Verifying sellers Deeds/Escritura when buying a property

When a house is modified/extended/pool added etc. legally, Local Authority planning is required.

But once the work has been completed, "as built" drawings should be lodged with the Town Hall, and a tax paid. This stage sometimes doesn't get done.

When you buy a house, you sign a contract and give your solicitor a deposit (usually 3000 EU .... to your solicitor, never to the Estate Agent).

Before you sign the contract/hand over the 3000 EU, you can demand certain clauses within the contract.

The obvious ones ...

1. The vendor brings all Escritura documentation up to date and pays any due taxes/back-taxes.

2. You can require a survey (at your expense), and ensure that the 3000 EU is not passed from your solicitor to the vendor's side until you are satisfied with the survey. 

The contract may involve 3 payments .. (a) the 3000 EU deposit, (b) another payment a few weeks later, usually for 10%, and (c) the final balance payment. You may find that the vendor is using payment (b) to sort out the Escurita and any back-taxes.

Your solicitor must ensure that any back-taxes are paid, else you are buying the problem.

Expect push-back from the Estate Agent (and maybe even from your own solicitor). If they refuse, there is a problem and/or your solicitor is lazy, so walk away. There are plenty of houses out there.

We had push-back, so we withheld our 3000 EU. A few days later, all was agreed, and our clauses were in the contract. Our vendor was German. We required our solicitor to provide the contract in English, German and Spanish - all 3 languages in the same document.

Beware of under-builds. Some of them look good, but they may not be approved (and some don't meet the standards required for habitability).

Our conservatory was not mentioned in the deeds. Our lawyer with held €1200 from the vendor to ensure it was added. He insisted on this otherwise it would cause us issues if we sell.

Thanks very much for your reply, this is invaluable information I'm certain we will use when we make our purchase.

There is no set rule about paying a 3,000€ deposit but whatever deposit you do agree with the vendor, you should pay it into your abogado's client account, where it should be kept until he or she has done all the necessary searches on the property. You can also go yourself to the Registro de la Propiedad and get a "Nota Simple", which shows if there are any debts on the property, such as loans or mortgages. This won't show whether there are any outstanding debts on IBI, community charges, electricity or other services etc. so it's up to your abogado to check these and to obtain copies of all the latest bills and payments on the property. If everything is paid up to date, then it's normal for the Notary to retain a small amount of money from the vendor, to cover the last minute bills that haven't yet been sent out. The debts stay with the property and not the owner of it, so if your abogado hasn't done his/her job properly, then you might find yourself with outstanding debts! At the signing with the Notary, a good Notary will insist on seeing all the copies of the bills and payments up to date before he will allow you to sign for the property. As long as the details written in the escritura is exactly the same as the property that you plan to buy, then there shouldn't be any problems. If there have been alterations or extensions done to the property, then these should be checked out by your abogado, to ensure that the necessary licences have been applied for and granted. It is possible for a building licence to have been issued but not added to the escritura and a good time to add this, would be during the sale of the property, as there are costs involved. Buying a property could be a bit of a nightmare but with the right legal assistance, it could also be a happy experience. I've just been through it myself!