Buying property in Spain — how the purchase actually runs

A Spanish purchase runs reserve, deposit contract, deed before a notary, then registration. On a €300,000 resale in Andalucía that is 7% transfer tax plus €599.42 of notary and registry arancel, per the Junta de Andalucía and the two aranceles, as at August 2026.

The sequence below is the same whether you will live in the property or let it. Only two things change: the tax you pay every year afterwards, and whether a letting licence is needed where the property is. Neither is covered on this page.

How a Spanish purchase runs, in order

| Stage | What you sign | What you pay | What becomes irreversible | Covered on | |---|---|---|---|---| | Reserve (reserva) | An agent's reservation document | A small holding sum | Usually little, but read the terms: they are whatever the document says | The deposit contract | | Deposit contract (contrato de arras) | A private contract of sale | Commonly a substantial deposit | The purchase. Whether you may withdraw at all depends on the contract's wording, and the default is that you may not | The deposit contract | | Deed (escritura pública) | The public deed, before a notary | The balance, and the notary's arancel | Ownership passes between the parties | What it costs | | Tax | The transfer-tax return | ITP, or IVA and AJD on a new build | A filing deadline runs from the deed. This site does not state it: we have not read the instrument that sets it | What it costs | | Registration | The deed is lodged at the register | The registry arancel | Your ownership becomes effective against third parties | The Spanish land registry |

That table is the whole transaction. Everything else on this site hangs off one of its five rows.

What it costs

On a €300,000 resale in Andalucía the tax is €21,000 at the 7% rate the Junta de Andalucía publishes. The notary's arancel is €388.01 and the registry's is €205.40, each after the statutory 5% reduction introduced by Real Decreto-ley 8/2010, plus €6.01 to lodge the deed — €599.42 between them under Real Decreto 1426/1989 and Real Decreto 1427/1989. In Real Decreto 1427/1989 the €6.01 carries no reduction, because the reduction is written into Número 2 and the lodging fee sits in Número 1.

One thing that figure assumes, and it does not always hold. The transfer tax is not charged on the price. Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1993 art. 10.2 makes the base the valor de referencia the Catastro assigns to the property — and if the declared price is higher than that, the higher figure is taken. So under Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1993 a purchase at €300,000 can be taxed on more than €300,000, and it is never taxed on less than the valor de referencia. You can look that figure up yourself before you offer, at the Sede Electrónica del Catastro.

Two more things follow. The tax is 97% of the total above, so anybody who treats the notary as the expensive part has the shape of it wrong. And a new build is taxed differently: 10% IVA under the Agencia Tributaria plus the community's stamp duty on the deed, rather than the transfer tax at all.

Your lawyer sits on top, and the published bases we read are 1% of the price plus IVA or a flat fee. Every line, with the arithmetic shown and a sterling equivalent, is on what buying a property in Spain costs.

Who checks what

Nobody in this transaction checks everything, and assuming otherwise is the most common structural mistake a British buyer makes.

The notary verifies identity and capacity and reads the essential terms. The notary is not acting for you. The registrar decides whether the deed may be entered on the register. The registrar is not acting for you either. The estate agent is acting for the seller. Nobody in that list is your side.

The people who can act for you are compared, with what each publishes as its price, on who checks a Spanish property, and what a lawyer actually does at each stage is on what a Spanish property lawyer does.

What happens on the day you sign

The deed is signed in a notary's office, in Spanish, usually with everybody in the room at once: you, the seller, the agent, sometimes a representative of the bank that is cancelling the seller's mortgage and a representative of yours.

The notary reads the essential terms aloud, verifies identity and capacity, confirms that the parties understand what they are signing, and authorises the deed. Money moves at that moment, normally by banker's draft handed over at the table rather than by transfer, and the keys change hands.

Three things a British buyer should know before that morning.

You do not have to be there. A power of attorney granted in advance lets your lawyer sign for you, which is why the fee lists on what a Spanish property lawyer does so often mention drafting one. Whether it suits your circumstances is a question for the lawyer.

The register is checked again that day. The notary can request an up-to-date register entry immediately before signing, and can notify the register electronically the moment the deed is signed. That short window is what closes the gap between the last search and completion. We have not read the instrument that governs it, so this page describes the practice and cites no article for it.

Signing is not registration. Ownership passes between you and the seller at the deed. It becomes effective against everybody else when the deed is entered on the register, which is a separate step, is paid for separately, and takes weeks rather than minutes. gov.uk puts the point plainly: you should register the property in your name as soon as possible to ensure full protection of your rights.

