What can I do, and what can’t I do?

Almost nothing ...but check with the town hall before you start!

Generally your community president will be able to tell you this, plus your deeds will give you an outline of the community requirements, for example, awnings must be in the correct colours for your community, structures must be ‘temporary’ so that if required you could effectively dismantle them etc.

For permanent building work, your Town Hall is the first step.😁

Thanks for that KateCB but our house isn’t part of an urbanisation, I’ll visit the town hall later.

Much stricter as in UK, as Crissywissy  said almost nothing.  Still some fencing heights or temporary installations permitted etc. Some decorations but vary from the region. There's no such thing you would build like some small extension or the garage. Everything ,, build" needs planning permission includin build in patio  barbecue with  pergola... ofcourse not necessarily people would be bothered to get the permit for that. Good articles for this is on  Eye on Spain or similar but best scenario is to submit minor work application in local Annuntayento with some drawings/ sketch, valuation of works and pay the fee- a percentage of works value. Plenty restrictions, some applications won't be even considered because of this, for anything major worth to consider to consult the professional, NOT NECESSARILY THIS IS YOUR BUILDER. An Architect perhaps . Annuntayento normally got the consultant but obviously with all bureaucracy good luck with that!

Thanks everyone for your replies. it's helped a lot. Fortunately my HH isn't part of an urbanisation so there's no-one to consult and the council say that if I'm re-tiling my patio I need a permit if I want a skip outside for the waste. My terrace isn't big enough for the tiles being removed to need a skip!

Excellent news, let us know how you get on re-tiling the patio in that case 😀 👍 

All done! Front terrace completely tiled, floor and walls, frontage painted, living room walls pastered smooth ( to get rid of the stippled effect ) and painted white. The guys were there for seven working days.