Buying a village house: stone walls, party walls and old roofs

What a village house is

In almost every town in Mallorca the old centre is made of terraced houses built straight onto the street. Locals call them cases de poble, village houses. The plot is usually narrow and deep, with rooms on two or three floors at the front and a patio or small garden behind. The house shares its side walls with the neighbours on each side.

Most were built long before modern building rules. Walls are thick and carry the weight of the floors and roof. Floors and roofs rest on timber beams. Many houses were extended or altered several times, often without plans. None of this is a reason to walk away, but it means the building needs a closer look than a modern flat.

Stone walls and damp

Older walls are usually rough local stone bedded in lime mortar, sometimes faced with blocks of marès, the island’s soft, porous sandstone. Marès is easy to cut, which is why it was used so widely, but it is weak in compression and wears away when it stays damp or is exposed to salt.

The commonest problem is moisture. Stone walls sit directly on the ground and draw water up from below. Lime plaster lets that water dry out. Cement render and plastic paints, added in many later renovations, trap it, so salts and damp patches appear at the foot of the walls.

• Crumbling plaster, white salt deposits or a musty smell in ground-floor rooms.
• Cracks that run diagonally from the corners of windows and doors, or that are wider at the top.
• Walls that bulge or lean, especially at the back of the house.
• Recent fresh paint on a single wall, which can hide damp.

Party walls: what you share with the neighbours

A wall between two houses is normally a paret mitgera, a party wall. Spain’s Civil Code presumes that a wall dividing two adjoining buildings is shared up to the point where both are the same height (article 572), unless a title deed or an outward sign says otherwise. Windows in the wall, for example, suggest it belongs to the house they open from (article 573).

Each owner can use a shared wall in proportion to their right, for example by resting beams in it up to half its thickness, but needs the neighbour’s consent for new work. Without it, experts set the conditions (article 579). In practice this matters in three ways.

• Your neighbour’s beams, chimneys or water may run into the same wall, and damp or movement on their side can show up on yours.
• Structural work on a party wall, such as opening it up or adding a floor, affects the house next door and needs agreement.
• Plot lines in old centres are often unclear. The built area in the registry, the cadastre and on the ground may not match.

Roofs, beams and termites

The traditional roof is pitched and covered in curved clay tiles laid over cane matting or boards on timber beams. Some houses have a flat roof terrace instead. Tiles slip and crack, and water that gets in rots the beam ends where they sit in the wall. Many roofs were later rebuilt with concrete joists, so a single house can mix several systems.

Wood-boring insects are a real risk. In October 2025 Artà town hall reported termites in a house in the town after part of a ceiling collapsed, and advised residents to have timber structures inspected. Look for soft or hollow-sounding beams, sagging ceilings, fine dust and damaged door frames.

Catalogued buildings and old centres

Balearic heritage law (Law 12/1998) protects the most important buildings as Béns d’Interès Cultural and a wider group as catalogued buildings. On top of that, each town hall keeps a heritage catalogue as part of its planning rules, often covering whole streets of the old centre. A catalogued village house can usually be lived in and renovated, but the façade, roof shape, materials and colours may be fixed, and some interior work may be limited.

Checks worth asking for

1. 1

   A building survey

   Ask an architect or building surveyor to look at walls, roof, beams, damp and the services. Ask them to lift a roof tile or two and check beam ends where they can.

2. 2

   Paperwork against reality

   Your lawyer compares the registry, the cadastre and what is actually built, and checks that past extensions and roof terraces had licences.

3. 3

   Planning and protection

   Confirm whether the house is catalogued and what you could change. This affects any renovation budget and timetable.

4. 4

   Neighbours and shared elements

   Note shared walls, rain run-off onto other roofs, windows overlooking neighbours and any rights of way through the patio.

5. 5

   Practical access

   Narrow streets can make scaffolding, skips and deliveries difficult, and may need permits from the town hall.

Our guides to surveys and checks and the buying process explain when each of these checks fits into a purchase.