file it with the application, and the municipal technician no longer has to write one on the points that report certifies. This note explains what Ley 7/2026 lets a community do, what it costs, what it does not change, who answers if the report is wrong, and which Fuerteventura works it applies to at all.
A report the applicant brings instead of waiting for one
When a community applies for a works licence, the town hall must collect two reports before it decides, a technical one and a legal one, in that order. The technical report checks the project against five points: the planning and environmental rules, the qualification of the professional who drew it, the formal content of the project including the college stamp where one is required, the sectoral technical rules the licence must verify, and accessibility and habitability where they apply (Ley 4/2017, article 342.3, in the wording Ley 7/2026 gave it). That report is where files wait: it needs a qualified technician on the municipal staff, and the preamble blames the delay on the councils' own lack of means.
The Act lets a third party write it. An informe técnico de conformidad emitido en régimen de colaboración is a report that, filed in the procedure, constate la adecuación del proyecto examinado en relación con todos, algunos o alguno de los extremos señalados en dicho precepto legal, confirms that the project examined complies with all, some or one of the points the Act lists, and that has been issued by one of three kinds of body: a competent professional college, a municipal in-house body, or an accredited private entity called an entidad urbanística de colaboración (Ley 7/2026, article 1). The applicant may use two of the three: toda persona solicitante de una licencia urbanística podrá voluntariamente acompañar su solicitud de un informe técnico sobre el proyecto presentado, any applicant for a works licence may voluntarily attach to the application a technical report on the project, obtained directly from the college or from a collaborating entity (article 5). The town hall may also commission such reports itself, from any of the three, when the applicant brought none or brought a partial one (article 6). The regime applies to licence applications, not to prior communications: for a comunicación previa the council may commission a verification report, but there is nothing for the applicant to attach (article 10).
The idea is older than the Act. The Canary Government wrote it into Decreto ley 3/2025 in April 2025, which the Act of 31 July 2026 replaced after its passage through Parliament as a bill; two earlier attempts, of 2021 and 2024, were repealed by that decree. The Act was published in the Boletín Oficial de Canarias on 14 August 2026 and entered into force the next day; on 6 October the BOE's consolidated text of Ley 4/2017 still showed the April 2025 wording of article 342, so the Act's own text in the BOC is the one to read.
Who may write it
A professional college may issue the report when it represents the profession qualified to draw the project, which for building works means, in practice, the architects' or the technical architects' college, depending on who may draw the project (article 2). A private entity needs more: a corporate purpose that includes this control work, no bar on contracting with the public sector, accreditation by ENAC under the UNE-EN-ISO/IEC 17020 standard as a type A body, at least one professional with ten years' proven experience in drafting and directing building projects and planning instruments, civil liability insurance of cuantía mínima de 1.000.000 de euros, a minimum of one million euros, and a prior communication filed with the Canary Government's planning department (article 4). The communication itself is the title to act; the department enters the entity in a register whose entry is declaratory, and an entity that has filed and is not yet registered may act if it proves the requirements to the town hall. A certificate of registration is enough proof before any council on the islands.
Whoever writes the report must do so con imparcialidad, confidencialidad e independencia, with impartiality, confidentiality and independence; the signatory must hold the same qualification the project needed, and the report must declare that nobody involved is subject to a cause of abstention or recusal under the State's public-sector rules. That the project's author belongs to the same college is expressly not such a cause (article 1.2). A report that omits, falsifies or alters essential content is a serious planning infringement for whoever issued it, as is signing one while subject to a cause of abstention (Ley 4/2017, article 372.3, letters h and j, as the Act rewrote them).
What it costs, and what it does not replace
The community pays. The cost of a report the applicant commissions será asumido por estas, nunca por la Administración urbanística actuante, is borne by the applicant and never by the town hall, at the tariff the college or entity approves, and that tariff, IGIC excluded, no podrán exceder de un importe entre el 0,5% y el 3% del presupuesto de ejecución material del proyecto objeto de informe en función de su grado de complejidad, may not exceed between 0.5 and 3 per cent of the project's material budget according to its complexity (article 8.2). For a façade project with a material budget of 180,000 euros that is a ceiling between 900 and 5,400 euros before IGIC, and the Canary Government may change the percentages by agreement. The decree of April 2025 had capped the same tariff differently, at an amount equivalente al de la tasa que correspondiera aplicar por la tramitación de la licencia urbanística, equal to the municipal fee for processing the licence; the Act replaced that yardstick with the percentage of the budget. The report does not replace the licence fee: its use no afecta al régimen general de exigibilidad de tasas por el otorgamiento de licencias, does not affect the fees payable for the licence (article 8.3), nor the construction tax, which is due on any works that need a licence whether or not the licence was obtained (Real Decreto Legislativo 2/2004, article 100).
What the report buys is precise. On the points it certifies, it Excluirán la preceptividad del informe técnico municipal, removes the need for the municipal technical report, and it needs no later ratification by the council's own staff on those points (article 7.2). On the points it does not cover, or covers unfavourably, it has no effect at all, and the council's technician must still report on them (articles 7.2 and 7.3). It remains an opinion: the reports Serán tenidos en cuenta en la resolución de los procedimientos, en cuanto informes no vinculantes, are taken into account as non-binding reports, and the council's own services may still, on a reasoned request from the body that decides, report on the certified points too, or ask the issuer to correct or complete the report. The legal report never leaves the town hall: it en todo caso será emitido por los servicios propios de la Administración urbanística actuante, is in every case issued by the council's own services, and where the two reports disagree on the planning rules the municipal secretary settles the difference (Ley 4/2017, article 342.3, letters b and c). A report must follow the instructions, interpretive criteria and technical protocols the town hall has published on its website, so the first thing to ask the issuer is whether it has read your council's.
