# house buying in spain



## karenangell (Feb 6, 2011)

hi havent been on here for a while my husband and i are moving to spain next september 2012 and we will rent for a while but then we would like to buy. Can anyone inform me of the tax and deposit system in spain is it the same as buying in england. Also in nerja the costa del sol that is the area we are thinking of locating to are they expensive to buy. many thanks for your views xx


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

I dont know much about buying in Spain, but I do know that nothings the same as England at all! It also seems to vary from district to district, day to day, agent to agent!!! The best thing you can do is to rent and then do some research locally. Altho I'm sure they'll be some advise from other posters on here soon

Jo xxx


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## karenangell (Feb 6, 2011)

ok yea i think you are right. I do know that you have to have a ten or twelve percent deposit before you even think of buying a property in spain but dont really know a lot else. Thanks for your feedback anyway

karen xx


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

karenangell said:


> ok yea i think you are right. I do know that you have to have a ten or twelve percent deposit before you even think of buying a property in spain but dont really know a lot else. Thanks for your feedback anyway
> 
> karen xx


I know that the lawyer/abogado takes a percentage of the purchase price rather than a fixed rate (and it isnt a small percentage!!). There is no stamp duty as in the UK, but there are other "duties". Estate agents take whatever fee they can get................ Thats about the extent of my knowledge. We were going to buy in Spain a while ago, but for various reasons decided against it. 

Jo xxx


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## shoemanpete (Jan 4, 2010)

Karen, I don't know about you and your family other than what you wrote on the other thread. But, please rent here for at least 2 years before buying. You may or may not like Nerja, or even Spain come to that, and the peace of mind in having the flexibility to move after 11 months is wonderful. I know it is good to have one's own home, but isn't it also good to call the owner when something needs doing and not having the hassle and costs. We had our possessions in storage here and at the end of the month we move into what we hope will be a more permanent home and have all our possessions around us for the first time in 2 years. Wonderful!
properrty in UK will no doubt go up again in time, in Spain ????? and the problems in trying to sell here are horrendous.

Good luck.




karenangell said:


> ok yea i think you are right. I do know that you have to have a ten or twelve percent deposit before you even think of buying a property in spain but dont really know a lot else. Thanks for your feedback anyway
> 
> karen xx


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## Cazzy (Nov 23, 2008)

You will need 10% on top of the purchase price to cover the buying costs, you probably wont use it all, but just in case!! It is also unlikely that you will get more than a 50% mortgage or even one at all, if you buy a house with a mortgage on it and you can prove you can pay it, you will probably be able to take it over. As an estate agent, most of the properties we are selling at the moment have a mortgage on them, as people can't get one in their own right. Renting is a good idea, but there are some real bargains about if you have the money.


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## shoemanpete (Jan 4, 2010)

Karenengell, did you get the pm I sent a few days ago? I cannot see it in my sent folder.


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## karenangell (Feb 6, 2011)

yes i did receive it and thank you very much for the advice. We will definitely rent first before buying for at least two years anyway. We are in no massive rush to buy. We hope that we will like living in spain, and if we do then we will buy later on in a few years. How long have you been out in spain then 

regards


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## shoemanpete (Jan 4, 2010)

We have been here 18 months now, the first year in Mijas, then a few months in Torreblanca and in 2 weeks we go to Alhaurin el Grande for a year.....or more if we like it.

I am sure you will like Spain, provided you accept the wonderful manana attitude and that everything is SO much slower and more bureaucratic than UK. many people feel they are banging their heads against a wall sometimes, but hey, what's the rush. Customer service is as yet unheard of as is Health and Safety. Just go with the flow and long may Spain be behind the UK in some things. 




karenangell said:


> yes i did receive it and thank you very much for the advice. We will definitely rent first before buying for at least two years anyway. We are in no massive rush to buy. We hope that we will like living in spain, and if we do then we will buy later on in a few years. How long have you been out in spain then
> 
> regards


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

shoemanpete said:


> We have been here 18 months now, the first year in Mijas, then a few months in Torreblanca and in 2 weeks we go to Alhaurin el Grande for a year.....or more if we like it.
> 
> I am sure you will like Spain, provided you accept the wonderful manana attitude and that everything is SO much slower and more bureaucratic than UK. many people feel they are banging their heads against a wall sometimes, but hey, what's the rush. Customer service is as yet unheard of as is Health and Safety.  Just go with the flow and long may Spain be behind the UK in some things.


I've heard this so often on the forum, and it's not my experience in many ways. Telephone companies stand out as appalling, but many shops, both big and small give excellent customer service in my opinion.
Health and safety on the other hand, has got a long way to go in most areas of Spain.


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## shoemanpete (Jan 4, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> I've heard this so often on the forum, and it's not my experience in many ways. Telephone companies stand out as appalling, but many shops, both big and small give excellent customer service in my opinion.
> Health and safety on the other hand, has got a long way to go in most areas of Spain.


Ah, yes...I need to clarify my statement. I agree that the service in shops is excellent. The people are very warm and friendly and have time for you, even helping out with a quick spanish lesson, especially the market traders. In England, ask for a taste of something on the market or if someone has a struggle with the language....oh dear, watch out!


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## fourgotospain (May 4, 2009)

Another advantage of renting - being able to move as your circumstances change. An example: In a couple of years when the kids go to the Instituto (secondary school) they have to be there at 8am. The school bus goes up here at 7.15am OR we could live in an apartment a few steps away from the school. Hmmm?
The point is, if you buy you have to be sure you want to live there for a very long time - maybe 10 years - before you will be able to sell it again, because what makes your property different form the 10 others on your block for sale? In the UK there are too many people and not enough housing, here in Spain it's the other way around.


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

fourgotospain said:


> Another advantage of renting - being able to move as your circumstances change. An example: In a couple of years when the kids go to the Instituto (secondary school) they have to be there at 8am. The school bus goes up here at 7.15am OR we could live in an apartment a few steps away from the school. Hmmm?
> The point is, if you buy you have to be sure you want to live there for a very long time - maybe 10 years - before you will be able to sell it again, because what makes your property different form the 10 others on your block for sale? In the UK there are too many people and not enough housing, here in Spain it's the other way around.


or even a house a few steps from the school, like me 

we've moved a few times over the past 8 years - always in the same town, and the kids have never had to change school

just about all of our moves ave been _because_ of changes to school

firstly, they moved from International to state - so it made sense to be nearer the new school

then they built a brand new building, so again we moved closer

then a few years later our older dd was going to be moving to secondary, so we moved nearer to that while our younger one caught the school bus for a few years (& the bonus to that was free school lunches)

now they both walk to school every day for 8am - it's bad enough getting them both up in time for the 5-10 min walk - but the thought of them having to catch a bus at 7.15


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## mike kelly (Aug 12, 2009)

I bought a place, wished I had rented now as I can't sell :-( Spain has many dodgy estate agents and lots of problems with poor quality construction


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I hate the idea of paying good money to landlords with nothing to show for it at the end, and I'm sure there are as many dodgy letting agents as estate agents.

But I suspect that even if we managed to sell our house now, we would get a lot less than we paid for it, and if we had rented and invested our capital instead of buying a house, at the end of the day we wouldn't be that much worse off.


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## djfwells (Sep 28, 2009)

1) Rent before you buy to ensure you are 100% happy with the lifestyle, the area and the type of property

2) Have a back-up plan, but be prepared to improvise if things shouldn't go to plan too

3) Only put down your 10% deposit when you are 100% certain about your decision

4) Do not cut corners with legal advice - you get what you pay for

5) Assume absolutely nothing


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