Relocation at Spain One Stop
The one stop shop for your relocation to Spain.
Property Directory
To go to our Estate Agent directory for links to: Estate Agents in Southern Spain and the E.U.
Buying property.
If you are thinking of buying property here in Spain there are a few things you should be aware of.
Firstly your budget. Whatever it is, you should allow 10% above the purchase price for the tax and fees. Although it hardly ever comes to this, but this is a good guide for what it may cost you. On an older property add 7%, the difference I shall explain :
Tax on property here in Spain Is high, because the Spanish people don’t want to pay it. The Spanish people work with what is called black money. Lets say for example you want to buy a property for 100,000 euros. What you pay when you sign for the deeds will be between 50% and 100% of the value of the property( this will depend on how new the property is or when it was last valued) and you will pay this in the Notaries office. After you pay, and before the deeds are given to you, you must pay the remainder in cash (Black money). Say, for arguments sake, you pay 80% of the property value at the Notaries office. This will be 80,000 euros , this is the sum that you and the vendor will be taxed on. The remaining 20% or 20,000 in this case will be paid in cash and you and the vendor will not pay tax on it. The Government knows this happens and to compensate for this, property tax is high.
Don't be put off buying a property because of this. This is how the system works here.
New builds off plan.
Another thing you must be aware of when buying a new property here in spain, is that newly built properties don't usually have a kitchen fitted. This is left for you to decide about the style and cost. As you know, a new kitchen can be expensive. So if you are thinking of buying a new property find out if a kitchen is included in the price. If not budget accordingly. If you have found your dream home, but need a kitchen fitted. Please go to our contact page. Email us with your requirements and we may be able to help find that new kitchen for you, and have it fitted at an affordable price. At this moment we only deal with the Costa Tropical reigon. but we are hoping to have links to tradesmen in other reigons soon.
Other trades we can supply are: Plumbers, Electricians, Builders, Mechanics, Carpenters and we can even have a website built for you.
If you are in need of any of the above trades, please contact us
Buyers check list
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Seek advice from a Spanish solicitor (Abogado) Try and find one that speaks English.
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Ask about the tax you have to pay, before you make an offer. The tax can be quite a lot of money and if you don’t ask you could be left short of the asking price.
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Get a nota simple from the property registry to prove there are no debts attached to the property you are buying.
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Make sure the seller has an escritura publica this is the deed to the property.
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The Spanish contract and a translation into English.
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Insist on paying the full amount you have agreed on . This will pay you later via your tax bill when you come to sell the property. Although as I mentioned the Spanish work in black money. But this is a form of money laundering and also tax evasion .
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Try an get receipts or copies for electricity, water, and other services to the property. Including the community charge.
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Ask when you will receive your escritura for the property. When you have this you are the legal owner of the property.
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If the property has just been built make sure you see, and if possible, make a copy of the building license.
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Pay as little as possible for the holding deposit, this is usually negotiable. Do this because if the worst happens and you cannot complete the purchase you will lose your deposit. On the other hand should the seller pull out of the deal they will have to pay you back double your deposit.
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Check the time scale on the holding deposit. Especially if you are selling another property to pay for your new home in
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If you are buying a building plot make sure it has a building permit.
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Don’t take the spoken word as gospel. Check with a solicitor and get the paperwork. If you are unsure double check.
Selling a property in Spain
When you resell your Spanish property, you will have to pay capital gains tax. This can be as much as 35% if you are non resident or 15% if you are resident here in
Buyer beware
When we were looking to buy here, we found what we thought was the perfect property for us. It was a ruin with 5000 square meters of land. The owner said it had a reform license and he had plans for the new building drawn by an architect. Everything looked good, but he said we could not see the reform license as he had lost it but he assured us he would find it for us and that the property had one. We spent one week thinking we need look no further, but still he was not forthcoming with the license. We decided to employ an architect and he met us at the property. Within minuts of seeing the property the architect informed us that the ruin was unlikely to have a reform license because the structure of the existing building was beyond repair. The architect told us that the only thing we could do was to flatten the ruin and build a new house from scratch. His next question was,”how much land was included with the ruin” because in that particular area we would need at least 20,000 square meters to obtain the paperwork, to build a new property.
We decided against buying and looked elseware.
Two years later we learnt the property had been sold, to an English couple. To our knowledge, now nearly 4 years on, they are still waiting for permission to reform the ruin.
Had we taken the word of the vendor, we would now be the proud owners of 5000 sq meters of worthless land and be out of pocket to the tune of nearly 80,000 euros.
Check and check again its worth it.
Property here in
Some vendors will try to force you to buy quickly by telling you that they will only hold the asking price for the property for 1 or 2 days and then it will rise. Don’t be fooled by this, all they want to do is rush you into a decision. The property will probably still be for sale at the same price for months. Also you may find the exact same property at another estate agents for less money. This is not uncommon here as property can be advertised in many different estate agents and each one will have a different price for the same property.
Currency Converter
So you can work out the price of the house you have seen (in any currency) click here for a currency converter
