The Complete Malta Property Viewing Checklist (40 Things to Check)

A viewing in Malta typically lasts twenty minutes. The purchase it leads to lasts decades. Fresh paint costs €300 and hides €30,000 of problems; this checklist is how you see through it.

Before you go

• Pull the listing's history. Has it been listed long? Across multiple agencies at different prices? Darna shows every agency's listings in one place — if the same flat appears at three prices, you have learned something about the seller.
• Walk the street on Google first, then in person at a different time of day than your viewing. Bars, schools, a bakery's 4am shift, band club fireworks in festa season — the street is part of the property.
• Check the Planning Authority map for the plot and its neighbours: pending applications next door matter more than the flat's wallpaper.

Structure and damp (the big money)

1. Smell first. Mustiness on entry beats any visual inspection. Closed-up smell + dehumidifier humming = pay attention.
2. Look up at every ceiling, especially top-floor ceilings under roofs and around bathroom soil pipes. Brown halos, bubbling, or fresh patches of paint in isolated spots are the tell.
3. Check external walls at skirting level for rising damp: salt staining (white fluff), flaking plaster, lifted tiles.
4. The roof/airspace. Who owns it? Is the membrane recent? A shared roof in poor repair is a future bill split among owners who never agree.
5. Cracks. Hairline plaster cracks are cosmetic and universal. Diagonal cracks tracking through blockwork above doors/windows, or any crack you can fit a coin in, justify the architect.
6. Floors. Bring a marble or a level app — pronounced slopes in older buildings tell structural stories.
7. Window frames. Single-glazed aluminium from the 1980s means noise, heat, and a €10,000+ replacement line in your budget.

Light, air, and the shaft problem

1. Visit at the hour you'd actually be home. North-facing or shaft-served rooms photograph fine and live dark.
2. "Internal" bedrooms ventilated only by a shaft are legal in older stock but rent and resell worse. Count which rooms have a real external window.
3. Orientation: south/southwest balconies get winter sun and summer heat; pure north terraces are shade all year. There is no perfect answer, only what suits you.

Water, power, drains

1. Run every tap simultaneously and flush while the shower runs — Malta's pressure problems reveal themselves instantly.
2. Ask the heater's age (electric immersion standard; 10+ years = replacement due).
3. Open the electrical panel. Modern RCD breakers or 1970s ceramic fuses? Rewiring a three-bed runs €8,000–€15,000.
4. Check under every sink and around the washing machine connection for staining.
5. Ask where the drains go — older Gzira/Msida/Sliema buildings can have shared, ancient drainage that floods basements.

The building (apartments/maisonettes)

1. Common parts condition = management quality. Broken letterboxes and dead bulbs predict roof-repair arguments.
2. Is there a lift? No lift above second floor cuts your future buyer/tenant pool hard.
3. Who administers the block? Ask for the last common-parts bill and any planned works.
4. Count the airbnb keyboxes at the entrance — a building of short lets is a different living experience.

Paperwork questions (ask, then verify)

1. "Is the property freehold, or subject to ground rent (ċens)?" If ċens: how much, to whom, redeemable?
2. "Are there permits for everything as built?" Washroom on the roof, enclosed balcony, that extra room — as built, not as bought. Regularisation costs land on you after the deed.
3. "Is there a bank guarantee / what stage are the common areas?" for anything new or off-plan.
4. "Why is the seller selling, and what's their timeline?" You're reading motivation for the negotiation.
5. "What exactly is included?" Fitted kitchens, appliances, A/C units — get the list in the konvenju later.

The second viewing

Never buy off one viewing. Return on a weekday evening: traffic, parking reality, neighbour noise, what the street feels like at 7pm. Bring someone pessimistic.

When you're serious

Commission an architect's survey (€300–€800) and make the konvenju conditional on it. In Malta the konvenju's 10% deposit is the point of commitment — everything on this checklist is leverage before that signature and expensive regret after.

Found something worth viewing? Cross-check its price against everything comparable on the market on Darna first — twenty minutes of comparison is your best negotiating preparation.