How to Check a Property in Spain Before You Buy: Nota Simple, Hidden Debts, and Illegal Building Work (2026)

What to check before the deposit, and why not after

A purchase in Spain happens in two stages. First you sign a deposit contract (contrato de arras): the parties fix the price and the date of the sale, and the buyer pays part of the price. A few weeks or months later, you sign the purchase deed (escritura) at the notary's office, which is the equivalent of the closing. If the contract expressly says the deposit is penitenciales, then under article 1454 of the Civil Code either party may withdraw, but not for free: the buyer forfeits what was paid, and the seller returns it doubled. If the contract does not expressly grant that right, the Supreme Court treats the deposit as arras confirmatorias, meaning it is simply part of the price (ruling 583/2018 of October 17, 2018). In that case a court can order the party who backed out to complete the sale or pay damages (article 1124 of the Civil Code).

So you find out about everything that could sink the purchase before the deposit, while walking away costs nothing: a problem discovered later turns into a dispute over who backed out and who owes whom. Whatever you cannot finish checking goes into the deposit contract as conditions (list below).

Here is the main difference from a US purchase. There, a buyer is advised to make the contract contingent on financing and a satisfactory inspection, so that if either fails the buyer is not required to buy (CFPB). In Spain, your contingencies are whatever you write into the deposit contract.

Since 2023, a buyer has a direct right to documents. Article 31 of the housing law lets you demand information about the property before signing and before paying any money: the Registry data with encumbrances, the floor area and age of the building, the energy certificate, the document certifying the property is fit to live in, whether it is vacant, and any planning peculiarities. The law names no penalty, but a refusal is itself a warning: do not pay a deposit until the documents arrive.

In a video about buying from 2025 (in Russian, like all my videos cited here), I described the typical mistake this way: "We fall in love with an apartment, pay a deposit, and only then find out that it has debts or that it does not belong to the seller at all." I also warned that the rush is not an accident: sellers "often insist on urgency and scare you with other buyers, just when something is off."

Check eight things before the deposit:

1. The nota simple: who owns the property and what is recorded against it.
2. The Cadastre (the state's property survey and tax register): whether this is the right apartment and whether the floor area matches.
3. The homeowners' association's certificate of debts, and the minutes of its meetings for future assessments.
4. The receipt and certificate for the property tax (IBI).
5. Town hall permits for everything that was built on (a license or a declaration of works), and the declaration of occupancy.
6. Who lives in the property, and on what terms.
7. If the house is by the sea: where the boundary of state coastal land runs.
8. If you need tourist rentals: the association's bylaws and minutes, and the regional rules.

The nota simple, the Cadastre, the coastal map viewer, and requests to the seller take two or three days. The association's certificate (up to seven calendar days), the tax office's residency certificate for the seller (up to ten business days), and the town hall's reply (up to a month) take longer.

If you do not live in Spain, the nota simple, the Cadastre, and the map viewer are all available online, and a lawyer or an attorney-in-fact will handle the rest. From the US, you can sign the power of attorney in person at a Spanish consulate, by appointment (New York consulate). Spain has consulates in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and San Juan, and a consular section at its embassy in Washington, DC. You can also sign it before a US notary public: such a document can be used in Spain with an apostille from your state's apostille authority, usually the Secretary of State (USAGov), and an official translation into Spanish (New York consulate); ask the Spanish notary or your lawyer beforehand whether that document will be accepted. A Spanish consulate also takes the application for the NIE, the foreigner identification number: the pages of the New York consulate give two to five weeks, the consular section in Washington 20 to 30 days, and the Miami consulate at least four weeks; you apply at the consulate that covers the state where you live. If you do not speak Spanish, the notary translates the deed orally or through your own interpreter (article 150 of the Notarial Regulations).

What to put in the deposit contract if you have not checked everything

Article 1454 of the Civil Code sets only the price of walking away, and only for a penitenciales deposit; the contract text decides everything else. If the checks are not finished, write these into it:

• the type of deposit: penitenciales lets either party withdraw at the price of the deposit, including a seller who gets a better offer, while confirmatorias gives each side the right to go to court to demand that the sale go through, or damages; if you choose penitenciales, call it that explicitly and spell out what each side loses, because a bare reference to article 1454 may not be enough;
• a full refund of the deposit if debts to the homeowners' association or on the property tax (IBI), a court attachment, building work without permits, or inclusion in the state coastal zone or the protection zone turn up before the closing, and also if the seller does not provide the promised certificates or does not pay off the mortgage, either before the closing or from the price at the notary;
• special assessments (derramas) approved by the association's meeting, and who pays them;
• who clears the mortgage and the attachment, by what date, and who files the papers with the Registry;
• who prepares the declaration of occupancy, and at whose expense;
• if the seller is a non-resident, withholding of 3% from the price, and if the seller is an individual, payment of the seller's plusvalía from the price as well;
• a closing date with room for the NIE and for the possibility that the bank refuses.

A reservation deposit (reserva), which an agent may ask for before the deposit contract, is documented separately, with its own refund conditions. Before any transfer, ask in writing what the payment is for, whose account receives it, and when it is refundable. Your own lawyer reviews the contract, not the seller's agent. If the seller will not give you documents you are entitled to demand before paying, or will not agree even to refund the deposit if debts, an attachment, or unpermitted building work turn up, do not pay the deposit.

Does the notary check the property?

