When planning a renovation on the Costa del Sol, non-resident owners face a core decision: hire a single company to manage everything, or coordinate individual trades yourself. Here's an honest comparison.
Managing trades yourself
Potential advantage: Cost saving if you can source good trades directly, understand Spanish, are present locally and have renovation management experience.
Reality for non-resident owners: You need to find, vet and coordinate 4–7 different trades (plumber, electrician, tiler, carpenter, plasterer, painter, AC installer) who need to work in a specific sequence. Scheduling conflicts are common. Trades often don't communicate with each other. Each trade invoices separately. Problems that arise between trades (who is responsible for waterproofing failure under tiles?) are your problem to resolve.
Turnkey renovation with a single contractor
What you get: One quote covering all trades. One person to call. One timeline. One fixed price. One guarantee covering all the work.
What to look for in a turnkey contractor: Own in-house team (not a manager who subcontracts everything), written fixed-price quote, written guarantee of at least 5 years, references and examples of similar projects.
Cost difference: Turnkey typically costs 10–20% more than sourcing trades independently if everything goes perfectly. In practice, self-managed projects frequently run over budget due to unforeseen coordination issues, rework, and scope creep across trades.
The practical case for turnkey for non-resident owners
For owners who aren't based in the Costa del Sol, the practical argument for turnkey is clear: you cannot supervise daily progress, you may not speak Spanish well enough to manage coordination issues, and the time cost of managing a renovation from abroad is significant. The price premium is usually justified by the certainty it provides.