Bank account for Property purchase

Hello, I've placed a deposit on a property which will initially be a holiday home with more use once retired. I'm due to fly out and meet my solicitor next week to pass POA etc
My question regards bank accounts.
Do I legally require one to purchase.
I've opened a Wise money exchange account with which you can arrange direct debits for utilities etc, you can also get a payment card for general purchasing.
My thought was that I could transfer funds for our property purchase into my solicitors client account through Wise and then arrange direct debits etc. My Solicitor has been suggesting a bank account with Sabadell but they charge 40€ per quarter to hold the account which I think is excessive for my requirements.
My Solicitor has also informed me they don't have a client account for me to facilitate so it looks like I will have to open an account just to get a bankers draft to purchase the property.
Does anyone know of a bank for UK residents that offer a more reasonable account, I know BBVA offer an online account that offers free banking but don't know if it's available to UK resident and if you can get the required bankers draft for property purchase.
If I bite the bullet and open a Sabadell account just to make the purchase, how easy is it to then close and is there a cost to do so ?
Sorry for the many questions and thanks in advance for any replies

My initial thoughts are what kind of a Solicitor doesn't have a Client Account? You shouldn't have to open a bank account to facilitate one transaction. Looks like you have two choices 1. Change your solicitor to one who can facilitate an electronic funds transaction or open an expensive Spanish Bank Account which you don't need and won't need into the future and which charges high annual fees. Spanish banks don't make it easy to close your account once opened either. They require you to visit the bank in person to close the account. It seems it's an important question people must rember to ask of any solicitor they engage to complete a property transaction.

Bee

We had an account with Sabadell and it was easy enough to close. We now use Santander and do not pay any charges. Also a point to watch, if you open an account in Spain many things can only be actioned at your 'home branch' so choose one near to where your property is. Many banks (in Spain) also charge you to withdraw cash at ATMs if you are not an account holder. E.g. if a Santander account holder and withdraw at a Sabadell ATM you will get charged by Sabadell.

As someone else said, a Solicitor without a client account would be a big red flag for me.

Agreed re. the comments around the solicitor not having a client account.

Bank-closure was easy for me (Caixa Bank). Asked for the account to be closed, and it was done (and the remaining balance handed to me in cash) within 5 minutes of me walking into the branch (Quesada).

I think all banks charge non residents. No idea if you technically ****have **** to have a Spanish bank account but if you need to pay for the transaction by bank draft it is very likely that it will become too complicated to do this with a non Spanish bank. And in this case also, a more important consideration than the monthly bank fees ( as others say, you can always close an account later) is the bank charge for the bank draft. This can be truly extortionate ( by which I mean several hundreds of euros, just to issue the draft. ) I would clarify the bank draft fee with any bank before opening an account with them, not just monthly fees. One way to reduce the cost of the bank draft is usually to take the bank's home insurance for the first year. yes it won't be the cheapest but is likely to be worth the saving on the bank draft ( and you can switch after a year. Incidentally it may not be that the Solicitor doesn't have a client account, just that facilitating the large money transfers isn't a service they offer. It is fairly normal here that you have to do most of it by bank draft. It is also just not your solicitor involved here but the sellers as well and maybe they are insisting on a bank draft....

Before we completed our purchase 5 years ago we set up an account with Sabadell (we also have a Wise account used for transfers)
I can honestly say we’ve never had an issue with Sabadell & mostly use their online banking app (in 5 years we’ve possibly been into a branch 3/4 times) We pay €30/year for a second debit card & we have a few utilities direct debits arranged so maybe that’s why we have no additional charges?
We paid our funds to our solicitor who dealt with the purchase so all was dealt without bankers draft, etc.
Is €40/quarter such a big issue considering the cost of purchasing, maintenance & monthly running costs for a house in Spain.

Santander charge us 16 euro per month for the privilege of processing 2 direct debits per month and the use of a debit card for 5 or 6 transactions per year. Just left them for insurance on the house, but it was like an obstacle course trying to do this. They do not make life easy.
As an aside, Telefonica are even more difficult than the bank. Took us 3 months to cancel our contract even after they had disconnected the phone line.

Thanks for all replies, all helpful in their own way.
The main transfer will be less than 100k but for the next one (to take it to 10% and due next week) the solicitor is telling me she doesn't have the facility to do that either. It's the one question I didn't ask when making enquiries as I assumed (stupidly) they would all have the capability.
Yes, also been told to take banks insurance to lessen cost of bank draft but that will only tie me to the bank for the year which is unnecessary when Wise can do the direct debits. Thanks again

Raspberry Blower wrote:Thanks for all replies, all helpful in their own way.
The main transfer will be less than 100k but for the next one (to take it to 10% and due next week) the solicitor is telling me she doesn't have the facility to do that either. It's the one question I didn't ask when making enquiries as I assumed (stupidly) they would all have the capability.
Yes, also been told to take banks insurance to lessen cost of bank draft but that will only tie me to the bank for the year which is unnecessary when Wise can do the direct debits. Thanks again

You may find that most solicitors have client accounts but don't like to use them for house purchases. I don't know whether there are extra charges for this facility or whether there is some legal reason for this reluctance but we had a similar problem when we bought some years ago.

We ended up using Sabadell to produce a bankers draft and mitigated the cost with their home insurance. We cancelled the bank account when they started raising charges to silly levels. If you can persuade your solicitor to allow you to use their client account I suspect this would be much cheaper.

Good luck with your purchase.

Thank you, yes she is now going to let me use it. First meeting on Tuesday