In Spain a notary (notario) is a state-appointed legal professional, not the signature witness a US notary public is. The notary prepares the transaction and is responsible for its legality, but represents neither party. Buyers often assume the notary will vet the property, and that is a dangerous misconception.

If you are used to a US closing, the roles are split differently. A US buyer relies on a title company to search the records and insure the result. In Spain the notary checks the Registry before signing, and your protection comes from the Registry itself: a buyer who acts in good faith, pays for the property, buys from the person the Registry shows as entitled to transfer it, and registers the purchase keeps it, even if the seller's own title is later annulled for a reason the Registry did not show (article 34 of the Mortgage Law). That protection covers your ownership against hidden defects in the seller's title. It does not make the debts, building violations, and tenants covered later in this article go away, and it does not help if the land turns out to be in the state coastal zone (see the section on the coast), so you have to check those yourself.

Under article 175 of the Notarial Regulations, before signing the notary must check in the Property Registry who the owner is and what encumbrances are on the property, and repeat the query as close to the signing as possible. The law also tells the notary not to execute the sale without a certificate of debts to the homeowners' association (article 9.1.e of the Horizontal Property Law) and to request information on IBI debts and warn the parties about them (article 64.1 of the Local Finance Law). According to the notaries' own description, the notary also asks for the energy certificate and records the seller's statement on whether there are tenants or other occupants.

What the notary is not required to do: a notary demands a building permit only when a new building is first entered in the Registry (article 28 of the national land law); on the resale of a finished apartment, the law merely allows the notary to ask the town hall for information on the property's planning status (article 27.4). No provision says in so many words that the notary does not check legality; that is our conclusion from the two articles. Who is actually living in the property, what condition it is in, and the state of the utility bills are also outside the notary's checks, and on hidden defects the notary only warns.

A buyer can relieve the notary of part of these duties. Under article 175.5.b, it is enough to declare that you are satisfied with the information in the seller's title document, the seller's statement, and your own arrangements, and the notary then does not check the Registry. A buyer may also release the seller from providing the association's certificate. In both cases the risk is entirely yours, so do not sign such clauses, even when you are being rushed.

In a podcast about mistakes when buying, the lawyer Maxim Snisar put the boundary this way: a notary "will not allow a flagrant deal," but an unaccounted debt or problems with later registration of the title are, in the lawyer's words, something the notary "cannot and should not record."

Visit the notary before the closing day: the notaries recommend doing it before any signature and before any money changes hands, and that consultation is free.

What is a nota simple, and how much does it cost?

The Property Registry (Registro de la Propiedad) records who owns property in Spain, what share each owner holds, and what the property is encumbered with. An encumbrance is a record of someone else's right to the property or a restriction on it: a bank mortgage, an attachment for the owner's debts, a ban on selling. A property in the Registry is a finca with its own number, and an extract of the entries on a finca is a nota simple. Think of it as a title search report, but one that is only an extract, with no guarantee.

Legally it is an information certificate. Article 222.5 of the Mortgage Law (the law that governs the Registry) says a nota simple has "purely informational value" and does not certify the content of the entries; the registrar is liable for errors in issuing it. To prove an encumbrance in a dispute with third parties, for example in court, you need a certified extract (certificación) signed by the registrar (article 225). For a pre-purchase check you order a nota simple; a certificación is rarely needed.

On the Registry's website a nota simple costs €9.02 per finca before taxes (sede.registradores.org); with VAT at the standard 21% rate it comes to about €11, but the site does not state the rate, so that figure is our own calculation. If a garage or storage room is recorded as a separate finca, each needs its own extract.

Here is where the €9.02 comes from. The registrars' 1989 fee schedule lists €3.005061 for a nota simple (item 4.1.f of the schedule), and the remaining six-odd euros are a fee for issuing it over the internet, which the Registry's supervising authority has recognized as lawful since 1996 (2005 ruling). That fee was never written into the schedule itself: in September 2026 the Ministry of Justice proposed writing €9.02 into it (explanatory memorandum to the draft), but as of October 5 the draft is open for public comment and has not been adopted. So old guides quoting "three euros" repeat a line of the fee schedule, not the price of an online order.

By its own figures, the Registry issues the extract in under two hours on average. For an online request, the law gives the registrar no more than one business day to communicate a decision on it (article 222 bis.4 of the Mortgage Law).

It is only a snapshot: anything entered in the Registry after it is issued will not appear in it, so you order a fresh one right before the closing. For the last days before signing there is a more convenient option, información continuada: €12.03 per finca before taxes, which can be reopened for five calendar days and also shows documents that have arrived at the Registry.

How to order a nota simple online

The Registry is open to anyone with an interest in learning the state of a property (article 221 of the Mortgage Law), and the registrar judges whether the interest is legitimate (article 332 of the Mortgage Regulations). The wish to buy a property is recognized as such an interest: the Registry's plain-language guide spells out that anyone who wants to buy a house may request information and find out whether the owners have debts. Agencies, lawyers, and gestores (licensed paperwork agents) request extracts as part of their work, stating the reason.

On sede.registradores.org, open the section "Registro de la Propiedad," then "Nota simple." You do not need to register. Enter the property and the reason for the request; the registrar sees the reason, and the owner may find it out later. The extract arrives by email as a link to a PDF, and the invoice comes from the registrar who issued it. A translation into English costs €30 before taxes.

