Pool demolition and pool infill on the Costa del Sol

What does a pool demolition contractor on the Costa del Sol do?

A pool demolition contractor takes an unwanted swimming pool out of use for good: the water is gone, the concrete shell is broken up, the hole is backfilled and the surface is ready for lawn, paving or a future build. On the Costa del Sol that job rarely stops at the pool itself. The deck around it, the pump room, the old pool house and sometimes a garden wall come out in the same visit, because once the machine is on site it makes sense to clear everything that the new layout no longer needs.

Demolición de Piscinas Costa del Sol is the specialist brand for exactly this kind of garden demolition. The work is organised in six services:

• Pool infill – the shell is opened, drained through the floor and filled in with compacted layers.
• Pool demolition – partial or full removal of the concrete or block shell, coping and pool beach.
• Terraces and outbuildings – terraces, porches, pergolas, sheds, pool houses and garages.
• Walls and fences – garden walls, boundary fences, gate pillars and, with a técnico's input, retaining walls.
• Groundworks and levelling – backfilling and basic levelling of the ground we have just demolished.
• Plot clearance – removing the remains of the demolition and leaving the plot clean.

Everything else that has to do with the wider building – the villa itself, an interior refurbishment or an asbestos roof – is handled through our sister sites, so each team stays focused on what it knows best.

Pool infill or full pool removal: which one suits your plans?

The right method depends on what you want to do with the space afterwards. If the area will become garden, lawn or light paving, a pool infill (also called partial pool removal) is usually enough. If you might ever build on that spot, or the buyer of the house will want a clean, unrestricted plot, a full removal of the shell is the safer route. Your técnico has the final word wherever a structure is planned.

The diagram shows the difference in section: in an infill the remaining shell becomes a drained container for the fill, while in a full removal the ground is rebuilt from the bottom of the excavation. Both methods only work if the floor drains and the fill is compacted layer by layer; skipping either is what causes the sinking lawns that give pool infills a bad name. Our guide to compaction, drainage and layers explains the details, and the blog post pool demolition vs pool infill sets out the pros and cons side by side.

"Fill in a pool" means backfilling it – not filling it with water

In English, "filling a pool" normally means filling it with water, and many searches for pool filling in Spain are about water tankers in a drought. That is not what we do. When we talk about a pool infill or pool fill-in, we mean filling the empty pool shell in with rubble, gravel and soil so that it disappears permanently and the ground can be used again.

If you are looking for someone to top up or refill your pool with water, you need a pool maintenance company or a water supplier. If you are tired of the pool, its running costs and its upkeep while you are away, and you want the space back as garden, you are in the right place. To avoid misunderstandings, our quotes always describe the work as "breaking out and backfilling the pool shell".

Terraces, pool houses, walls and fences: clearing the rest of the garden

Most pool jobs on the coast come with a second list: the cracked terrace around the pool, a wooden pergola that has rotted, a pump room, a changing hut or a block shed built by a previous owner. Removing them in the same job saves a second mobilisation and lets the new garden be planned as one space. Our terrace and outbuilding demolition service covers these structures, from a tiled porch to a single garage.

Walls are treated with more care than people expect. A free-standing garden wall or a fence on a flat plot is routine work, but many villas on the Costa del Sol sit on slopes, and a wall that looks decorative may be holding back the ground of the terrace above. Before a retaining wall is touched, a técnico assesses it and we follow the sequence they set; see the retaining wall removal guide and our walls and fences service.

Older pool houses and sheds sometimes have corrugated fibre-cement roofs. If that material may contain asbestos, it is not removed together with the rest: the removal is carried out by a RERA-registered company working as our subcontractor, and we coordinate the rest of the demolition. Our sister site explains uralita roof removal in detail. For terraces inside gated estates, the guide on demolishing a terrace or porch in an urbanización covers the community side.

After the demolition: plot cleaning and basic levelling

A demolition is only finished when the ground is usable. Once the pool or the outbuildings are gone, we remove the remaining debris, rake out fragments of tile and concrete, backfill any hollows left by footings and leave the area at a basic level that a landscaper, a paving crew or your builder can take over. This is part of the demolition job, not a separate earthworks contract: the groundworks and levelling and plot clearance pages describe what is included.

