Renew your boletín in Seville, Spain: certificate for installations over 20 years old

When you need to renew the boletín in Seville

The boletín, or electrical installation certificate (CIE, certificado de instalación eléctrica), describes your installation as it was on the day it was issued. It does not expire by law, but distributors work with a practical validity of 20 years. After that, as soon as you need anything from the electricity company, you will normally be asked for a new one. The most frequent cases are:

• Increasing your contracted power (potencia contratada) with an installation over 20 years old. See increase your contracted power.
• Reconnecting a supply in a home that has been without electricity for a while, such as an inherited flat or one left closed.
• Changing the account holder when the distributor asks for an updated certificate, a typical step after buying.
• Extending the installation: a circuit for air conditioning, an induction hob (cooktop) or an EV charging point.

If your installation has no boletín at all, old or new, the route is different: it has to be legalised from scratch. The general guide to the certificate is on our electrical certificate (boletín) page.

What the inspection of an old installation covers

Before signing anything we need to know the real condition of the installation. The inspection is done with instruments, not by eye:

1. Fuse board (consumer unit, or breaker panel in the US). Main switch, RCDs, breakers, condition of the connections and whether each breaker matches the cable it protects.
2. Earthing. Whether it exists, its measured value and whether it reaches the sockets (outlets) in the kitchen, bathroom and utility room.
3. Insulation of the circuits. We test each line with an insulation tester to find out whether the cables are still sound.
4. RCDs. We check their tripping current and tripping time.
5. Cable sizes and circuits. We confirm that the main cables can carry the power you want to contract.

The checks follow ITC-BT-05 of the Low Voltage Electrotechnical Regulation (REBT, Royal Decree 842/2002), and the paperwork for the new certificate follows ITC-BT-04.

Minimum upgrade or full rewire

This is the important decision, and we put it to you with figures:

• Minimum upgrade. If the wiring is in good condition, it is usually enough to fit 30 mA RCDs, improve the earthing, separate a circuit or two and tidy the fuse board. Then we issue the new boletín.
• Full rewire. If we find cloth-covered cables, cracked insulation, cable sizes designed for 3 kW or joints wrapped in tape, patching is expensive and does not remove the risk. In that case we propose rewiring the apartment.

We never sign a certificate for an installation that does not comply. That protects you, because the boletín is what proves to the electricity company that your home is in order. British buyers will recognise the logic of an EICR, with one difference: a boletín is only signed once the defects are put right.

How we work

1. You tell us the procedure you are facing and, if you can, send a photo of the fuse board and of your bill.
2. Inspection with measurements at the home or premises.
3. Upgrade report listing what has to be corrected, with a fixed price.
4. Upgrade of what is needed. If no rewiring is involved, it is usually a short job.
5. New certificate with its technical design report (memoria técnica de diseño, MTD), registered with the Junta de Andalucía by a registered installer company.
6. Handover of the documents so you can deal with the distributor, which in Seville is e-distribución.

Typical old installations in Seville

In the 1960s and 1970s blocks of Nervión, Los Remedios, Heliópolis or La Macarena it is common to find installations designed for very little power, with no earthing and a single RCD for the whole home, if there is one at all. In the city centre and in Triana there are also traditional courtyard houses (casas de vecinos) renovated piece by piece: a new kitchen with old cables behind it, or a modern fuse board protecting decades-old lines.

A typical case: a family inherits a flat in La Macarena that has been closed for years and wants to let it. The distributor asks for a new boletín to activate the supply. The inspection finds no earthing but wiring in good condition, so it is enough to install the earthing, add two RCDs and separate the kitchen circuit. With the certificate registered, the connection goes through without problems.

If you simply want to know the state of your home with no procedure ahead, a one-off inspection is the better fit, and before buying see our electrical survey before buying.

Guide prices

We give you a fixed price after the inspection and only carry out the work you approve. Other reports and certificates are under certificates and reports, and our general rates are on the prices page.