You can look up a property by any of these identifiers, most reliable first:

• the CRU code, formerly called IDUFIR: a single identifier of the property in the Registry across all of Spain;
• the finca registral number together with the province, the municipality, and the registry office;
• the address, again with the municipality and the registry office; if the data is incomplete, the request may be rejected or answered with a negative result;
• the cadastral reference number, but only if the property has been reconciled with the Cadastre;
• the owner's name: this kind of search requires an electronic signature, and it shows all of that person's properties.

The finca number and the registry office are in the seller's deed, and the cadastral number is on the IBI receipt. If all you have is a listing, ask the agent in writing to send the finca number or CRU and the name of the registry office: a buyer is entitled to demand them before any payment (article 31 of the housing law). If the agency shows you its own extract, check the date and order a fresh one yourself: it costs about €11.

How to read a nota simple: what it shows and what it does not

The extract has several blocks, and it is worth reading them in order.

Description of the property

This block gives the address, floor area, boundaries, the cadastral number, and a note on whether the property has been reconciled with the Cadastre as of a given date (articles 9 and 10 of the Mortgage Law). The address in the extract may not match the number on the door; the section on the Registry and the Cadastre explains why.

The owner (titularidad)

This block tells you who the owner is, what share the owner holds, and on what basis the owner acquired the property. Compare the name and the ID number with the seller's passport. If there are several owners, you must reach agreement with all of them, not just with the person showing you the apartment. If one of them has died, the heirs must first settle the estate and register it in their names (article 20 of the Mortgage Law); this is covered in detail in our article on selling property as a non-resident. If the seller is married and the block records the property as marital (ganancial, meaning acquired during the marriage and owned jointly) or the seller's family lives there, the spouse's consent is needed for the sale even when the extract carries one name (article 1320 and article 1377 of the Civil Code); ask that the spouse sign the deposit contract too.

A real example. Once, three heirs were selling an apartment, and the seller's agency claimed that all of them had paid the inheritance tax. I asked for the documents: two had paid. The deal slipped by about a month, but the buyer did not walk into it carrying someone else's unresolved problem (2025 podcast). Check the papers, not the promises.

Encumbrances (cargas)

This block shows the bank's mortgage and any court attachments. An attachment (anotación preventiva de embargo) means that a creditor of the seller has secured the debt against the property, in effect a court-ordered lien; the entry lasts four years and can be renewed (article 86). The same block carries entries for a lawsuit concerning the property, for a ban on disposing of it, for a right of repurchase, and for easements, if they were recorded (the Registry's guide to encumbrances).

Marginal notes (notas marginales)

Almost every extract has a note on the property's tax liability, afección fiscal. It means the tax office can still re-examine the tax paid on the previous sale and, if too little was paid, the property itself is liable for the difference, no matter who owns it (article 5.1 of the transfer tax law). The tax office has four years to do so (article 66 of the General Tax Law), and the note itself lasts five years (article 122 of the regulations for that tax), after which it is removed at the next transaction involving the property. This is an ordinary entry. Two other notes are more serious:

• a note that the previous buyer, who bought from a non-resident, did not pay the tax office the 3% of the price that he was required to withhold (article 14.5 of the non-resident income tax regulations): the property is liable for this tax until the note is canceled on proof of payment, so ask for it to be cleared before the closing;
• a note that the property is subsidized housing, VPO (vivienda de protección oficial): the price is capped, and in the Valencian Community only a Spanish citizen or a person legally resident here, who as a rule has no other home in the country, may buy such a property (article 41 of Decree 180/2024). A notary will not execute a resale without the housing authority's approval stamp (visado) (article 53 of Law 8/2004, as worded in 2025). A non-resident cannot buy such a property.

Planning notes appear only if the town hall reported them to the Registry, for example a demand to regularize a structure, so their absence guarantees nothing. Separately, the extract reports documents that have been filed with the Registry but not yet entered (article 222.9 of the Mortgage Law); if there is anything there, ask the seller what it is.

The Registry and the Cadastre: how not to buy the wrong apartment

Two agencies keep records on a property. The Property Registry reports to the Ministry of Justice and records rights. The Cadastre (Catastro) reports to the Ministry of Finance and describes the property physically and for tax purposes: where it is, its area, its year of construction, its use, and its cadastral value. The two databases do not always agree. On the question of rights, the Registry takes priority: Cadastre data is considered correct "without prejudice to the Property Registry, whose legal information prevails" (article 3.3 of the Cadastre law).

The cadastral reference number (referencia catastral) has 20 characters. It appears on the IBI receipt, in the deed, and in the nota simple. With it, anyone can see the area, year built, and use of the property on the Cadastre's website, free and without an electronic signature. The owner's name and the cadastral value are protected: only the owner or someone with a direct legitimate interest can get them.

Compare three floor areas: in the nota simple, in the Cadastre, and in the listing. The Mortgage Law draws a line at 10%: a smaller difference between the Registry and the Cadastre can be fixed through a simplified procedure (article 201.3), and a larger one cannot. But for an apartment in a multi-unit building, even the simplified correction requires approval from the homeowners' association (rulings of the Registry's supervising authority of February 12, 2025 and January 13, 2026), so a noticeable difference is a question for the seller and a lawyer before the deposit. If the apartment is actually larger than the documents say, that may mean an addition or an enclosed terrace, and then read the section on the legality of the structure.

