[Anonymous]

Can anyone tell me what the standard costs are for aquiring a Spanish mortgage?

Say for instance the purchase price was €400k and I was borrow 50% of that.

I’ve been told there is stamp duty plus numerous other fees.

Thx

[Anonymous]

Hi Gerry,

Have a look at this page http://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/spanish_mortgage_1.htm

It explains Spanish mortgage costs.

If still unclear come back to me.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Hi and thx for that link, very usefull.

I wonder if anyone can tell me whether this looks correct because everything I’ve looked at says not.

I’m buying a place for €600k and my solicitor is charging me 1% which I’d assumed and been told was ‘the norm’

Today I’ve received a breakdown of the property purchase charges and was wondering if this seems ok.

Firstly we have the transfer tax @ 7%

Then the abagado fee of 1% plus 16% VAT. And I’ve also been charged an extra €215.00 for forms and faxes etc (?) Very expensive paper it would seem!

Next we have the Land registry & proceeding fee of €1530.00 which seems pretty high to me.

The Notary fee comes in at €2295.00 which again is a lot more than I expected.

I’m also being charged €200.00 for a N.I.E. certificate;

€250 for a will;

And finally €490.00 for ‘Contract, change of name and direct debits with suppliers’

Anyone care to comment on those charges as they are well above what I was lead to believe.

To rub salt into the wounds I have to say I’ve found my Spanish lawyer pretty useless.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, Spanish Lawyers ARE pretty useless, because there are so many Brits buying in Spain, it’s easy money. They don’t seem up to speed. Our soon to be redundant lawyer( for us) is at the bottom of the pile !!

[Anonymous]

Dear Gerry,

In opinion some of the estimated costs you have been given are a bit too high especially the land registry and the notary fees, normally those fees are in the region of 250 E for land registry and 600 E for notary ( for your price ).
The figure for the NIE has no sense as usually that is included in what we call gestoría fees , between 150 and 200 Euros, which covers all the paperwork and dealings like direct debits , obtaining the nie number, paying taxes, taking deeds to the land registry, etc, etc.

The fees for a will is very normal if it includes the notary fees.

Then the 215 E for faxes and others seems a bit high except if your case has been going on for a long time and there were a lot of calls, e-mails, faxes and letters.

I hope this helps, regards.

Dear Claire,

I am so sorry that you had problems with your lawyer in Spain and I am also sorry to hear you accusing all spanish lawyers to be useless, if I used an english lawyer and it turned out to be unproffesional I wouldn’t even consider to accuse all the english lawyers of being useless, it wouldn’t make any sense,

There are useless lawyers – and doctors, teachers, etc – in all countries, including England of course, it would just be right from to complaint about YOUR lawyer.

Regarding your accusation of abusive fees from lawyers just think what english buyers are paying to english estate agents ( and they consider it normal ). It is normally 4 to 5 times more than the lawyers fees, and now compare what each one does for you…….. do you see it now ?

regards to all and enjoy the life in Spain,

Jose Maria Sanchez Alfonso
Lawyer , Abogado
Costa del Sol, Málaga
jmsalfonso@inicia.es

[Anonymous]

Jose, many people join the forum here to complain about the poor advice they have been givenby lawyers in Spain . We seem to be dealing with the same ones. Yes , there are bad lawyers in England, but very few, they get kicked out. My husband is governed by a professional body, and if he were to treat his clients as we have been treated he would loose his professional license.

[Anonymous]

Many lawyers who act unethically get away with it simply because their foreign clients don’t know how or where to make a complaint and don’t much fancy taking on a lawyer on his home ground.

[Anonymous]

Dear Jose,

Thank you for your reply.

So it would seem I am being charged a hell of a lot more than standard for the land registry and notary fees. Is there any particular reason why this should be the case?

I have queried these fees with my Lawyer but as usual I haven’t received a response.

Is there any way I could verify these costs myself?

Kind regards

[Anonymous]

Notaries basically charge according to the number of clauses in the deeds, though they also relate the charge to the price of the property. However I’ve never heard of a Notary fee as high as you were charged. The land registry fee is absurd. The figures for land registry and Notary that José María (independent) gives sound right to me.

The only NIE fee I’ve heard of was 45 Euros compared to your 200 Euros.

It is true that 1% plus VAT is a common legal fee on many of the costas. However it’s always interesting to relate this fee to the average hourly cost of a good lawyer. You can get a highly competent English-speaking Spanish lawyer for 150 Euros per hour. 6,000 Euros divided by 150 Euros = 40 hours of work. Did you think your lawyer spent 40 hours on your case?

For a 6,000 Euro fee the least they could have done was throw in the fax paper for free.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thx Mark and next time I purchase in Spain I will be using your recommendation. It’s funny as we have friends and family in Spain and this Lawyer came highly recommended, perhaps they don’t like me 😉

I still haven’t had a reply from my Lawyer to the questions I have raised above.

The only reason I can think of why the NIE fee is so high is the fact that a representative from my Lawyers office met me at the Police station to deal with it on my behalf and there was a long queue.

As for the rest I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what their response is if there isn’t an independant way of me finding out what these costs should be.

Regards.

[Anonymous]

Re mortgage costs,I got a mortgage with the Halifax in spain 250000€,I have been charged all the usual stuff like 1% fee,but also

According to provision of funds I would like to confirm you are paying taxes for the declaration of the property (obra nueva) 1% of the value of the construction and also for the mortgage (hipoteca), this is 2% of the initial amount required. The rest is a provisión to pay notary, registry land office and gestory office.These Charges came to about 10,000€and are for (see below)

This amount is a provision of funds, as soon as we receive the original tittle deeds register (this is two or three months from completion date) we will do the liquidation in your account.

Now I find that to transfer my 2nd stage payment(of 3)into the account to pay the builder his next payments they have charged me ( Taxes : 0 € , Notary : 500 € , Property Register : 200 €, Gestory: 310 € ) .These charges were never discussed when we took the mortgage out,so just to have them pay it into my account I get charged 1010€,I am currently waiting for there reply but did I not pay all these fees in the 10,000€. 👿

[Anonymous]

Jose, I’m with Claire on this because most Brits are ‘recommended’ lawyers by estate agents on probable back-handers, so putting their trust in them, they then get ripped off time and again by the ‘same’ lawyers who are not booted out along with the agents concerned by your regulatory bodies.

Another thing, there seems a bigger problem with more ‘dodgy’ lawyers and agents than in the UK, problems in the UK are aired on tv etc but then something gets done about it more often than not, unlike Spain.

By the way, where do trusting foreigners actually find good, honest lawyers and agents in Spain, is there a register of such? I don’t mean API nos. either for agents like Awful Estates that are registered to , I have to say it again, another ‘dodgy’ lawyer who works for the agent.

The whole Spanish property scene needs to clean up it’s image, look at your ridiculous Valencia Land Grab, mass developments without proper permissions, delayed building licences, views disappearing all down the Coast, extortionate Spanish Banking charges, rip-off estate agents fees, getting problems to Court takes forever, etc etc, it goes on and on!

[Anonymous]

Hear! Hear! Paul. Lawyers in the UK would only get away with “murder” ….ONCE!! 🙂

[Author]

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