The documents that decide the purchase

The land registry extract (nota simple): who owns it and what is charged against it. Field by field.
The deed (escritura pública de compraventa): the instrument that transfers ownership. Not the same thing as the register.
The cadastral record: the state's description of the property, from a different system with different rules. See the glossary.
The community of owners certificate: unpaid charges do not appear on the register. gov.uk warns that a new owner assumes debts for the current and previous year.
The first-occupancy licence (licencia de primera ocupación): the town hall's confirmation that the building may be lived in.
The energy efficiency certificate. gov.uk states that since 1 June 2013 all homes for sale or to let in Spain are required by law to have one, and that the seller is obliged to show it.

What has no British equivalent

Spain has no exchange of contracts. There is no day on which two solicitors swap signed contracts and the deal becomes binding. Bindingness arrives when you sign the private contract, which is often weeks earlier and frequently without a lawyer in the room.

There is no chain. Purchases are not linked, nothing collapses because somebody four houses along pulled out, and there is no equivalent of a chain-free premium.

There is no gazumping in the English sense, because the private contract binds much earlier. The corollary is that the protection you are used to having until exchange does not exist here either.

There is neither freehold nor leasehold. Spanish ownership is pleno dominio, full ownership, with a separate regime for the shared parts of a building. Reaching for freehold and leasehold in Spain is the single loudest signal that an English page was written by somebody who has never done this.

You choose the notary. That right is yours, and it is worth exercising — though choosing them does not make them yours.

gov.uk corroborates the general point in its own words: "The Spanish property conveyancing system is different to the UK system so you should ensure that those involved in the transaction are qualified and experienced in Spain."

If the property was built without a licence

State this as a mechanism and a consequence, and not as a drama.

If a building was put up without the licence it needed, the town hall can refuse to grant a first-occupancy licence. Without one, connecting utilities is harder, and the position has to be disclosed and dealt with when you come to resell.

In Andalucía there is a named instrument for this, and it is worth knowing what it does and, more importantly, what it does not. It is the recognition of a building as asimilado a fuera de ordenación — commonly called an AFO. Ley 7/2021 de Andalucía (LISTA) art. 173.1 applies it to finished irregular buildings against which enforcement is no longer possible because the window in art. 153.1 — six years — has closed. The town hall decides, has six months, and art. 173.2 makes silence a refusal.

What it confers: art. 174.7 allows conservation, reform and compatible changes of use by licence, provided the built volume and footprint do not grow. Art. 174.3 allows connection to water, electricity, gas and drainage where no works beyond the connection itself are needed, and supply companies require the resolution before they will contract.

What it does not do, in the statute's own words:

«La declaración de asimilado a fuera de ordenación de una edificación irregular no supone su legalización, ni produce efectos sobre aquellos otros procedimientos a los que hubiera dado lugar la actuación realizada en contra del ordenamiento jurídico, y lo es sin perjuicio de la potestad jurisdiccional de juzgar y hacer ejecutar lo juzgado.»

It does not legalise the building. It is entered at the register only as a nota marginal on the property's folio under art. 174.6, publicising the situation rather than curing it. And art. 153.2 lists cases where enforcement is never time-barred at all — among them public domain, protection easements and the coastal zone of influence — so a build in those places can never obtain one, however old it is.

Two limits on what we have just told you. Decreto 550/2022, the Andalusian regulation under LISTA, lets each town hall set its own procedure and its own minimum conditions by ordinance, so the operative detail genuinely varies by municipality. And this is Andalucía: other communities have their own instruments and we have not read them. Ask a lawyer about the specific property. Do not act on this paragraph.

What this page does not cover

Tax residency, inheritance, wills, off-plan purchases and their bank guarantees, letting licences, or anything about a specific property. Mortgages are covered only as far as the linked page goes.

Everything else on this site

The NIE number: the identification number, who gets one automatically, and the five-day rule where silence is a refusal.
Spain's non-lucrative visa: the income test as a multiple of IPREM, and the work ban.
Moving to Spain from the UK: the 90/180 limit, and why a purchase changes none of it.
Spanish mortgages for non-residents: what the published ceiling is, and the ten days Spanish law gives you before signing.
Who checks a Spanish property: six routes, priced from each provider's own page.
What a Spanish property lawyer does — the stages, the fee bases, and the things a lawyer cannot do.
The nota simple: an annotated example with every field explained and six planted defects.
The Spanish land registry: what a search costs by route, and the statutory tariff behind the price.
What buying a property in Spain costs: a worked example on a stated price, line by line.
The deposit contract: the three kinds of arras and what walking away costs.
The glossary: the Spanish words on your paperwork, in English.

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Before you commit money, instruct an independent lawyer who acts only for you.