STEPS TO BUY A PROPERTY IN SPAIN
1. SEARCHING THE RIGHT PROPERTY
You need to spend time searching for the property that you wish, depending on your budget.
You will have to take into account:
*Budget to afford in purchase price, plus purchase cost.
*Beach property
* Inland property
* Quite area
*Busy area
*City that you wish to live
* Size of the property
* The kind of property could be appartment with terrace, semidetached house, independiente house…
Normally, buyers could take from 2 weeks to 3 months to find the property they wish to buy depending on their requirement and the market situation.
2. USING A REAL ESTATE AGENT OR SEARCHING ALONE
In Spain you could choose to find a property directly talking with owners or find a real estate agent to help you to find a property that suit your request.
Using a Real estate agent: They will charge you from 3% to 6% of the purchase price depending on the area where you buy or they could charge only to the owners.
However, either you pay to them or the owners pay their commission you will pay the cost, as the comission will be on the top of the normal price that owners want to sell.
The most important point is that you are informed of final price with the agent fee included, always ask for final price before to make any contract or payment to the agent.
Searching on your own: You could find selling adverts either directly at the properties o either online.
You will have to organise the visitation of the property and make all the rights questions about the property before to confirm a price offer to the owners.
It is normally asked all the utilities cost of the property and maintenance to know your avarage cost.
It is important to know if there is air condition or not and if the furniture is included or not.
Once all right questions and confirmed is the time to make the offer to the owners.
3. PURCHASE OFFER TO THE OWNERS.
This could be done by the real estate agent, directly by yourself or if you hire a conveyance lawyer in Spain that help you to buy the property it could be done by your lawyer.
The negotations take time as you need to value all if you need to make reforms, if you need to furniture or not, how long time the owners need to make the move and many other concepts that you need to value before to make the purchase offer to them.
4. FORMALITIES TO CLOSE THE DEAL USING A REAL ESTATE LAWYER OR NOT
Once the offer is accepted you could either act on your own name or hire a lawyer.
Normally, most of the buyers hire a conveyance lawyer that are expert in Property purchase in Spain.
From that moment, the expert lawyer will take care of the all legal procedure to malke sure that all your rights are covered and avoid any risk of your invest in Spain.
The first job of the lawyer is explain you all the purchase procedure in Spain, list of cost and right and obligations in the purchase.
Once this is clear, the important point is to initiate a provisional DUE DILIGENCE of the property.
Do not pay or sign any contract before the due diligence is done, after the payments you will not get your money back.
For that reason, there is a need of a work done of Due diligence done by an expert property purchase lawyer to cover your right and confirm the legalities before to pay or engage in the contract.
The lawyer work on the Due Diligence and at the same time work in the drafting of the purchase contract for you.
4. PURCHASE CONTRACT:
Once all the Due Diligence of the property is done, Land registry confirmed, tow hall confirmed, all utilities bills revised, licence revised, taxes revised.
This is the most important document to be drafted and needs time to negotiate, as all the purchase will depends on this documents, anything included or not included will be binding for the purchase and it will limited the all procedure.
It is crucial to have a right legal assistance before to sign the purchase contract to avoid risk or loss money.
The normal purchaser hire a lawyer to draft this and it is normally included in the full legal conveyance procedure purchase procedure.
Normally you should pay 10% of the purchase price to complete a purchase contract in Spain and some clients pay first around 6.000€ to sign the reservation contract and take out of the market the property.
5. NOTARY DEEDS AND KEY HANDING:
Once all negotiation are signed, first payment is done, the formalities like NIE, bank account set up, POA done and bank transfer ready to be done for final price payment, the lawyer organize the Notary date to complete the purchase on the name of the purchase. All legalities are revised, number confirmed, all invoice doublecheck and adjust any debt or agreement on taxes obligations in both side to be revise by the lawyer.
Normally, you will be at the Notary assisted by your Lawyer or directly represented by her to sign the purchase deeds.
That date the keys are handed and final payment is paid.
From that date on the purchase is done and legally you are considered the owner of the property for all legalities and obligations.
6. PROPERTY REGISTRATION AND CHANGE DIRECT DEBITS.:
You could get after sale service from your lawyer or from the real estate agency, the change of the direct debits could be done by any of them not really a big difference.
However, the lawyer should be the one who take care of the property registration as a professional is not the job of any real estate agency either are ready for it.
The change of direct debit could be done either by yourself, by the real estate agent if hired one or even the real estate lawyer that you hire you could ask for this service if you wish and forget about the problems to fight with utilities companies to sett up all in your name.
The purchase procedure in Spain could be really serious and have many guarantees but only if you know all the rules in Spain. For that reason it is highly recommended to hire a conveyance lawyer that could make the purchase procedure simple for you or a nightmare if you do not hire one or the right one.
Once experience real estate lawyer in Spain could be a great support in the procedure and it is a ” must” in the procedure.