Holiday let changeovers in Sotogrande
In Sotogrande a holiday rental is not an apartment, it is a house: four or five bedrooms, as many bathrooms, a large kitchen, a covered terrace, a private pool and a garden. Preparing one of these between two bookings is not a four-hour changeover. It is a full day for a team, and the guest paying these rates will inspect it with the standards of a five-star hotel.
Not a changeover, a reset
The difference from an apartment is not one of size but of nature. A villa has rooms nobody used during the stay that still have to be prepared, staff bedrooms, a pool house, a covered terrace and hundreds of square metres of glass.
The work runs from outside in, the opposite of a flat. Exterior first: terrace, sun deck, showers, barbecue and furniture, with cushions checked and dry. Then the glass, which in a house this size is half a day on linear metres alone. And the interior last, starting with the guest wing, which always comes off worst because nobody checks it at the end of a stay.
What a guest paying this much looks at
At this price point the benchmark is not the villa next door. It is the hotel the same guest stayed in last year. That makes details compulsory that elsewhere would be optional.
Glass without a single mark, because floor-to-ceiling glazing shows everything against the light. Taps with no limescale ring. Beds made with ironed linen rather than simply folded. Bathrooms with immaculate sealant and not a single hair anywhere. And a kitchen where the inside of the appliances is clean, oven and extractor included, which is where you can tell whether a house was prepared or merely tidied.
Materials that punish shortcuts
Every surface in these houses costs real money to replace and none of them forgives an all-purpose cleaner. The descaler that solves a porcelain tile leaves natural stone permanently flat. Bleach discolours teak. Glass cleaner on stainless steel leaves rings.
All of it is written into the quote, material by material, precisely so it does not depend on who turns up that day. Replacing a run of stone paving or outdoor decking costs more than several seasons of service.
Access has to be arranged
The urbanisations here control entry and you cannot improvise who passes the barrier. Before starting we register vehicles and authorised staff, and we update the list whenever the team changes. With full working days, an hour spent waiting outside for clearance destroys the entire schedule.
How it works
A visit to the house covering everything, including service areas and the pool house, and a fixed price per preparation. Season dates are booked in spring: in August there are no teams free for a house this size.
Questions we get in Sotogrande
How long does a villa take between bookings?
Between one day and a day and a half for a team, depending on bedrooms, bathrooms and metres of glazing. We give you the real figure after seeing the house rather than promising a four-hour turnaround, because in a five-bathroom house with a terrace and pool house that is simply not possible, and promising it means failing on the first booking of the season.
The owner is abroad and the manager makes the decisions.
That is the norm here and how we work. The report goes to the manager with what was done room by room and before-and-after photographs of the areas that generate questions: kitchen, bathrooms, glazing and outdoor furniture. In English and Spanish, in a format that can be forwarded to the owner unchanged.
There is marble, teak and stainless steel. Do you know how to treat them?
Yes, and this is where a good job separates from an expensive bad one. Natural stone takes no acids and no supermarket all-purpose cleaner: they leave it permanently dull. Teak is brushed along the grain and left to dry before anything is stored on it. Outdoor stainless steel needs a specific product after a summer of salt air or rust spots appear. It is written material by material in the quote.
Are the pool and garden included?
The surround, the terrace, the showers and the furniture are. Water treatment is not: it requires its own qualification. Gardening is not either, which in these houses is a contract in its own right. We say so before signing to avoid the classic first-week misunderstanding about why the hedge has not been cut.
Get in touch
The quickest way is to call. If you would rather write, the enquiry form is on the Spanish version of this page and we answer in English.