Costa Blanca conveyancing. In Spain, the debt stays with the house.
What you learned buying at home does not apply here. The notary is not there to defend your interests, the seller's debts stay attached to the property, and some of the seller's taxes end up paid by you. This is what we check before you sign.
See my priceWhat is it going to cost you?
No sign-up and no email address. The price you get here is the price you will pay.
1. How much does the property cost?
Drag the slider or type the exact figure. The prices below update straight away.
Bracket 2/6over €150,000 and up to €250,000
2. What do you want us to do?
3. Shall we pay on your behalf? (optional)
By default we don't take your money: you pay everyone directly. Only if you ask us here do we handle the payments, with money on account held in a client account separate from ours, and every payment comes with its receipt.
Our fees
€955.90VAT included
You will also have to pay
None of this is ours: you pay it directly to whoever it is owed to, unless in step 3 you ask us to pay it on your behalf.
- Purchase tax (ITP)
- €22,500
- Notary
- at statutory rates
- Land Registry
- at statutory rates
The tax is an estimate at the Comunitat Valenciana rates (Ley 5/2025): 9%, or 11% on the whole amount if it exceeds €1,000,000. It can be lower if you qualify — by age, or with familia numerosa (large family) status, for example. We work out the exact figure before you sign.
Check before you hire
On this coast there have been cases of people claiming to be abogados (Spanish lawyers) when they were not. Checking is free and takes a minute: do it with us, and do it with anyone else.
Registered, practising abogado (Spanish lawyer)
Eloy Becerra Daly, membership number 108020 at the Colegio de la Abogacía de Madrid (Madrid Bar Association). The register is public.
Professional indemnity
The collective policy of the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) with CASER: €330,000 per claim. If there is a mistake, there is an insurer behind it.
Ask us first
The notary is not your abogado (Spanish lawyer)
The notary witnesses what you sign, requests the nota simple (the Land Registry extract) and reads out the charges recorded on it. That is where it ends. He does not check whether what it says is true, he does not look at the house, he does not negotiate the price and he does not go after the seller: by law he is impartial. Defending your interests is somebody else's job.
The debts go with the house
Here a debt does not stay with whoever ran it up: it stays with the property. Under article 9 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (the Spanish commonhold law), the residents' association can come after your flat for the unpaid part of the year you buy in and the three preceding calendar years. Unpaid IBI (the council property tax) and registered mortgages go with it too.
What we check, one by one
This is not a quick look the week of the signing. Every point is asked for in writing from whoever issues it: the Land Registry, the town hall, the managing agent, the Catastro (the cadastre). And it is set against what the seller tells you. If something does not add up, you know before you put money down, not at the notary's office.
- An up-to-date nota simple from the Registro de la Propiedad (Land Registry): who really owns it, what is being sold and the surface area on record.
- Charges still alive over the property: mortgages, court seizures, easements, tax liens and resolutory conditions — clauses that can undo the sale.
- Second occupation: in the Comunitat Valenciana it is evidenced with a declaración responsable (a sworn statement filed at the town hall), not with a cédula de habitabilidad (habitation certificate). If somebody calls it that, it is the same procedure.
- Certificate of debts with the residents' association: the seller provides it, and without it the notary will not authorise the deed unless you release the seller from producing it. Do not release them. And look at the special levies already approved and still unpaid.
- The latest IBI and refuse-collection tax receipts, and whether the property carries a tax lien for unpaid IBI from earlier years.
- Building work or extensions without a licence: pools, enclosures and outbuildings recorded neither at the Land Registry nor at the town hall.
- Catastro against Land Registry: surface area, cadastral reference and boundaries. When they do not match, it gets fixed before signing, not after.
- Occupiers and tenants: a live residential tenancy comes with the house. You step into it for its first five years, seven if the landlord was a company, even if it is not registered.
How it works
Three steps. You can take each one on its own; all three together always work out cheaper.
We check the property
Who really owns it, what debts or charges the property carries and whether it can legally be sold. You get it in writing, with our recommendation.
€484VAT included
We file your taxes
We prepare them and file them ourselves with the tax office and the town hall. No gestoría in the middle — the admin agency most Spanish firms go through.
€193.60VAT included
We register the property in your name
We take it to the Registro de la Propiedad (Land Registry) and deal with whatever the registrar asks for. Until it is registered.
€133.10VAT included
All three together: €750.20
Always cheaper than buying them separately.
Prices are for a property worth up to €150,000. Above that they rise in brackets, and the calculator gives you the exact figure before you commit to anything.
Worth knowing before you sign
If the seller does not live in Spain, you have to withhold 3%
It is your obligation, not the seller's: you hold back 3% of the price and pay it to the tax office within one month of the sale. If that is not done, the debt stays attached to the home you have just bought.
It is not small print and it is not an extra: it is included and we file it for you. We say so here because a lot of people only find out after they have signed.
The real deadlines
- 3% withholding
- 1 month
- Purchase tax (ITP)
- 30 days
- Plusvalía municipal (local land-value tax)
- 30 days
We hold colaborador social status with the Agencia Tributaria (the Spanish tax office) — the official standing that lets us file for you. We file directly.
The questions you came here with
Two taxes that are not yours, and you get the bill
If the seller does not live in Spain, you hold back 3% of the price and pay it over with the modelo 211 within one month. If you do not, the house answers for it. And if the seller is an individual, on the plusvalía municipal (the local land-value tax) you are the substitute taxpayer: you pay the town hall and then claim it back from them.
Before you sign the reservation
Arras penitenciales (a deposit you can walk away from): you can pull out by paying the price of leaving. Confirmatorias: the contract is already closed and they can force you to buy. Penales: on top of that there is an agreed penalty. If the paper does not say which, clearly and beyond doubt, the courts treat them as confirmatorias. And that money is tracked: where it sits, and what it is being paid for.
Buying without travelling
It can be done. You need an NIE and a power of attorney with express powers for that purchase, limited to that property. It is signed before a notary in your own country, with an apostille and a sworn translation, or at the Spanish consulate. A general power of attorney for everything is not needed: do not sign one.
Tell us what you are buying
Tell us where the property is, what price has been talked about and whether the seller lives outside Spain. We will tell you in writing what the whole thing is going to cost you and what has to be checked in your case, before you pay anything.
See my priceSelling has traps of its own
If you are the one selling and you do not live in Spain, the buyer withholds 3% and, if you are an individual, the buyer answers for the plusvalía municipal. That 3% is not your tax: you settle it with the modelo 210 and the tax office refunds whatever is left over. We explain it on the selling page.
Go to the selling page