Property purchase and legal advice

It is essential that you seek independent legal advice from a qualified English speaking solicitor before you enter into any contract relating to a property sale. You should consider this course of action mandatory and allow a figure within your budget to cover these essential legal costs. (See below for some legal cost estimates based on property purchase value.)

Your solicitor

Your solicitor must be familiar with and practice Spanish law, have linguistic fluency in both Spanish and English and be appointed and paid by you.

If any of these criteria are not the met, then the reliability of the legal advice (and translation) that you receive will be questionable.

• If a property agent offers to perform these services for you, then you should question their integrity and honesty. He is not saving you money, but placing your money (and potential investment) at risk.
• If a property agent includes the services of a solicitor within their fees, then that solicitor is appointed by and acts on behalf of the property agent and not you. This is unethical and potentially places your investment at risk.

Why do you need a solicitor

You need a solicitor in Galicia for exactly the same reasons that you need one in the UK, Ireland or any other country.

Your legal advisor will inspect all of your contractual documents, perform the necessary searches and ensure that you are entering into a contract that represents the precise understanding that you have of the property, its boundaries, its purchase value and any other items upon which you and the vendor have come to an agreement.

Your solicitor will ensure that, on completion of the contract, you are the sole owner of the property (or plot of land) and that your ownership has been registered.

If you doubt the importance of appointing a solicitor in the house buying process, ask yourself the following question-

Would you consider buying a property in your home country without the necessary searches and conveyance procedures performed by a solicitor. If the answer is no, then why would you contemplate such a risk in another country with a legal and contractual system (and probably a language) with which you are unfamiliar?

What could go wrong if you decide not to take legal advice

The oversees property market is full of horror stories where an innocent British house buyer was misled, miss-sold, tricked or conned during a foreign house purchase.

The one thing that all of these "so called” horror stories have in common is the omission of proper legal and contractual advice. Put simply, in each case the prospective buyer decided to try and save money (a figure relating to a maximum of around 3% of the property purchase value) by choosing not to employ a solicitor.

If this decision is made, be prepared to face any of the following

• The signed and agreed contract may not represent the details of the sale that you believed it to represent. e.g. It may exclude or inaccurately define items (e.g. land, boundaries, rights etc), or may make you responsible for something about which you were unaware.
• You may discover an important event or permission relating to your new property about which you were not aware, e.g. commencement of the construction of a new motorway on your property starting next week!
• You may not actually own the property you have bought – especially if it was not legally registered.

  Galicia has the lowest level of land registration in Spain and if land is not registered, its ownership in not legally established. Land and property is handed down through family inheritance and in some instances the establishment of who does and does not have a claim to ownership is not fully uncovered until a sale has completed. In these circumstances you may ultimately own nothing.

The list goes on……

Why do I need a solicitor when the Spanish house buying system uses an Notary?

A Notary is not a solicitor, a Notary does not represent you and an Notary is not concerned with whether or not "your” understanding of a contract and its "actual” contents are the same thing.

• A Notary will rarely speak English.
• A Notary will not check to make sure that you understand the contract.
• A Notary will not (and is not required to) explain to you what is going on.
• The Notary is never your representative and has no contractual relationship or responsibility to you.

Finally

• Are there any circumstances where buying a Galician property does not require qualified legal assistance?

  NO - none that we are aware of.

• Should you be concerned or worried about buying a property in Galicia?

  Only if you choose not to take adequate legal advice. If you appoint a solicitor and follow their recommendations your property sale will be completed in accordance with your expectations.

• Buying a property at home or abroad is a massive investment. Do not put that investment at risk by neglecting to, or deciding against, appointing a solicitor to represent your interests. Such a decision is a "fools errand".

Further information

Solicitors fees - a rough guideline

As a rough guideline you should expect to pay a figure of between 1% and 2% of the property sale value as a standard solicitor’s fee. Most practices also have a minimum charge if the property value falls below a set figure (usually 100, 000 euros).

What is included and excluded within each solicitors "standard" package varies and items like attendance of the "Notary" meeting are normally fee charged additions. You can decide which (if any) of these additional services you would like to include based on the discussions that you have with your appointed advisor.

Bilingual Galician solicitor's practice

Because the selection and appointment of a legal advisor is the responsibility of the property purchaser, we do not directly recommend our clients to a specific practice. However, given the fact that buying a property in a foreign country is complicated enough without the difficulties of finding a reputable bilingual solicitor, we can provide you with the name and contact details of a practice that can help you with all legal aspects of your property purchase.