Homes Granada

What are the costs?

Lawyers in Spain generally charge 1% of the property price for their services. It's best to treat this as an important investment to safeguard your funds and to provide peace of mind.

Who should I choose?

Your Spanish lawyer should speak your native language, but be based in Spain. He/she may be recommended to you by your agent, or you may have been referred to your lawyer via friends or colleagues who have bought a Spanish property in the past. The lawyer should be independent, not working for the vendor or developers.

What does the lawyer do?

The lawyer will liaise with you during the course of the purchase, reminding you when payments are due and checking that contracts and deeds are all in order before signing on your behalf or asking you to sign the documents.

Between paying your reservation deposit and signing private purchase contracts (normally a period of thirty days), your lawyer will check the contract to ensure that the property you are buying is free of debt, legally owned and that bank guarantees are in place to protect your funds in the unlikely event of the developers going bankrupt. Once the lawyer is happy with the contract, he/she will then ask you to transfer your funds to their client account in Spain. We would advise using a currency exchange specialist if you are a citizen of a non-euro country.

Once the lawyer has received your funds, together with the signed contract, your payment will be forwarded to the developer of the vendor. The signed contract will set out when further payments are due, and will also include a forecasted completion date.

Before arranging completion of your Spanish property, your lawyer will check that the description and measurements of the property match those provided and promised by the vendor or developer, and that a license of first occupancy has been granted (in the case of off-plan properties). Once the lawyer is happy with the property, he/she will ask you for the funds due at that point.

Solicitors

Victorio Heras García
Spanish and independent lawyer with wide experience in conveyancing for English people in the Granada area, specialized in rural-inland properties and cave-houses.