Blog · Legal process

What a nota simple does not tell you about a Spanish property

§ 1What you will see on the page

Open a nota simple, the informational extract from the property registry, and you will read three kinds of line: a description of the property, the name of whoever holds it and a list of charges. The registrars' buyer guide gives the longer version. It says the extract includes the description of the home, its location, its area and annexes, its share in the community, any official-protection regime, the mortgages with the amounts they secure and their term, seizures, easements, possible litigation, tax charges and any other circumstance that affects ownership.

That is a long list, and it is easy to read it as a complete check on the property. The list stops at the registry's own business. Debts owed to the community, the roof and the licence under which the building stands are not on it. A page of registry text can look like a clean bill of health, much as a car's logbook can: it says who owns the car and what is owed on it, and nothing about the brakes.

The sample below is invented. It has no real owner, no real address and no real cadastral reference, and we did not copy it from any registry. We could not find an official sample extract to reproduce, so the part headings are our labels, ordered to follow the registrars' list. A printed extract from a given registry may arrange the same information differently. The wider list of checks around it sits in the due diligence chapter, and the steps for ordering one are in ordering and reading a nota simple.

§ 2An invented extract, part by part

The description

The registrars' easy-read guide says a description tells you three things: where the property is, which properties border it and how big it is. The Land Registry Law says the entry must give the property's detailed physical location and must include the cadastral reference. It also says the graphic base for registered properties is the cadastral map.

Take the surface line. It is a figure somebody declared when the property was registered or last changed, and the extract repeats it. The Catastro describes a coordinated parcel as one whose registered property has taken in its cadastral graphic representation, and presents coordination as greater legal certainty. The cadastral record notes the coordination when it exists. Whether your flat is one of those parcels is therefore a question for the cadastral record, because the extract line above gives you no way to tell.

The owner

The registrars' easy-read guide says the holder of a finca is its owner, and can be a person or a company. The sample has two holders with a half each, so the person who shows you round the flat may be only half of the seller. Compare each name with an identity document before you pay anything.

Three articles of the Land Registry Law explain why this part is worth reading closely. Registry entries are under the safeguard of the courts and keep their effects until their inaccuracy is declared. Registered real rights are presumed to exist and to belong to their holder. A good-faith buyer for value who acquires a right from the person the registry shows is protected, on conditions the article sets and that we read only in part. All three speak of rights and of who holds them. None of the lines we read speaks of planning, debts or the condition of the building.

The charges

The registrars' easy-read guide defines charges as rights that people other than the owner hold over a property. Two entries in the sample deserve a second look. A preventive annotation warns that a property has pending lawsuits or debts, and the guide says it lapses after four years, so the date of entry matters. A tax-charge note serves to secure that a tax has been paid correctly, and the guide gives Hacienda up to five years to verify it. We did not read any text that makes that note a record of IBI arrears, so do not treat it as one.

Now the arithmetic, which is ours. The mortgage line secures €120,000 plus €18,000 plus €6,000, which is €144,000 in all. If the seller asks €210,000, that total is about 69% of the price. The line names the amounts the mortgage secures and its term. It does not name the balance still owed today, so ask the bank for the cancellation figure and make the deed depend on it. A lease appears only if somebody registered it, and whether anyone lives in the flat is a question for the visit and for the seller's written statement.

The closing lines

A printed extract carries the date on which it was issued. The registrars say a nota simple shows only what is in force on the day of the request, so a charge entered afterwards is not on your copy. Its legal weight is also limited. The registrars' buyer guide says it is informational and cannot be used in court to justify that no charges exist, while the certificate of ownership and charges, a public document signed by the registrar, can be.

§ 3What the extract leaves out

Community fees owed

The extract gives the flat's share in the community and says nothing about the community's accounts. The law makes the buyer of a unit answerable, with the property, for unpaid general expenses of the expired part of the current year and the three previous calendar years, and it requires the seller to declare that the fees are up to date. The registrars' buyer guide lists a certificate from the community secretary among the documents for a purchase.

