The most expensive mistake at the end of a lease is usually not the cleaning. It is cancelling the electricity contract, which turns a €0 handover into a €200 new connection and leaves the next tenant a week without power.
A cambio de titular moves the contract to another name and keeps the supply alive. A baja closes the supply point, and reopening it means an alta nueva with a technician, a waiting period and a bill. Cancelling the direct debit at your bank does neither: the contract stays in your name, the invoices keep coming, and after two months the company starts the collection file against you.
For a supply that already exists, the cambio de titular is normally free with the big electricity suppliers and with most water companies. What costs money is everything next to it: a new alta, a higher potencia, a boletín eléctrico if the installation is old, or an unpaid balance inherited from the previous occupant.
A cambio de titular for light, water or gas: zero in the normal case. A new electricity connection runs from tens of euros to more than €200 depending on the contracted power, and the technician visit is part of it. A new water connection varies by municipality, often €50–100, and some companies ask for a deposit that is returned when you close the account. Gas follows the same logic as electricity.
Raising the potencia is where the regulated money sits. Going from 4.6 to 5.75 kW triggers extension and connection rights, and if the installation has no recent boletín eléctrico the distributor can demand one before anything is signed. That document, the CIE, costs €80–200 depending on the electrician and the size of the flat, and it is the owner's paperwork, not yours.
Disputes about utilities almost always come down to a number nobody wrote down. If the reading on the day of handover is missing, the supplier estimates, the owner estimates differently, and the difference lands on the deposit. Photograph the meter, the meter number and the date, and send it to the owner the same day by email or WhatsApp. A photo with a timestamp is worth more than an argument in March.
The final invoice usually arrives 20 to 40 days after the baja or the cambio, because the distributor has to close the reading. Water deposits come back by request, not automatically, and a water company can take a couple of months. Electricity is billed with 21% VAT, water at 10%. If the account was in the owner's name and you paid by transfer every month, keep the receipts: that is the only proof that the flat was not left owing money.
Debt in Spain follows the supply point, not the person. The CUPS is the identifier of the meter, and an unpaid balance from the previous tenant can surface on your first invoice or block a cambio de titular until it is settled. Before you sign, ask for the last invoice, note the CUPS and the contracted power, and ask the supplier whether the point has a pending debt. It takes one phone call and it has saved tenants from bills of several hundred euros.
In a Maresme villa the handover has extra lines: the pool pump on its own circuit or its own meter, the irrigation controller with a secondary water meter in some gardens, and a gasoil tank or butano bottles that nobody counts until February. Photograph the tank gauge and note the number of bottles. If the pool and garden are serviced by a company, ask for the last invoice and the contract end date, because a service that renews in your name is a bill you did not plan. None of this belongs to the deposit discussion, and all of it ends up there when the numbers are missing.
We check the meters, the CUPS and the last invoices before the keys change hands. Tell us the address and the dates.
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