What we do not offer as a stand-alone service is pure vegetation clearing – a plot full of scrub with nothing to demolish. If that is what you need, ask us and we will tell you honestly whether it fits the job. Owners in Andalusia must keep their plots clean and safe, and land within 400 metres of forest areas lies in the Zona de Influencia Forestal, which carries fire-prevention duties. The plot clearing and fire-prevention guide covers those rules, and groundworks and levelling after demolition explains what "level" can realistically mean on a sloping plot.

Do you need a permit to remove a pool in Andalusia?

In most cases a demolition in Andalusia is now processed by declaración responsable rather than a full licence. Since Decreto-ley 3/2024, the total or partial demolition of buildings or constructions is done by declaración responsable, provided they are not subject to heritage protection or inside a protected setting; protected buildings, protected settings and archaeological zones still need a licencia urbanística. Before 2024 the general rule was the licence.

The declaración responsable is filed with the ayuntamiento by the owner, usually with the help of their técnico, and each town hall sets the documents in its own ordinance. In Málaga city, for example, the ordinance asks for a project or technical report signed by a técnico competente plus a technical certificate and photographs. For Marbella, Estepona, Mijas and the other coastal towns, check the exact list with your técnico or the town hall. If a skip or a lorry has to stand in the street, an authorisation to occupy the public road is also needed. We are the contractor: we do not file the paperwork, but we work with your técnico's documentation and tell you what the ayuntamiento usually asks for. The full answer is in do you need a permit to remove a pool in Spain?

Running a pool removal while you live abroad

Many of the villas we work on belong to owners who spend only part of the year in Spain. The job is organised so that you do not need to be here: you send photos and the location, we agree the scope in writing, and on the agreed dates we coordinate access with your key holder, gardener, property manager or community administrator. You can write to us in English, and we send photos of the site before, during and after the work so you can see the result without flying out.

For the municipal and tax formalities of the works, the owner identifies themselves with their DNI, NIE or NIF, and your técnico or gestor tells you which of them applies. If the pool is part of a wider project – the house itself being knocked down and rebuilt – our pillar site explains how a demolition managed from abroad works from start to finish. A realistic picture of a remote job is in what pool removal with us looks like when you're abroad.

Where the rubble from your pool goes

Pool rubble is not one material, and Spanish waste law treats it accordingly. Ley 7/2022 requires construction and demolition waste to be sorted at least into wood, mineral fractions (concrete, bricks, tiles, ceramics, stone), metals, glass, plastic and plaster, and selective demolition is mandatory since 1 January 2024. On a pool job we separate the fractions as we break them out and deliver them to an authorised facility; you receive the delivery receipts.

The town hall may also require a deposit or guarantee for construction waste, returned once delivery to an authorised manager is proven; the amount depends on the municipal ordinance. For larger slabs and foundations around the pool, our industrial sister site covers rubble removal and skips.

What shapes the cost of removing a pool?

No two pools cost the same to remove, because the price is driven by a handful of site factors rather than by the pool size alone. The ones that matter most are:

• Method – an infill leaves part of the shell; a full removal breaks out and hauls away all of it.
• Construction – reinforced concrete, gunite or block walls take very different times to break.
• Access – whether a compact excavator can reach the pool or the work has to be done by hand through the house.
• Volume of fill – how much material has to be brought in and compacted.
• Extras – the pool beach, terrace, pump room, walls or a fibre-cement roof that needs a specialist.
• Waste – the tonnage and the number of fractions to sort and transport.

We do not publish prices on this site. For a rounded band, use the demolition calculator or read pool removal cost on our pricing site; for the reasoning behind the numbers, see what changes the cost of removing a pool on the Costa del Sol and the red flags in pool removal quotes.

Where we work

We work throughout the provincia de Málaga, with most garden demolitions on the Costa del Sol and in the hills behind it: villas in Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís, family homes with gardens in Mijas, and cortijos and holiday homes towards Nerja and the Axarquía. Inland towns in the Valle del Guadalhorce and the Serranía de Ronda are covered too. The full list of municipalities, each with its own notes on access and procedures, is on the areas page. Before you contact us, the post questions owners ask before removing a pool may already answer yours, and the step-by-step guide how a swimming pool is demolished shows the work in order.