The most unpleasant mistake sounds like a joke: buying the door next to the right one. In the podcast with the lawyer Maxim Snisar, there was a story about a fund selling apartments in a building where squatters had already taken some of them: the buyer was shown the one empty unit, but on paper he bought a different one, with occupants. The case is covered in detail in our article on squatters.

The addresses in the extract, on the electricity bill, and on the door may not match. According to Snisar, a nota simple "is written as if it were a pirate map," with descriptions like "the third door on the left before the swimming pool." So compare the extract's finca registral and cadastral numbers with the seller's deed and the IBI receipt, then confirm on site that the door you were shown is the one described.

Do the previous owner's debts pass to the buyer?

Some debts attach not to a person but to the property, and they come to you with it.

Association dues

In a Spanish multi-unit building, the common expenses (cleaning, the elevator, the pool, building insurance) are managed by the homeowners' association (comunidad de propietarios), which works much like a US HOA, and each owner pays a monthly fee. If the previous owner did not pay, the debt stays with the property. Article 9.1.e of the Horizontal Property Law says the buyer answers "with the acquired property itself" for the previous owners' debts for the part of the purchase year that has already passed and the three preceding calendar years. If you buy in October 2026, you are liable for 2026 up to the day of purchase and for 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Protection against this debt is a certificate. The seller must state in the deed that there are no debts, or name them, and attach the association's certificate. It is issued by whoever acts as secretary, with the chair's signature, within seven calendar days of the request; the law sets no fee. Without the certificate the notary will not execute the sale unless the buyer expressly releases the seller from this obligation. Do not release the seller.

The certificate covers the past, not the future. The meeting may decide to do major repairs or an improvement and split the cost among the owners as separate special assessments, derramas. For assessments on improvements to the building, such as a new elevator, the law says outright who pays: whoever owns the apartment when the payment falls due (article 17.11). A decision made before your purchase, with payments after it, falls on you, even though it was not yet a debt on the closing date. Mandatory repairs, such as a roof, count as ordinary association expenses: for what was assessed before the purchase, the property answers under the three-year rule, and who pays installments that fall due after the purchase is written into the deposit contract.

In the podcast with Maxim Snisar, we discussed a similar case. The buyer paid a reservation deposit, the property had no debts, and right before the closing it turned out that the association had decided to fix the roof and had assessed this apartment about €10,000 (roughly $11,200) in several installments. The buyer treated it as a debt and demanded the money back; the seller replied that it was not a debt. Snisar proposed a fix for the future: write into the deposit contract not only debts and encumbrances but also the assessments approved by the meeting, calling them by the Spanish word derrama. Then there is no argument over whether it is a debt or not.

Before buying, we first go to the association and ask what is planned: if the building has no elevator, a decision to install one may already have been made, and you will pay part of its cost after the purchase (2026 video). Ask the seller for the minutes of the meetings for the last few years (the minute book is kept by the secretary, article 19.4) and look in them for approved assessments, lawsuits, and orders concerning the building.

The property tax (IBI)

IBI (Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles) is the annual municipal property tax, the Spanish counterpart of US property tax. For a given year it is paid by whoever owned the property on January 1, and the parties decide in the contract how to split the tax for the year of the sale: the law allows it to be passed on under the civil rules (article 63 of the Local Finance Law).

Unpaid IBI also stays with the property, but as a second line of liability: under article 64.1, the property is liable for the full amount of the tax after the town hall has tried to collect it from the seller and has declared the seller insolvent (article 41.5 and article 176 of the General Tax Law). The article does not say for how many years. The general limitation period for tax debts is four years (article 66), but that is the limit on the tax authority's powers, not a rule about the buyer.

Under article 64.1, the notary must request information on the debt. Since 2022, notaries in the province of Valencia have received it electronically under an agreement with the provincial council for 192 municipalities, but the city of Valencia itself is not named on that list. In the province of Alicante, the notary receives a report on IBI debts from the provincial council's tax agency, SUMA, for properties across the province except the cities of Alicante and Jávea (Xàbia) (SUMA). So ask the seller for the latest paid receipt and for a certificate of no debt from the town hall, or from the body that collects IBI in the municipality where the property is, such as SUMA.

Plusvalía and the 3% withholding when the seller is a non-resident

If the seller is not a Spanish tax resident, the buyer takes on obligations: one if a company is selling, and two if an individual is selling.

The first concerns plusvalía, the municipal tax on the increase in the value of the land under the building. The seller pays it, but if the seller is an individual and a non-resident, the law makes the buyer the substitute taxpayer, the sustituto (article 106.2 of the Local Finance Law): you pay the town hall, usually out of the seller's money held back at the closing. The return is filed within 30 business days of the closing, and the Registry will not register your purchase until it sees that the tax has been declared (article 254.5 of the Mortgage Law).

The second concerns the 3% withholding, and it applies whenever the seller is a non-resident, including a company. Under article 25.2 of the non-resident income tax law, the buyer must withhold 3% of the price paid to the seller and pay it to the tax office on form 211 within a month of the closing. Otherwise the property is liable for the seller's tax up to the lesser of two amounts, the withholding or the tax itself, and the registrar enters a note to that effect; a fine is also possible. Not withholding is safe only if the seller proves with a tax office certificate that the seller pays income tax or corporate tax in Spain as a resident (article 14.2.a of the regulations): the words "I am a resident," citizenship, and an address in the deed are not enough. The tax office issues the certificate (certificado de residencia fiscal) within ten business days (AEAT), so if the seller is a foreigner, for example a Briton living in Spain, ask for it before the deposit. How this looks from the seller's side is covered in our article on selling property as a non-resident.

