Free property check in Spain: what you can check yourself

What a free property check in Spain can and can't tell you

A free property check in Spain can tell you what the public maps and the Catastro say about a home: where the plot is, how big it is, what the land is classed as, whether it sits in a flood zone or near the coastal boundary, and when buildings appeared. It can't tell you who legally owns it, whether there's a mortgage or seizure, whether the pool had a licence, or whether the community fees are paid. Those need paid documents and a professional.

Spain's official tools are good and mostly open to anyone. The catch is that they're in Spanish, spread across different ministries, and nobody joins them up for you. Here's how to use each one.

1. Sede Electrónica del Catastro: free catastro search

The Catastro's electronic office lets anyone look up the non-protected data of any property for free, with no login. According to the Catastro, protected data is the owner's name and ID and the valor catastral; everything else is open.

1. Go to the Sede Electrónica del Catastro and choose Consulta de datos catastrales (no certificate needed).
2. Search by referencia catastral if you have it, or by province, town, street and number, or click on the map.
3. Note the reference, the class (urbano or rústico), the use, the built area, the plot area and the year of construction.
4. Open the map view and the building sketch (croquis). Compare with the listing: a pool, annex or extra floor that's in the photos but not on the Catastro is a question for the seller.

A property on rustic land, or a built area much larger in the listing than on the Catastro, is a signal to dig further. See our guide to the pitfalls of buying property in Spain.

2. MITECO SNCZI: Spain flood map

The Sistema Nacional de Cartografía de Zonas Inundables (SNCZI), run by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO), is Spain's official flood map. It shows mapped flood zones and the public water domain along rivers and the coast.

1. Open the SNCZI viewer from MITECO's SNCZI page.
2. Search the town or zoom to the property.
3. Turn on the flood-zone layers (river and coastal flooding, by probability) and the public water domain layer.
4. Note whether the plot is inside a mapped zone, and how close it is to a watercourse, including dry riverbeds (ramblas).

Not every stream is mapped, and "not mapped" doesn't mean "no risk". Ask neighbours and check your home insurance terms.

3. IGN aerial photos: PNOA and the Comparador PNOA

The Instituto Geográfico Nacional's PNOA programme has flown aerial photos of all of Spain since 2004, and the Comparador PNOA lets you compare years side by side. It's the simplest free way to see when a house, extension or pool was built.

1. Open the IGN Comparador PNOA.
2. Search the address or zoom to the plot.
3. Use the curtain or side-by-side mode to compare the oldest and newest photos.
4. Write down the first year each structure appears. Your lawyer can compare that with the licences and the deadlines for planning enforcement in that region.

For older history, the IGN's photo library (Fototeca) holds historic flights too, some decades old.

4. The Ley de Costas deslinde via the MITECO viewer

If the property is near the sea, check the official shoreline boundary (deslinde) of the public maritime-terrestrial domain. MITECO publishes the deslinde lines and protection easement data for over 10,000 km of coast, at 1:25,000 scale, with a free viewer.

1. Open MITECO's page on the deslinde lines and follow the link to the Visor del Dominio Público Marítimo-Terrestre.
2. Zoom to the property and turn on the deslinde and protection easement layers.
3. See whether any part of the plot falls inside public domain or the protection zone (100 m inland as a rule, 20 m in many older urban areas).

At 1:25,000 the lines are indicative for a single plot. If the property is close, your lawyer should ask the Demarcación de Costas for confirmation.

5. The town hall's urban-planning viewer

The planning map (PGOU or equivalent) shows how land is classified and what can be built. There's no single national viewer: some town halls have their own, and some regions publish one for all their municipalities. Search "visor urbanístico" or "PGOU" with the town's name.

1. Find the viewer on the town hall or regional government website.
2. Locate the plot and read the land class (suelo urbano, urbanizable, no urbanizable/rústico) and any special protection.
3. Look for roads, green zones or public facilities drawn across the plot.

The map shows the plan, not whether this building is legal. For that you need the town hall's licence records or a certificado urbanístico, which usually carries a fee.

A free property check in Spain, worked example

Here's how the five free tools fit together on a typical inland villa. The Catastro shows a rustic parcel with a 110 m² house built in 1995 and no pool. The listing says 180 m² with a pool. The PNOA comparator shows the pool and a large extension appearing between two flights about a decade ago. The SNCZI viewer shows a dry riverbed at the edge of the plot inside a mapped flood zone. The planning viewer shows the land as non-developable. None of this proves the property is illegal, but together it gives you four precise questions for the seller and your lawyer: when were the extension and pool built, under what licence, has the town hall issued an AFO declaration or opened any file, and what does the insurer say about flood cover. Asking those before the deposit costs nothing. Finding out after costs a lot.

What isn't free

A buyer can't get the valor catastral certificate of someone else's property. Ask the seller for it, or for their latest IBI receipt, which shows it.

Our property check is currently free

Our property check is currently free. Enter the address or referencia catastral on our home page and we reply by email with what the public records show. We aren't lawyers or a government service, and it doesn't replace legal advice. For the full process, see our buying guide and the cost of buying property in Spain.