Not fraud, usually. Just the practices that cost buyers money and time on this coast, and the point at which each one should make you stop.
Outright fraud is rare and makes the newspapers. What actually costs buyers money is more ordinary: pressure, vagueness and money moving before checks are done. These are the nine situations where the right response is to slow down, not to speed up.
The nine
Each one is a reason to pause and ask a direct question:
- No registry number, or a refusal to give one. In this region every agency must be in the official register, and a legitimate one will tell you its number immediately.
- A deposit requested into a personal bank account rather than a client account or through your lawyer.
- Pressure to sign today because "there is another buyer". There is always another buyer. There is never a reason to sign before your lawyer has read the land registry extract.
- Discouraging you from using your own lawyer, or steering you firmly towards one specific firm without disclosing the relationship.
- A reservation contract that is non-refundable whatever the legal checks reveal.
- Verbal promises that never reach the contract: a licence that is coming, a view that will not be built on, a rental permission that is being processed.
- No written breakdown of what you are paying and to whom, or a buyer's fee that appears late in the conversation.
- Refusal to provide community fee statements, the last minutes of the owners' meeting, or the IBI receipt. These documents exist and are routine.
- A property being marketed with a plan or a size that does not match the cadastre, waved away as "a small difference".
The rule that covers all nine
No money moves before an independent lawyer has seen the property's registry extract, and nothing that matters is agreed verbally. Every one of the situations above is survivable if you hold that line, and expensive if you do not.
If something has already gone wrong
Keep every document and every message: contracts, transfers, emails and WhatsApp threads. Speak to a Spanish lawyer, not to the agency's lawyer. A registered agency carries professional indemnity insurance and a guarantee for client money, which is exactly why the registry check at the start matters so much: it determines whether there is anything to claim against later.
If a listing on this site is wrong, out of date, or belongs to an agency that has closed, tell us and we will correct it. Our data comes from the official register, but the register itself lags reality, and readers are usually the first to notice.
Questions people ask
What are the warning signs of a bad estate agent in Spain?
No registry number, deposits requested into a personal account, pressure to sign immediately, discouraging you from using your own lawyer, refusal to provide community accounts or IBI receipts, and verbal promises that never make it into the contract.
Where should my deposit go?
To a client account, an escrow arrangement or your own lawyer's client account, never into a personal account. Get a receipt that identifies the property, the amount, the date and what happens to the money if the legal checks fail.
What protection do I have if a registered agency behaves badly?
Registration in the Valencian register requires professional indemnity insurance and a guarantee covering client money, and it gives you an identified company and a supervising authority to complain to. That is precisely the protection an unregistered operator does not have.