Habitation Certificate for properties in Spain.

Jan · by **Jan** » Sat May 04, 2013 2:55 pm

Hi,

We were confused recently when we noticed that the date on our habitation certificate for our Spanish property had run out.

We went to the town hall in Rojales to enquire and were given wrong or 'lost in translation' information. They were willing to update our certificate for 70 euros but luckily we didn't have the correct documents with us, at the time, or we would have paid 70 euro's needlessly...and only for the next five years!

Our fiscal rep 'Abaco' says on their website "Once you do have your habitation certificate, the good news is that you don’t need to renew it even though it says it is only valid for five years. It’s not until the property is sold once more that a new one is needed and then it is the new owner’s responsibility to obtain one in their name. They will want to see that you have had one, but it doesn’t need to be up-to-date."

The above quote came from an interesting recent article on our fiscal representatives website which explains about the certificate and why we do not need to update it. It may be helpful for anyone who, like we were, was or is confused about the Habitation Certificate renewal - Read more here:
http://www.abacoadvisers.com/spain_explained/conveyancing/news/habitation-certificate

blackvelvet · by **blackvelvet** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:53 pm

Thank you for this info as we are going through property purchase
And I think there may be an issue with this for us.
It's making me nervous.

Jan · by **Jan** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:33 pm

blackvelvet wrote:Thank you for this info as we are going through property purchase
And I think there may be an issue with this for us.
It's making me nervous.

I remember being nervous too when we were going through our purchase. It's the unknown of being in Spain. It's nerve- wracking in our home country buying a property but being abroad makes it all seem all the more worrying. However, if you have a good solicitor they should be able to smooth out any problems as they've seen it all before.

In the early days, after buying our property from new, a few houses on our development were re-sold and none of us had been issued with a habitation certificate at the time these properties were sold. It wasn't until finding out later about the habitation certificate that we wondered how on earth these properties were sold without one but one of the properties has been sold twice since and we've never heard of any problems.

You can always ask in the town hall about whether your prospective new property has an Habitation Certificate, if your solicitor hasn't checked it out for you by then.

Hope everything goes well for you and that you will be enjoying your new property very soon.

Good luck,

Jan.

Habitation Certificate for properties in Spain.