Electricity, water, and gas

An electricity contract in Spain is personal: under article 28.2 of Decree 88/2026, it must be held by the person who actually uses the energy. We found no provision under which a new owner pays the previous owner's debt. The old contract with the grid ends automatically when a new one is signed, provided there is no debt on it (article 40.2.c); what happens when there is a debt, the decree does not say outright. The rules on water and gas depend on the supplier and the town hall, and we have not checked them. So ask the seller for the paid bills for all utilities.

The seller's mortgage and court attachments: how they are cleared

Properties are often sold with a mortgage, which the seller pays off on the closing day out of your money. In its guide to encumbrances, the Registry gives the buyer three options: require the seller to pay off the mortgage before the closing; hold back the amount of the debt from the price and pay the bank yourself; or, with the bank's consent, take over the mortgage. If the extract shows that foreclosure on the mortgage has begun, the guide says plainly to require that note's removal before buying, or the foreclosure may cancel your registration.

The Bank of Spain describes the payoff this way. The seller's bank issues a statement of the remaining debt together with unpaid interest, and the buyer pays off that debt by check at the notary's office or by transfer through the Bank of Spain's system. The property is then sold free of encumbrances. The seller pays for the cancellation document, according to the Bank of Spain.

But a paid-off debt and a cleared entry in the Registry are not the same thing. Under article 82 of the Mortgage Law, a mortgage is cleared from the Registry only by a document in which the bank consents to the cancellation, or by a court order. The document is called a carta de pago y cancelación (a payoff letter and release); it is signed by the bank's representative, not the seller, and since November 2023 may be signed by video call (article 17 ter of the Notarial Act, Bank of Spain blog). Then the document is filed with the Registry, and the Bank of Spain warns explicitly that delays at this step have undesirable consequences: until the document is filed, the seller's mortgage remains in the records for the property. So after your purchase is registered, order a new nota simple and check that the seller's mortgage is gone. If it is still there, write to the notary who handled the closing and to the seller's bank.

No single notarial instruction describes how this happens in one day, so here is the usual practice. The seller's bank gives a payoff figure in advance for the closing date. At the notary's office, part of the price goes to the bank, and the seller receives the rest. The bank's representative signs the mortgage release, and the notary or a gestor files the papers with the Registry. Who does this and by when is best written into the deposit contract.

The notary files a copy of your deed with the Registry electronically on the signing day. From that moment the Registry's order of priority applies: a document conflicting with yours, filed later, will not overtake it (articles 17 and 24 of the Mortgage Law).

A court attachment is different. A property under attachment can be sold, but subject to the creditor's rights (article 71): the buyer gets it together with the attachment, and the creditor keeps the right to collect the debt, interest, and costs from its value (article 613.1 of the Civil Procedure Act). An entry made on a court order can be cleared only by the court (article 83 of the Mortgage Law), so the attachment is either cleared before the closing, or the amount of the debt is held back from the price and the debt is paid off under a lawyer's supervision. Do not sign the purchase with an active attachment on a promise to "clear it later."

How to check whether a structure is legal

A property can be recorded in the Registry, listed in the Cadastre, and still be partly illegal in the town hall's eyes: a glazed terrace, an added room, a pool, a moved wall. The Registry reflects what was entered into it, and it makes a planning note only if the town hall reported one (article 9 of the Mortgage Law).

In the same podcast, Maxim Snisar told a typical story. A man buys an apartment with a terrace glazed where glazing is not allowed, and then the local police come to him with an order from the planning department to remove the glazing. The reply "I didn't glaze it" does not help: the violation was bought along with the apartment. According to the lawyer, this more often concerns bungalows and houses, where it is easier to build something on. The law says the same: a sale does not change the owner's obligations, and the new owner steps into the previous owner's place (article 27.1 of the land law).

How many years the town hall can demand that the work be undone

In the Valencian Community, which includes the provinces of Valencia, Alicante, and Castellón (article 2 of the Statute of Autonomy), this period is set by the regional planning law, TRLOTUP. Under article 255.1, if no more than 15 years have passed since the full completion of work done without a license or in breach of its conditions, the town hall requires the owner to apply for a permit within two months or bring the structure into compliance. Work counts as completed when the structure is ready to serve its purpose. If it cannot be legalized, an order to restore legality follows: demolition, cutting off water, electricity, gas, and communications, and a note in the Registry (article 257).

Three caveats change the picture:

• on land that the plan does not allow to be built on, suelo no urbanizable (non-developable land), and also in green zones, on roads, on public land, and in buildings on the regional cultural heritage register, the Inventario General del Patrimonio Cultural Valenciano, there is no time limit at all (article 255.5);
• the expiry of the 15 years does not legalize the structure: it remains outside the planning scheme, and it may not be rebuilt, enlarged, or reinforced, only repaired for safety, hygiene, and appearance (article 256);
• the period is taken from the law in force on the date the work was completed (article 255.6). The 15-year period applies to work completed from August 20, 2014 (article 236.1 of Law 5/2014). For work completed from February 1, 2006 up to that date, the period was four years (article 224 of Law 16/2005) and has already expired, except for green zones, roads, public and protected land, and buildings on the cultural heritage register. "No time limit" on all land not allowed to be built on applies to work from February 8, 2019; before that it applied only to protected land (article 236.5 of Law 5/2014, as amended in 2019). For work before February 2006, ask the town hall.

