Bankers Draft

When the house purchase is ready to be completed at the Notary is the money transferred by a bankers draft between parties and is it a set fee charged by the bank or does this vary between different banks?




How much will the charge be?




Thanks wolf7

A Spanish bank will cost you about 4%, very costly. It is not just a counter charge like in UK which is about 20 GBP. Much better if you can get a bankers draft whilst in UK and bring it with you.

When we paid, we were warned against doing it by bankers draft, because of the high charges. We transferred cash over in chunks of under £20,000, via a currency exchange company, to our Spanish account because Sabadell, who the account is with, charge a hefty handling fee for any amount over 20k. They still charged us 500 euros when we paid for the house, although they reduced that to 200 as long as we took out house insurance with them. This was last October.

Hi

We are with Sabadell still waiting for the house insurance quote from them, my lawyer told me they would reduce this if we took their insurance out, can you tell me how much the house insurance was?

Thanks
wolf7

We are with Sabadell still waiting for the house insurance quote from them, my lawyer told me they would reduce this if we took their insurance out, can you tell me how much the house insurance was?

330.55 euros it was

garysl wrote:

We are with Sabadell still waiting for the house insurance quote from them, my lawyer told me they would reduce this if we took their insurance out, can you tell me how much the house insurance was?

330.55 euros it was

Anyone thinking of taking home insurance with their bank for whatever reason please ask them about whether you will get a renewal letter/email in advance each year with the renewal price. Also if you want to change insurance company, as many of us do nowadays to get a better premium, what are the procedures.
All banks may be different but we had a struggle changing to another company.It wasn't the case of just not paying the renewal with the bank and buying the insurance with another company. The money was being taken out of our bank each year with no notice period and no renewal price given to us and they wanted a 3 month notice to cancel in writing on paper not email!

Just a tip to others to check this before signing up to bank insurance.

Jan

Each bank should have a form which cancels the insurance. Yes, they require 3 months notice but so do car insurance companies as well.
We cancelled ours (with Bankia or Bancaja as was) by going into the branch and filling the form in.
Although, by law (Law 50/1980, of 8th of October) the notice period is only 2 months, the bank must receive your instructions before that 2 month deadline so 3 months is always better.
We were also told that, if we did it by post, it would have to be by Burofax (a registered delivery). The letter also has to be in Spanish.
We did not use a bankers draft but did it the same way as garysl but that was direct to the builder.
Also check if you have taken out a mortgage as some of them have a clause stating you must take their insurance which can work out twice as much as from someone else. We took out a small mortgage (advised to as the bank will check the legality of the property before giving one) and found we were paying over double than we now pay with Linea Directa and it only covered buildings and not contents.

You have to give any insurance company ( no matter what the insurance is for = house, car) 60 days notice of cancellation or they are within their rights to renew the policy!!!! This is absolutely ridiculouse becase they don't send the renewal price out until a week or so before the renewal date. I had a long, drawn out dispute with an insurance company over this issue as I cancelled the house insurance after they sent me the renewal premium but not before 60 days. They threatened to take court action because I kept returning the payment from my bank to them but as it was only for 160 euros , they give up in the end because I think it was not worth them taking me to court!

sunworshipper wrote:You have to give any insurance company ( no matter what the insurance is for = house, car) 60 days notice of cancellation or they are within their rights to renew the policy!!!! This is absolutely ridiculouse becase they don't send the renewal price out until a week or so before the renewal date. I had a long, drawn out dispute with an insurance company over this issue as I cancelled the house insurance after they sent me the renewal premium but not before 60 days. They threatened to take court action because I kept returning the payment from my bank to them but as it was only for 160 euros , they give up in the end because I think it was not worth them taking me to court!

Yes we had a similar experience! The insurances in the UK are nothing like this and I change our car, home, travel insurance to a better price every year, even up to a day before the insurance ends. Also by getting a better price quite a few companies will match them, to allow you stay with them.
There seems no way to be competitive in Spain with an insurance renewal, which is odd.
I understand perfectly well that this is Spain and things are often different which is acceptable and expected but this does not have to be like this IMO.

Jan

We completed back in Oct last year and we too are with Sabadell and there were no fees for the transferring in or out as I remember. In fact we transferred all the money into our account at once with a transfer agent and the solicitor and estate agents between them did the rest. If there were any fees it must have been built into the 13% we were quoted on top of the purchase price. for Insurance we were recommended by some friends to use Linear Directa. Prices were very reasonable (best we found) and we got a refunded discount and the friends had a cheque back too.