Signing at the Notary: Completion Day in Spain

What a Spanish notary is for

A Spanish notary is a public official who gives legal form to the deed: they verify the identity and capacity of everyone signing, check that the transaction complies with the law, confirm the registry position immediately before signing, read the deed, witness the signatures and enter the original in their protocol. From that moment the deed is a public document.

What the notary is not is your lawyer. They act for the transaction, not for you. They will not have checked whether the community fees are paid, whether the terrace was ever registered, whether the licence exists, or whether the price is sensible. They are impartial between buyer and seller by design, and their impartiality is the point of the office.

So a notary signing does not replace legal advice, and a purchase where nobody was acting for you is not made safe by a notary's presence. That checking is your lawyer's job and it happens in the weeks beforehand. One useful consequence of the office, though: the notary is paid a regulated fee, has no stake in whether the deal completes, and will answer your questions. Most buyers ask none. What your lawyer reads first →

The pre-signing visit, and why it is worth taking seriously

If you are borrowing, there is an earlier appointment. Ley 5/2019 requires the lender to deliver the binding offer (the FEIN), the standardised warning document and the draft contract, and then requires a cooling-off period before the mortgage deed can be signed. During that period you attend a notary — free of charge — who confirms you received everything in time, goes through the terms with you, answers your questions and records in a formal act that this took place. Without that record the mortgage deed cannot be signed.

It is easy to treat this as a formality. It is the most useful half hour available to a foreign borrower, for three reasons:

• The notary has no incentive. They are not selling you the loan and they are not earning on whether you take it.
• They will explain the terms that matter — the rate and its review, early repayment terms, what happens if you fall behind, and any linked products.
• It is the last easy moment to stop. After this the machinery moves quickly.

Arrive with questions written down, and if you do not speak Spanish, arrange an interpreter rather than relying on a bank employee to translate a document the bank has an interest in. Whether an attorney can attend in your place is worth raising early, since the whole purpose is that the borrower has understood the loan. More on powers of attorney →

Who is in the room

More people than you expect, which is why a completion date can slip by a week and why most non-resident buyers grant a power of attorney rather than booking flights against it.

• You, or your lawyer holding your power of attorney. Every buyer who will appear on the deed, or their attorney.
• The seller, or their representative. If the property is jointly owned, all owners or their attorneys.
• Your lawyer, who read the draft deed in advance and is the person who spots that something in it is wrong.
• A representative of your lender, authorised to sign the mortgage deed.
• A representative of the seller's lender, if the property carries a mortgage to be discharged, arriving with the figure and the cancellation paperwork.
• The estate agent, frequently, to be paid.
• An interpreter, where a party does not speak Spanish. The notary must be satisfied you understood what you signed, so this is not optional.

What happens, in order

1. Identity and capacity. Passports and NIEs for everyone signing, powers of attorney checked and copied.
2. The registry check. The notary confirms the current registry position electronically, immediately before signing, and notifies the registry of the imminent deed. This is the protection against a charge being registered in the gap between your lawyer's last check and the signature.
3. The purchase deed is read. The escritura de compraventa: the parties, the property as the registry describes it, the price and how it is paid, what is included, the position on community fees, IBI and utilities, and who bears which costs. It is read aloud, in Spanish, and you are entitled to stop the notary and ask.
4. The mortgage deed is read. The escritura de hipoteca: the amount, the term, the rate and its review, the repayment schedule, the charge over the property. This should match the binding offer you saw during the cooling-off period, and if it does not, say so before signing rather than after.
5. Signing. Every party signs every page or initials as the notary directs.
6. The money changes hands — see below.
7. The keys. Handed over at the table with alarm codes and community contacts. Ask for every set, and change the locks if you have any doubt how many are circulating.

The whole sitting usually takes under an hour, because the decisions were all made earlier.

How the money moves

Spanish completions still run substantially on bank cheques, and the reason is timing: a cheque bancario is drawn on the bank's own funds, so it is cleared money the moment it is handed over, whereas a transfer due that morning may or may not have landed.

The usual mechanics:

• Your own contribution — deposit and costs, less anything already paid — must be in your Spanish account in cleared funds several days beforehand, with the cheques ordered in advance. This is why the account has to exist well before completion week. Opening a Spanish account →
• The mortgage funds are released by the lender at the table, once the mortgage deed is signed, normally as a bank cheque made out to the seller.
• The seller's existing mortgage is paid off with a cheque to their bank, whose representative hands over the cancellation paperwork. The seller receives the balance.
• Deductions and retentions may be made at the table — where the seller is non-resident, for instance, or to cover an unresolved cost. Your lawyer produces the figures.
• Agents and professionals are frequently paid at the same time.

Ask your lawyer for the completion statement — every cheque, every payee, every amount — at least a few days beforehand. Reading it in advance is easy; reconciling it in a room full of people speaking Spanish is not.

Afterwards: registration and the deed

You own the property from the moment the deed is signed, and the keys are yours that day. Registration follows, and it is administrative rather than something you wait on.

The notary sends an electronic notice to the land registry immediately, which secures your priority. You leave with a copia simple — an unstamped copy of the deed — which is enough to open utility accounts and register with the community. Your lawyer then pays the transfer tax within the statutory deadline, lodges the deed, and collects the registered deed some weeks later. Registry delays are common and are not a problem with your purchase.

Under Ley 5/2019 the lender pays the stamp duty on the mortgage deed and most of the notary and registry costs relating to the mortgage itself. What you pay are the costs of the purchase — notary at roughly 0.1–0.5%, registry at roughly 0.1–0.25%, transfer tax, and your lawyer's fee. The full cost breakdown →

Then the small administration: utilities into your name by direct debit, the community notified, IBI set up, and buildings insurance in force from the day of signing — the lender requires it, but you may buy it from anyone. What insurance a lender can require → The full purchase timeline →