Do not confuse these 15 years with the limitation period for fines: for serious violations it is four years (article 270 of TRLOTUP). These are different periods for different measures.

For houses on land not allowed to be built on, there is a separate path to legalization through the town hall, the procedure of "minimizing the territorial impact." Only structures fully completed before August 20, 2014 qualify (article 228.3), and the house may not be enlarged after that (article 231). If a seller says the house is "in the process of legalization," ask for the documents of that procedure.

What replaced the cédula de habitabilidad

The habitability certificate, the classic cédula de habitabilidad, no longer exists in the Valencian Community. Since 2021 it has been replaced by a declaration the owner files personally, the declaración responsable de segunda ocupación (second-occupancy declaration; Decree 12/2021). It must be renewed if 10 years have passed since the first occupancy and the property is sold again, or a new water, gas, or electricity contract is signed for it; a change of supplier does not count. Old cédulas lose their force when the occupant changes. The declaration is filed with the town hall before occupancy, together with a technician's certificate that is valid for three months.

The decree does not mention the notary or the deed, and the declaration is not named as a condition for signing the sale; that is our reading of the text. But if 10 years have passed since the first occupancy, the sale itself is among the cases where the declaration must be renewed (article 6.1.a), and without it you cannot connect water and electricity: suppliers are required to demand proof of planning permits (article 245 of TRLOTUP). Write into the deposit contract who prepares the declaration and at whose expense; in the city of Valencia the procedure is called UR.DU.50.

How to check legality before the deposit

We found no separate "no violations" certificate in the region's rules, so the check is made up of several steps. Ask the seller for licenses or declarations for all the work you can see: glazing, an addition, a pool, a remodel. Compare the area and year of construction from the Cadastre with what you see. Look at the planning notes in the nota simple.

A glazed terrace in a multi-unit building needs two checks. The first is the town hall document, a license or a declaration of works: ask the seller, and if there is none, ask the town hall what was required. The second is the association's consent: the law puts glazing of terraces among the work that the meeting approves, currently by three fifths of the owners holding three fifths of the shares (articles 10.3.b and 17.4 of the Horizontal Property Law), and a town hall license does not replace it (Supreme Court ruling 1254/2025, a townhouse case), so ask for the minutes of the meeting. The date of the work, from which the 15 years are counted, is hard to prove; without a document, treat the work as recent.

And write to the town hall: under article 246.4 of TRLOTUP, it must reply in writing within a month to any applicant's request about the zoning and classification of a plot; this is information about the plan, not about the legality of a specific addition. In the city of Valencia, except in the historic center, you can order a certificate of the plot's planning status that has binding force; under the town hall's 2025 fee schedule, planning certificates not named separately cost €140.90, but we have not established definitively whether this certificate falls under that line. In the podcast, Snisar advised asking the town hall for confirmation that there are no claims against the property. There is no single form for such a document, so put the cadastral number in your request and ask directly whether there are any open cases against the property.

A house by the sea: what happens if it falls in the coastal zone

On the Costa Blanca, as along all of Spain's coast, a separate Coastal Law (Ley de Costas), 22/1988 applies. It divides the coastal strip into zones with different regimes, and what you actually own depends on which zone the house falls in.

The zone closest to the sea belongs to the state. This is the dominio público marítimo-terrestre, abbreviated DPMT (state coastal land): beaches with their dunes, the strip reached by the waves in the strongest known storms, and marshy lowlands flooded by the sea (article 3). Such land cannot be sold, attached, or acquired by adverse possession (article 7), and there can be no private ownership in it, even if it is recorded in the Registry (articles 8 and 9). The state draws the boundary through a demarcation procedure, deslinde, and may revise it.

If the house is in the protection zone

The law does not demolish houses lawfully built before July 29, 1988, or those built later under permits issued before that date, in the protection zone. In them, repair, improvement, reinforcement, and modernization are allowed without increasing volume, height, or floor area, provided the work improves energy efficiency (by two letter grades or at least to B) and saves water; a declaration is filed beforehand (transitional provision 4). In the access zone, a favorable opinion from the state is needed first. If the house is demolished in whole or in part, the new building must fully comply with the law, and new residential buildings are prohibited in the protection zone. These concessions do not extend to houses built there after 1988 without a permit, and you should not pay a deposit on such a property without a lawyer.

If you are buying an apartment in a building that was lawfully built before July 29, 1988, or later under permits issued before that date, the ban on increasing volume, height, and floor area applies to the whole building (transitional provision 14.3 of the coastal regulations). If the house fell into the protection zone after a revision of a boundary already drawn under the 1988 law, repair and modernization without increasing volume, height, and floor area are likewise allowed there, if they improve energy efficiency and save water (article 13 bis.3 of the Coastal Law). For other houses with a license issued after July 29, 1988, we found no direct provision: before the deposit, ask the provincial coastal service, the Servicio Provincial de Costas, in writing about the building's regime.

