SPANISH NOTARY ... HOW TO CHOOSE

When you buy a Spanish Property you need a notary because no Spanish property sale is valid without the presence of a notary.

The notary does not give you legal advice like your Spanish property agent or your Spanish lawyer but he is an independent public official who neither works for the vendor nor the buyer. His principal role is to guarantee the legality of the sale and to deal with certain administration tasks. Furthermore he starts to function as a witness of the signatures in the contract and registers the new deeds. The notary has to ensure that property buyers and sellers who do not speak Spanish have a representative with them to translate the proceedings. If you do not speak Spanish or are not sure to understand all the legal and official terms you should make sure to have a person that is able to translate you the official documents and contracts as well as interpret during oral meetings. This can either be your Spanish estate agent or your lawyer or someone working in their team. If this is not possible, you should look for a Spanish translator.

When you buy a Spanish Property you need a notary because no Spanish property sale is valid without the presence of a notary.

The notary does not give you legal advice like your Spanish property agent or your Spanish lawyer but he is an independent public official who neither works for the vendor nor the buyer. His principal role is to guarantee the legality of the sale and to deal with certain administration tasks. Furthermore he starts to function as a witness of the signatures in the contract and registers the new deeds. The notary has to ensure that property buyers and sellers who do not speak Spanish have a representative with them to translate the proceedings. If you do not speak Spanish or are not sure to understand all the legal and official terms you should make sure to have a person that is able to translate you the official documents and contracts as well as interpret during oral meetings. This can either be your Spanish estate agent or your lawyer or someone working in their team. If this is not possible, you should look for a Spanish translator.

The notary also has to certify the presence of all the papers required by law at the moment of signing the contract and has to make sure that all people required by law to be present in any property deal attend the meeting. These people are the property buyer and vendor or their legal representatives, the property agent (if there is one involved) and the lawyer. If you raise a Spanish mortgage and therefore a Spanish bank is involved in the property deal, the bank representative is also present because the mortgage has to be signed in front of the notary as well.

The Spanish government sets the notary fees according to the number of clauses in the deeds and the declared value of the property. They range approximately from 0.1% of the declared price of a property (for properties of 400,000€ or more) to 0.4% (for properties of under 100,000€). In case of a mortgage you must pay notary fees on the mortgage deeds as well.