After 30 years as a Spanish lawyer, I don’t want to mislead anyone. Just like, for example in France/ Denmark, you don’t need a lawyer to act for you when you buy or sell a property in Spain, but we strongly recommend you have one.
So what if you decide to instruct a Spanish Solicitor for your move to Spain? Well, a lot of people are driven by price, and some look for experience and native French/ Danish speaking. However, one thing that struck me recently when we were acting for a client, is what exactly is the lawyer doing for the money you pay them? In this particular case, the lawyer acting for the other side didn’t carry out their duties leaving all the work for ourselves, thus delaying the process and making it more difficult to get the sale of the property done. It is important that you know which services your lawyer is going to carry out on your behalf as it is their duty to make the process easier and faster, and not just wait for someone else to do their job or just taking advantage when the other party hasn’t instructed a lawyer.
It is very important that your lawyer is an INDEPENDENT LAWYER, to protect and act in your best interests and have no conflict of interest with the estate agent or the other party. A lawyer has to put his client’s interests first at the expense of finishing quickly and receiving their fees.
When you instruct a lawyer check what they are actually doing regarding the property transaction. When you instruct Just Law Solicitors for your property purchase to sale in Spain you get everything in French/ Danish. We carry out the whole process, obtaining or demanding all the legal documents to be sure that the property is free of charges, debts, or embargos, and we include the full range of services, such as obtaining the NIE number and opening the Spanish bank account if you don’t have one. We also change the suppliers and file the first year non-resident taxes and refer you to a mortgage broker if you need a mortgage and we can also arrange a survey and insurance.
We have a 100% success rate in residency applications and a specialist tax advisor. Make sure you are aware of the tax implications if you are moving to Spain and planning on spending more than 183 days a year here.
So when you buy or sell in Spain check to see what you are paying for. Ask for a full breakdown in writing.
Marisa Moreno Castillo, Senior Lawyer, and Danish Consul.
Est. 1992 www.justlawsolicitors.com
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Malaga – Fuengirola – Marbella.
The presentation of the sun protection project “Soludable”