If the house ends up on state land

After a new deslinde, a house may find itself on land that is now state land, and ownership of it passes to the state (article 13.1). From there, there are two procedures. An owner who bought in good faith and recorded the right in the Registry gets the right to occupy and use the plot for 30 years, keeping the existing use, if the owner requests a concession within the allotted period, one year from the date the line is approved (transitional provision 1). If no application was filed in time, the regulations still provide for a concession, but its term is counted from the date the line was approved (transitional provisions 3 and 4 of the coastal regulations). It can be extended on the owner's application (article 2 of Law 2/2013); if the new line replaced an old one drawn before the 1988 Coastal Law, the new 30 years are requested in the last six months before expiry (transitional provision 4.3 of the coastal regulations). But since 2021 there has been a ceiling: a concession with all its extensions may not exceed 75 years, counted from its grant (article 20.4 of Law 7/2021 on climate change). And if the state revised a boundary already drawn under the 1988 law, the concession is granted without an application, for 75 years and free of charge (article 13 bis of the Coastal Law). Which procedure applies to a house is stated in the deslinde decision; if the line is recent, ask the seller for the concession or for proof that the application was filed in time. When the concession expires, structures on state land are demolished, and while the concession lasts, repair and modernization without increasing volume, height, and floor area are allowed.

A concession can be recorded in the Registry, mortgaged, and sold (MITECO). So such a house can be sold, but what you are buying is a right for a limited term, not ownership. The price should reflect that.

Example: Dénia

In Dénia, in December 2024 the ministry approved a new line on the Les Deveses stretch, 3.5 km long (about 2.2 miles; BOE): the protection zone there is 20 meters where the land was urban in 1988, including land that was actually built up, and 100 meters where it was rural. In September 2025, two more stretches were approved, of 6.2 and 4.1 km (BOE, BOE). All three decisions gave a year to request a concession: the earlier lines there were mostly drawn in 1975 and 1977, before the Coastal Law.

The ministry's decisions do not say how many houses are affected, and press figures differ. According to the outlet TodoAlicante in January 2025, the town hall counted 26 houses entirely in the state zone and about 15 partly in it on the first stretch; in August 2026 a residents' association told the newspaper ABC that 99 properties were in the state zone along the whole of Dénia's coast and about 3,000 in the protection and access zones. These are estimates by interested parties, not an official count.

How to check before the deposit

The Registry will check the position of the house itself, but too late. When your purchase is registered, the registrar compares the property against the coastal service's maps (article 36 of the coastal regulations): if the property extends into the state zone along a line already entered, registration is refused, and if the overlap shows only on the maps, the entry is suspended for 90 days and the coastal service, which has a month to reply, is asked. In 2020 the Registry's supervising authority upheld a refusal to register a purchase in Nules (Castellón province): the deed was signed in 2019, and part of the plot turned out to lie in the state zone along a 1993 line (BOE). Check before the deposit.

The absence of a note in the nota simple proves nothing: the note about a deslinde that has begun is canceled after three years, and may be extended by at most another three (article 21.3 of the regulations), and a new deslinde may not have started yet. The regulations require the registrar to state, in any extract, the property's position relative to the protection and access zones, but we have not seen such a line in real extracts, so ask separately.

You can do the first screening yourself: the ministry publishes the deslinde lines in its map viewer. The data is for reference only, and you can verify it with the provincial coastal service. Distances from a listing, such as "150 m from the beach," decide nothing: the zones are measured not from the water but from the inner edge of the shore, the ribera del mar, behind the beach and the dunes (article 23.1 of the Coastal Law). Usually that is the deslinde line; where they differ, the deslinde decision shows both lines (article 26.1 of the coastal regulations). If the distance from the house to that edge is less than 100 meters (or 20, if the land was urban in 1988), the house is in the protection zone. If the house stands right at the water or in an old beachfront village, discuss the next steps with a lawyer.

Can you buy a property with tenants in it?

You can, but the tenant stays on the lease terms. Under article 14 of the Urban Leases Act (Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos, Spain's residential tenancy law), the buyer steps into the landlord's place for the first five years of the lease, or seven if the previous landlord was a legal entity, even if the buyer is protected by an entry in the Registry. Registration matters only for leases longer than those periods: an unregistered lease binds a good-faith buyer only up to five or seven years, and the seller then pays the tenant one month's rent for each remaining year beyond that period. For leases signed on or after March 6, 2019, the common belief that "an unregistered lease does not affect the buyer" is wrong; for leases from June 2013 to March 2019, a good-faith buyer recorded in the Registry was bound only by a registered lease (transitional provision 1 of Royal Decree-Law 7/2019).

A lease shows up in a nota simple only if it was registered, and registration is optional (article 2.5 of the Mortgage Law). So ask for a copy of the lease: term, rent, security deposit, and who pays the utilities.

The tenant has a right of first refusal (article 25 of the Urban Leases Act). The seller must formally notify the tenant of the decision to sell, the price, and the main terms, and the tenant has 30 calendar days to buy on the same terms. If no notice was given, or the price in the deed is lower than the one announced, the tenant may buy the property from the buyer within 30 days after the buyer formally delivers a copy of the deed; until that is done, the period does not start. Without proof of the notices, the Registry will not register the sale of a rented property, and for a property that is not rented, the seller states so in the deed, under liability for false statements in an official document.

The notary asks the seller whether the property is free of tenants and occupants and records the answer, but only an inspection shows who actually lives inside: squatters do not appear in the Registry. How not to buy a property with squatters inside is covered in our article on squatters. One piece of advice is worth repeating: in the podcast, Snisar suggested leaving a person in an empty apartment during the two hours of the signing, until the locks are changed, and I agree.