Here is a sum, ours and invented. A flat with fees of €1,200 a year could carry up to about €4,800 of ordinary fees, which is three full years plus a full current year. That is an upper bound on ordinary fees only, and a special assessment (derrama) voted by the owners comes on top. The sample extract would look identical with or without that debt. The certificate that settles the question is covered in certificates of no debt for community fees and IBI.

IBI arrears

IBI is the annual local property tax. The text of the local taxes law, in the copy the Catastro publishes, says that when ownership of the rights that trigger the tax changes for any reason, the properties become charged with the whole amount of the tax, as a subsidiary liability under the General Tax Law. That is an afección real, a charge that attaches to the property itself. The same article tells notaries to request information and warn the parties.

The registrars' list of contents has no IBI line, so the extract cannot tell you whether the last bills were paid. Ask for the receipt of the last year, which the registrars' buyer guide also lists, and check that its cadastral reference matches the property. Two cautions apply to our reading: the Catastro's copy of the law is undated, and the consolidated BOE page cuts off before the article, so the wording needs a final check against the official consolidated text.

Planning and legal status of the building

Nothing in the registrars' list says whether the building was built under a licence, whether it has a first occupation licence or a habitability certificate, or whether it sits outside the planning rules. The registrars' buyer guide treats those as separate checks. For a new home it says to check that the town council authorised the building, that the completion of the works is registered, and to look for the first occupation licence or the habitability certificate. An obra nueva entry, the easy-read guide says, records whether a building is under construction or finished.

We could not read the article of the land law that sets what the registry requires before it records a finished building, because the consolidated BOE page cuts off before it. So we do not state its conditions here. If the licence or the legal status of an extension is in doubt, the chapter on planning risks and illegal builds explains what can follow.

The state of the building

The extract describes a flat's legal position. It does not describe the structure, the facade or the lift. The land law says the duty to conserve a building includes meeting the basic building requirements, and in a block the duty falls on the community. The building law says the building's documentation, the Libro del Edificio, must be handed to the final users. Ask for it.

Older buildings in many places need a periodic inspection, and the name, the age threshold and the interval depend on the region or town. The note on periodic inspection of older buildings covers the idea. We could not read the Valencian regional pages, because the site blocks automated reading, so we give no age or deadline here. Ask the administrator for the latest report and the minutes that discuss it.

Whether what stands is what is registered

The Catastro and the registry answer different questions. The Catastro is an administrative registry under the Ministry of Finance, and its description covers physical, economic and legal characteristics: location, area, use, a map and a cadastral value. Its data are presumed true unless proved otherwise, but the law says the registry's legal pronouncements prevail. Where the holder named by the Catastro differs from the one in the registry, the registry's holder is taken. Registration in the Catastro is mandatory and free, which the Catastro itself gives as the difference from the registry.

You can read the cadastral record yourself. Anyone can look a property up by address or cadastral reference and see its descriptive and graphic data free of charge, and the method is in comparing the cadastral record against the registry. Suppose the cadastral record of our invented flat shows 96 m² against the registry's 84 m². The gap is 12 m², about 14% of the registered figure. An enclosed terrace would explain a gap like that, and an enclosed terrace may have been built without being registered. We do not know from the texts we read how each body measures surface, so ask for the explanation in writing and have a lawyer read it.

§ 4Which document answers which question

§ 5Questions to put to your lawyer

A lawyer who acts for you, and not for the seller or the agent, can read the extract with the other documents laid beside it. The chapter on lawyers, notaries and gestors says what each of them does. These are the questions the extract cannot answer.

• Which charges on the extract must be cancelled at the deed, and who obtains the cancellation figures?
• Do the names and shares on the extract match the people who will sign?
• Do you want a certificate of ownership and charges, and when should it be ordered?
• Which certificate of no debt covers the community, and which receipt covers IBI?
• Under what licence does the building stand, and does it cover what is built?
• Does the cadastral surface match the registered one, and who explains the difference?
• Has a special assessment been voted, and who pays it if it falls due after the deed?

Read the extract first, and then spend the rest of your time on the things it does not say. Order a fresh one close to the signing, because it will show only what is in force that day.

Dotted underline marks an illustrative figure. It shows how a calculation works and is not a quote, a rate or a forecast.

Legal note. How the process works in general. It is not legal advice, and it never replaces an independent Spanish lawyer acting for you.