When buying a property in Spain, the process can be very different from that of your home country. Make sure that you know what costs are involved, the taxes that you need to pay and the problems that could occur.

When an offer has been accepted, appoint a Spanish speaking, local Spanish lawyer. We can recommend you one or you can choose by yourself, the important thing is to have your legal representative in Spain.

Sign a contract “contrato de compra-venta”, once your solicitor has checked the details on this.

Pay the deposit to reserve the property in your name. NEVER pay this unless your solicitor has checked the contract and NEVER pay this directly to a seller or without both parties signing a contract.

Obtain your Foreigners Identification Number (NIE), which is obligatory for the purchase.

Arrange for a Power of Attorney, if you need this.

Open a bank account.

A physical person needs passport, and the NIE number.

A legal person needs the company Deeds apostilled and translated, tax number in Spain, and NIE for the company´s administrator.

Before buying a property or even signing a private contract, contact with a solicitor to check if all the documents are in order, empower him/her to obtain the NIE for you, to represent you at the Tax Office, and to sign the deeds on your behalf.

If it is a built house first sign a private contract to oblige both parts and fix a date to sign the tittle deeds. In this document there will be established the payments to be made and the date of completion by the vendor and buyer. For this it will be good to open a bank account in Spain.

Your solicitor can open it in your name but the banks might require the owner to be in Spain three months before to meet them personally.

Usually the last payment will be completed at the same time the tittle deeds are signed in case all the documents of the dwelling are ok.

After signing the deeds, your solicitor will proceed with the inscription in the land registry.

It is not necessary, they can empower a solicitor to act on their behalf.

They can be protected by obtaining bank guarantees for all the payments done off-plan.

When buying a property in Spain we strongly recommend that you have a Will to deal – at least – with your Spanish assets (although you can extend it to your worldwide assets).