If you are buying for tourist rentals

Since April 3, 2025, an owner who wants to start tourist rentals must first obtain the homeowners' association's express consent (article 7.3 of the Horizontal Property Law). It takes the votes of three fifths of the owners, who together hold three fifths of the shares in the building (article 17.12). By the same majority, the association may restrict or ban rentals, but such a decision is not retroactive, and those who lawfully rented before the reform continue under the old rules.

A restriction in the building's bylaws binds the new owner only if the bylaws are recorded in the Registry (article 5); the Supreme Court reads the law the same way, and a 2025 ruling of the Registry's supervising authority cites its position. A decision recorded only in the minutes of a meeting cannot be seen in the nota simple, so the minutes are requested separately. And even if there is no ban, you may not start a new tourist rental without the association's consent.

In the Valencian Community, since July 3, 2026, when registering a tourist property the owner declares that the association's express consent has been obtained (article 133 of Law 3/2026; Law 5/2026 restated that article, keeping the consent rule unchanged). The registration is valid for five years.

The status does not pass to you with the property. If a tourist apartment changed owners after August 8, 2024, a new declaration is filed under the current rules, with a favorable town hall opinion on planning compatibility and a statement of the association's consent (article 23 bis.3 of Decree 10/2021, as amended by Law 3/2026). The previous owner's registration number guarantees you nothing.

You cannot obtain the association's consent yourself before buying: the right to put a question to the meeting belongs to an owner (article 16 of the Horizontal Property Law), and you are not yet one. The seller, while still the owner, may put the question to a vote, and the minutes may already contain a consent that was given; but the law does not say directly whether it passes to you, and we found no rulings of the Registry's supervising authority on the point, so without a lawyer do not count on such a consent. Before the deposit, check the bylaws and minutes for a ban and get the town hall's opinion on planning compatibility; in Dénia, someone who is not an owner may also request it (Dénia town hall). Until you have the consent, do not build rental income into your calculations. In a video about Valencia in May 2026, I put it this way: "First we check the rules, and only then we calculate the yield."

Energy certificate and the inspection of a building over 50 years old

When a finished property is sold, an energy certificate is mandatory (Decree 390/2021): a registered copy with the label is attached to the sale contract, and the rating must already appear in the listing. A certificate is valid for up to 10 years, and for class G, no more than five. Selling without a valid registered certificate is a serious infraction with a fine of €601 to €1,000 (additional provisions 12 and 13 of the land law), and the seller is liable for it. The notary asks for the certificate, but we found no provision under which the sale cannot be signed without it.

If the building is more than 50 years old, in the Valencian Community it must have a technical condition report, IEEV.CV, at least once every 10 years (article 189 of TRLOTUP). In a multi-unit building, the homeowners' association orders and pays for it, and the building's age is taken from the Cadastre (Generalitat). For lack of a report, owners face a fine of €600 to €6,000 (article 284.2). There is no ban on selling an apartment without it. But the report shows defects the building will soon pay for through shared fees, so ask the administrator for the latest report: that way you learn about future derramas in advance.

Checking a property in Spain, step by step

Here is the whole sequence in one table. Prices and timeframes appear only where a primary source confirms them. We do not quote the cost of a lawyer's work: there are no open fee schedules with a date, so ask for a fixed price up front.

The NIE item rests on article 254.2 of the Mortgage Law: without the tax numbers of all the parties, the Registry will not register the sale.

If the check turns something up, here is what to do.

A real example. One of our recent deals almost fell apart on the last day of the deposit contract's term, with €20,000 (about $22,400) at stake: at the signing, the representative of the buyer's bank refused to confirm the mortgage. The deposit survived only because the client had his own money (the podcast where I told this story). Leave room in the deposit contract's deadlines, and spell out what happens if the bank refuses.

When we handle the deal. Checking the property is part of our legal support: title documents, hidden debts, local building rules, and, separately, the risk of squatters. We draft and translate the contracts and obtain the NIE under a power of attorney, so the deal can be closed without flying to Spain. You can walk this path yourself with the step table above if you know what to request. If you want us to do the check, see our legal and tax support page or message us on WhatsApp: +34 664 02 87 80.

What to do next

Almost everything covered here comes down to one idea: the Registry shows rights, not the property. A nota simple for about €11 tells you who owns the property and what is recorded against it. How much the building owes, who lives inside, whether the terrace is legal, and where the sea line runs are shown by other documents, and you need to collect them before the deposit.

A purchase goes smoothly when the checks are done in order. Surprises happen where the check was postponed or not finished: someone paid a reservation deposit under pressure from "other buyers," took it on faith that the heirs had paid everything, or did not ask about the assessments approved by the meeting. To avoid such surprises, you need only some time and a handful of requests.

If you have chosen a property and have not yet paid the deposit, message us on WhatsApp: +34 664 02 87 80, or leave a request on our legal and tax support page, and we will explain how our property check works. If you are still looking, browse the property catalog and return to this article when you reach your first deposit.

Videos on this topic

Both are in Russian. The notary, assessments for repairs, an illegal terrace, and an apartment behind the wrong door: Squatters took over a house while I was at the closing? Real cases, a podcast with the lawyer Maxim Snisar (January 2026). A buyer's checklist step by step: Want a house in Spain? Here is what you need to know before buying; it dates from 2025, and some figures and rules are out of date.

Frequently asked questions