So youve found your dream holiday home, arranged your mortgage in Spain and are now ready to complete the purchase
Buying property in Spain is highly regulated. The best thing you can do to protect yourself and your money is to hire an English-speaking lawyer or legal counsel to help you during the purchase and negotiation. Make sure that the Spanish property is free of restrictive clauses and debts.
The legal process for purchasing property located in Spain falls under two types of transactions. First you have the Contrato privado de compraventa, or the preliminary contract, and then you have the Escritura de compravents, or completion contract.
Once the buyer and seller are in agreement on the price then they need to sign a preliminary sales contract. Before this Contrato privado de compraventa has been signed, however, the vendor needs to be able to provide proof that he or she owns the property, and that it is free of any charges. It is Spanish law to charge all outstanding debts to the actual property, and any remaining debt would be the new owner’s responsibility. Nota Simple documents are designed to confirm whether or not a property contains any outstanding debts.
The preliminary sales contract will be drawn up to contain all of the necessary details including the date of completion, the purchase price and the description of the property. A 5% to 15% deposit of the final purchase price will be required. A bonded client account is where the funds will be kept for you. It is possible though not advisable to sign the private preliminary sales contract without putting down a deposit.
The ultimate stage is the decond stage only as it will decide the future of the contract. It is also known as Escritura de compraventa stage. The customer will need to pay all fees and the price of the product on the date of completion. Both the vendor and the buyer must sign the contract at the same time. This contract is equivalent to a deed on the purchased property. The buyer will be provided the public deed of conveyance, also referred to in Spain as the escritura, in the presence of a Notary Public. To make this legal, a copy of the dded must get to a tax office, and then sent to a property registry. If you are in Spain, a Notary Public will be required as a witness on you deed of sale. Don’t just rely in that, though. You will want to have your own lawyer to keep your best interests foremost throughout the proceeeding. Part of the fees for purchasing include property tax, and legal fees for your Notary Public.