The three months, and who answers if the report is wrong
The deadline does not move. The town hall must decide and notify es de tres meses contados desde la presentación de la solicitud en cualquiera de los registros municipales, is three months counted from the day the application enters any municipal register, and an ordinance may shorten that period but never lengthen it (Ley 4/2017, article 343). What the report changes is what the council has left to do inside those months. When the months pass without a decision, the silence is a refusal for building works in the sense of the State's land Act, new buildings and extensions among them, and a licence for the rest unless the project is manifestly against the planning in force (articles 344 and 345); the buyer's side of those rules, with the four-year clock and the papers a purchaser must see, is in the note by our colleagues at Olga Caballero on building licences and the cédula de habitabilidad in the Canaries.
Responsibility follows the choice. Defects in a report the community filed se considerarán imputables a la persona o entidad promotora que los haya aportado, are attributed to the promoter who filed it, without prejudice to what may be claimed from the entity or the professionals who signed it (Ley 7/2026, article 9.4). Where a licence is annulled for defects a report missed, or a late report let the deadline lapse, the applicant may ask the council to say who was responsible, a request that interrupts the limitation period of a liability claim, and a council that pays may recover from those responsible (article 9.1 and 9.2). In plain terms: a community that commissions a report should commission it from a body whose insurance and accreditation it has seen, and keep the engagement letter with the community's papers.
A community that applied before 15 August is not left out. The regime applies to procedures already under way, and in those the applicant podrán aportar, en una fase posterior a la solicitud de licencia, los informes técnicos, may file the reports at a later stage of the procedure, unless the municipal report, or a commissioned one, has already been issued; the Act gives the applicant the right to ask where the file stands first (transitional provision, paragraph 2).
The town hall's veto
A council may refuse the whole mechanism. By a decision of the full council it may rechazar la posibilidad de que en su ámbito urbanístico de actuación se puedan aportar informes técnicos emitidos en régimen de colaboración a instancia directa del interesado, reject the filing of collaboration reports at the applicant's own initiative within its territory, in which case the municipal reports stay compulsory for every procedure begun after the date of that decision, while the council keeps the power to commission such reports itself (article 5.4). On 6 October 2026 we found no such decision among what Puerto del Rosario, La Oliva, Antigua, Betancuria, Pájara and Tuineje publish online; a decision of this kind is a plenary act, not an ordinance, and the right question to the town hall before paying for a report is whether its plenary has adopted one and whether it has signed an agreement with a college, because a council that has done the second will send the file to the college on its own.
Which community works this reaches
The report serves a licence application, so it matters only for the works that need a licence. In the Canaries, conservation, restoration, repair and rehabilitation works on a building that is not listed and that add no volume or floor area need a prior communication, not a licence, and so do exterior works that are not a general change of the façade (Ley 4/2017, article 332.1); the map of which community work goes which way, scaffolding included, is in our note on re-waterproofing the roof. A licence is the route for extensions of any kind, for a general modification of the façade or the glazing of terraces through a joint façade project, for any intervention on a listed or catalogued building, and for scaffolding, cranes or props that rest on the carriageway or leave less than 1.20 metres of free pavement (article 330.1, letters f, i and p). A new lift shaft built outside the façade, a floor added on the roof, a protected building's restoration: those are the community files where months are lost and where a conformity report earns its fee. A lift inside the existing stairwell, with no new volume, is usually a prior communication, and the majorities and the cost caps for it are in our note on accessibility works the community must pay for. Works ordered after a building inspection are the other common case; what the inspection is and what it triggers is in our note on the building inspection in Fuerteventura.
Once the licence is granted, expressly or by silence, the works may not simply start: the community must notify the town hall con al menos diez días de antelación a la fecha proyectada para dicho inicio, at least ten days before the planned start, attaching the execution project when the licence was granted on a basic one, and no further title is needed; if the council's technicians do not come within those days to mark alignments and levels, the promoter, the site director and the builder may sign the setting-out record and begin (Ley 4/2017, article 346, as the Act rewrote it).
What we do, and what we do not
We prepare the community's side of a licence file: the quotes compared line by line, the vote prepared with clear documentation, the project fees and the licence costs in the budget the owners approve, and the works supervised on site once they start; where the works fit an open subsidy line, we prepare and submit the file. We are not architects and we do not write projects or conformity reports; those belong to the professional who draws the project and to the college or entity the community engages. What we add is that the paperwork is ours, not the president's: the file followed from the vote to the handover, every stage documented for every owner. See our works and grants service, or ask for a quote.
Common questions
Does a conformity report guarantee the licence?
No. It replaces the municipal technical report on the points it certifies and is taken into account as a non-binding opinion; the legal report stays with the town hall, which still decides, and still within three months. What it removes is the wait for a municipal technician.
Who pays for it, the community or the town hall?
The community, when the community commissions it: at the college's or entity's tariff, capped between 0.5 and 3 per cent of the project's material budget plus IGIC, on top of the licence fee and the construction tax. When the town hall commissions the report under its own agreement, the town hall pays.
Can our town hall refuse to accept it?
Yes, by a decision of its full council, which then applies to procedures begun after that date. On 6 October 2026 we found none among what the six Fuerteventura councils publish online; ask the town hall before paying for a report, and ask whether it has signed with a college.
Our application has been pending since spring. Can we still add a report?
Yes, if the municipal technical report has not been issued yet: the Act lets an applicant in a pending procedure file the report at a later stage, and gives the right to ask where the file stands first.
Does it apply to a prior communication for repairs?
No. The report is for licence applications. Repairs, waterproofing and most interior works on an unlisted building go by prior communication, which the community files and starts on without waiting for a report; the town hall may verify the communication afterwards with a report of its own.
