Buying a Home in Spain
Congratulation on considering this adventure! Spain is a beautiful country with wonderful people. Here you will mostly discover that quality of life is a priority in Spain. No one is in a hurry! This may sound great …. but when you are trying to buy a home here it can be frustrating.
As you scroll down through the sections on this page you will find:
Checklist for Buying
Spain’s Foreign Identification Number (N.I.E.)
Opening a Bank Account in Spain / Transferring Money (Dollars to Euros)
Lawyer
Realtor
Helpful Hint: “When in Rome…..” The good people of Spain are beginning to get frustrated with buyers not even trying to adapt to their culture. You will find that you will accomplish more and have more fun if you are respectful and at least try to learn / speak Spanish. We are not fluent in Spanish, but we try and are getting better. If you try you will have much better experiences!
Checklist for Buying
Establish a relationship with a Lawyer and Realtor.
Obtain your Foreign Identification Number (N.I.E.)
Open a Bank Account.
View Properties and look into mortgage options (If applicable).
Complete Anti-Money Laundering Document.
Once you find a home - sign a Reservation Contract and Deposit Agreement.
Work with lawyer on valuation, preparing required documents, notary, title deeds, and registering the property.
Set up utilities, home insurance, HOA (known as Community Fees) if applicable.
Spain’s Foreign Identification Number (N.I.E.)
We are going to start and finish this section with the same advice ….hire a lawyer to help you with this.
We were told it was not necessary to get a lawyer to complete this step. We are always mindful with money therefore followed this advice, which ended up costing us time, money, and anxiety.
This was our experience so you don’t make the same mistake:
We were told that we can get a N.I.E. at any Spanish consulate in the United States. If this is true it was not our experience. We live in Atlanta which has a satellite consulate. What we found is that it appears to be one person who does not have regular office hours, never answers the phone, and took several weeks to respond to email. We would guess that his/her primary purpose is if a Spanish citizen residing in Atlanta needs help, they are there to provide it.
Through additional research we eventually found out that we would have to go to a larger regional consulate for our area, which was in Miami, FL. We tried calling all three phone numbers to ask questions but were never able to reach a person. Instead, we were delivered a voice message that directed us to their website for information. With that, we continued to forge ahead:
First things first, you have to make an appointment to apply for the N.I.E. in person. Fun fact: the appointment is not confirmed until a few days prior, so if you have to fly to your regional consulate, it is unnerving. Their site notes all of the information you need to bring but we found that additional information could be necessary depending on who processes your application.
We were originally told that it would take two weeks to process. However, once we finished the application, we were informed that it could take three to four weeks to process. After five weeks, we followed up and were then told it could take over two months to process; and one could tell us the status of our application.
We left for Spain without our N.I.E.’s hoping they would arrive by email before the closing date. They didn’t. which is why/when we hired a law firm to assist us. We refiled using their connections and received our N.I.E.s that same day. While there we submitted our application in Spain, were told there was no record of our filing in Miami.
We did eventually received our N.I.E.’s (not a duplicate) from the Miami consulate several weeks later. There is no way of knowing if our applications were sitting on a desk in Miami or Spain waiting to be processed.
…..so as noted at the beginning of this page, hire a law firm to help with this. We learned this is a situation of “it’s who you know!”
Even though real estate lawyers deal with this all the time, we learned they still do not know what the government official issuing the N.I.E. would ask for upon filing.
This is what we were told to bring:
Completed Spanish Government Forms EX-15 and 790
United States Passport
Copy of every page of your passport
United States Driver’s License
Recent Pay Stub from your current employer
Utility Bill with your name and address matching your Driver's License
Marriage Certificate if you are buying a property together
Passport quality photos (2)
If you have a Purchasing Contract of the home you are buying
Return airline itinerary showing your return to the United States
Blood sample (just kidding)
All of this may not apply to you. Consult with your real estate lawyer to make sure you have everything you need.
Opening a Bank Account in Spain / Transferring Money (Dollars to Euros)
We were told you do not need to be in Spain to open a bank account in Spain. This is true if you live in a country that is part of the European Union (EU). This is not this case if you are from the United States.
Banks in Spain advertise that you can open an account online without living in Spain or being a Spanish citizen. This is true for some countries but if you are from the United States you have to open the bank account in person (or give someone local power of attorney). We even tried opening an account with a Spanish bank that had a presence in the United States. They told us they have the same name but operate as a completely different company.
This is what our banker in Spain asked for:
United States Passport
Recent Pay Stub from your current employer
Utility Bill with your name and address
If you have a Purchasing Contract for the home you are buying. They can use the banks address until you officially have an address in Spain.
A copy of your United States bank account statement from your bank that you are transferring the money from.
A few of the largest banks in Spain:
Banco Santander
BBVA
CaixaBank
Banco Sabadell
A few currency exchange companies:
Currencies Direct
XE Money Transfer
OFX
TorFX
When we looked into transferring money from our bank account in the United States to our account in Spain we wanted to limit the fees. We learned of charges that our bank did not consider “fees” so we had to look into other options.
Transferring US Dollars to Euros could cost you more than the current exchange rate. Some banks in the United States set their own exchange rate. In our case the bank we use had their exchange rate almost 4% higher than the published rate. When transferring the amount of money used to buy a home these “fees” can be a lot of money. In order to limit this fee we went through a currency exchange company. This saved us a lot of money and worth looking into.
Note: We have listed a few banks and currency exchange companies on this page for your convenience but have no affiliation with them. Research what works best for you.
Lawyer
Full disclosure - when we were told that it really was not necessary to hire a real estate attorney our reaction was, “Great! An area we can save some money.”
Reflecting on the process we should have established a relationship from the beginning with a real estate attorney. It would have saved us a lot of time, aggravation, and yes….money.
If you read our page regarding getting our Foreign Identification Number (N.I.E.) we noted that a lawyer would have saved us time, money, and anxiety. Our real estate attorney in Spain had the relationships to get things done.
Besides helping us get our N.I.E. (the same day we applied) they:
Prepared the purchase contract including total purchase cost.
Requested the deeds and all documents related to the property. (This is important because many older homes do not have the proper paperwork because they were passed down in the family. This could delay your purchase by months or years.)
Searching any existing debts on the property which would become your responsibility if discovered after your purchase.
Coordinating the closing appointments, translations, notary.
Changing ownership to you for the utilities, taxes, fees, etc…
Provide Power of Attorney and application of mortgages if necessary.
Establishing a Will in Spain.
Consult with your real estate attorney for other services.
