Buying well beginslong before you sign.
An international property transaction is not protected at the notaría (the notary’s office). It is protected in the decisions taken beforehand.
A home may be simple.The transaction rarely is.
Those who buy on Marbella’s Golden Mile, in Puerto Banús or in Benahavís rarely live in Spain. They decide from a distance, within days, in a market that moves faster than their advisers at home, and in a legal system that does not work like their own.
In between there are more parties than it seems: a seller with a timetable of their own, an agent who is paid on completion, a bank with its questions about the source of funds (the documentary trail required under anti-money-laundering rules), a notario (the Spanish civil-law notary) who attests the deed but verifies neither licences nor debts, and at least two tax jurisdictions with something to say about the same signing.
None of this is a problem. It is the nature of the transaction. The problem arises when you sign as though none of it existed.
The decisions
FirstBefore reserving
What must be known before committing any money: title and encumbrances at the Land Registry (Registro de la Propiedad), the property’s planning position (situación urbanística), building and first-occupation licences (licencia de obra and licencia de primera ocupación), and outstanding charges owed to the comunidad de propietarios (the owners’ association). Everything the listing does not tell you.
Problems detected before the reserva (the reservation agreement, usually signed with the agent against a payment, which may already bind you) are negotiated. Those that surface afterwards are paid for.
SecondBefore signing
The arras (the deposit contract, whose legal effect depends entirely on how it is drafted: unless it expressly provides for arras penitenciales, neither party may simply walk away) are not a formality: they are the contract where the transaction is won or lost. Which conditions protect the buyer, which deadlines are realistic, what happens if the financing is delayed or the due diligence uncovers something.
And the decision almost no one stops to take: in whose name and through what structure the purchase is made, because correcting it later means a second transfer, with its own cost.
ThirdBefore completion
Completion week is pure coordination: the notaría, the bank, the means of payment (each of which must be declared in the deed) and the verification of the funds, which is where international transactions lose weeks without anyone understanding why. If the buyer cannot travel, the notarial power of attorney (poder notarial, signed before a Spanish consul abroad or before a local notary with an Apostille and a traducción jurada) is prepared in good time, not the day before.
FourthAfter
The escritura (the notarial deed of sale) does not close the transaction: the filing and payment of the transaction taxes (within 30 business days) and registration at the Land Registry, which is what protects you against third parties, complete it. And the purchase opens new decisions that are best not postponed: a Spanish will limited to your assets in Spain, which coexists with your home-country will, and who attends to the non-resident’s obligations when you are not here.
The signing takes minutes.The preparation, weeks.
What is seen of a purchase is a table, a signature and a set of keys. What is not seen is what decides whether that signature protects or exposes.
Land Registry and Catastro (the cadastre) are two sources that do not always tell the same story about the same finca (the registered property unit).
Planning and licences cover what is built, what is legalised, and the distance between the two.
The contract requires every clause to be read with the day in mind when something does not go as planned.
The bank calls for the source-of-funds file, prepared before it is asked for.
Coordination means seller, agent, notaría and two time zones on the same calendar.
Partner’s note
“In a significant purchase, the risk is rarely where the client is looking.”
Antonio José García LinaresDirector · Socio fundador
Selected Knowledge
- Guide The Buyer’s Memorandum No. 01 Buying property in Spain as a non-resident buyer. 56 pp.
- Perspective The Buyer Pays for Haste On dates that are fixed before the information needed to fix them is available.
- Briefing Update of the valor de referencia (reference value) and its effect on ITP transfer tax Regulatory changes, and which of them remain in force.
Before you commit, it is worth reviewing.
If you are considering a transaction in Marbella, Puerto Banús or on the Costa del Sol, we can study the structure before any binding commitment exists.
Request a private consultation