First time buying

Hi. Again, the information I am looking for will be in the forum somewhere, however I like to ask specific questions and then potentially follow up on them, so hope this approach is ok for the viewer.

I am about to investigate my first purchase in Spain. I have been hearing of some horror stories, especially from our maintenance man who thought he was buying a property to find out once the money had gone that he didn’t legally own it (something to do with land ownership). Anyway, as you can imagine, I don’t want to sink my hard earned into a property to find out retrospectively that something was amis. Now, this is probably a bit extreme as it’s very unlikely to happen with a reputable business but what sort of initial questions should I be asking the agent?

For example. Is there regulatory/professional bodies that they should be part of? Is there a certain way that they should be handling my funds? What sort of initial processes should I expect to see? In general, what questions should I be asking them?

Thanks in advance.

The most basic and important point is that you should be appointing your own independent solicitor to handle any purchase for you. If you are relying on what an Estate agent alone does or says, you are almost setting yourself up for problems. Dont give any money to Estate Agents, pay nothing to anybody, no deposit, no ' reservation fee' until your Solicitor approves the contract and indeed your Solicitor would normally be the people who would hold any deposit money. There are many recommended solicitors on this forum. I personally would recommend SGM Abogados but there are several others who are well thought of. Your solicitor will do the due diligence on property legalities, permissions etc.

Incidentally for years past Estate Agents have been unregulated here. I think a new law has recently been introduced re regulation but you can also stick with ones who have a good reputation/ recommended by others. Casas Manuel, Vincents, Citrine to name three off the top of my head. But you absolutely must get your own solicitor.