NIE, notary and completion: the buying process explained

Buying a home in Spain follows a fairly fixed path. Knowing the steps in advance removes most of the stress, and a good local agent coordinates much of it for you. From reservation to keys is typically four to eight weeks on a resale, longer if a mortgage or an inheritance is involved.

1. Get your NIE

The NIE is your Spanish foreigner tax number. You need it to buy, to open a bank account and to set up utilities. It can be arranged in Spain by appointment, or through a Spanish consulate before you travel, or by your lawyer under a power of attorney. Start it as soon as you decide to buy, not once you have found the property: it is the step most likely to delay a completion.

2. Open a Spanish bank account

Not strictly compulsory, but in practice you will want one for the banker's draft at completion and for the utility direct debits afterwards. Non-resident accounts require the NIE and proof of income or origin of funds. Allow a couple of weeks.

3. Appoint your own lawyer

Before you pay anything. Your lawyer is not the agency's lawyer and not the developer's. Agree the fee in writing, and agree exactly what the check covers: land registry, debts and embargoes, licences, planning status, community accounts and, for a villa, whether what is built matches what is registered.

4. Reserve the property

A reservation deposit, commonly €3,000 to €6,000, takes the property off the market while the checks are done, usually for two to four weeks. Read what you sign: it should say clearly what happens to the money if the legal check turns up a problem. A reservation that is non-refundable whatever is found is not a reservation, it is a risk.

5. The private contract (contrato de arras)

Once the checks are clean you sign a private purchase contract and pay a larger deposit, typically 10% of the price. Most contracts on this coast are arras penitenciales: if you pull out you lose the deposit, and if the seller pulls out they owe you double. That symmetry is the point, and it is worth confirming in writing that the clause is the penitencial kind.

6. Notary and completion

At completion you sign the public deed (escritura) in front of a notary, pay the balance, and receive the keys. The notary reads the deed aloud; if your Spanish is not solid you are entitled to an interpreter, and the notary can refuse to proceed without one. Taxes are paid within 30 working days, and the land registry is then updated in your name.

7. Afterwards

Change the utility contracts into your name, register with the community of owners, set up the direct debit for the IBI and the rubbish charge, and, if you are a non-resident owner, diarise the annual non-resident tax return. A gestoría will do all of this for a modest fee and it is usually money well spent in the first year.

Where deals actually go wrong

In our experience two points account for most of the trouble. The first is paying a reservation before an independent lawyer has seen the land registry extract, because that is when you discover the debt, the embargo or the extension without a licence. The second is the gap between what was verbally promised about a property, a licence, a rental permission, a view that will not be built on, and what the contract says. Everything that matters goes in the contract, in writing, before money moves.