What an online property report can really tell you — and what cannot be obtained instantly

Today, you can order a ‘complete’ report on any home in Spain and receive it within minutes. It sounds like magic. And as with any magic trick, it helps to know what is genuine technology and what is sleight of hand. Some information really can be obtained instantly from official sources; other information exists in no public database, however polished the PDF in which it appears.

This guide answers a question we hear increasingly often: ‘How do I know whether an online property report is reliable?’ The short answer is to check where every item of data comes from. This article is the long answer. We explain what can genuinely be automated for any property in Spain, what can only be obtained manually on a case-by-case basis and what cannot be obtained at all. Apply this test to every report, including ours.

What you can find out instantly about any home in Spain

Spain has an extraordinary wealth of georeferenced public data. This is the raw material of any reputable online report:

• Cadastral data: gross floor area, year of construction, use, plot geometry and cadastral reference. Source: the Spanish Cadastre Online Office, through an open search.
• River and coastal flood hazard: official SNCZI (MITECO) mapping for T10, T100 and T500 return periods, which can be intersected with the plot's exact geometry.
• Radon potential: the official CSN map and municipal zoning under the Spanish Building Code (CTE DB-HS6).
• Seismicity: official seismic hazard data (IGN / NCSE-02 standard).
• Land classification and basic planning: the Urban Information System (SIU) and regional map viewers.
• Local constraints: proximity to watercourses, the maritime-terrestrial public domain, high-voltage lines, railways, major roads and industrial areas, measured using official mapping.
• Actual reference prices: official property transaction statistics by municipality and area.
• Climate: official AEMET datasets covering temperature, rainfall, wind and summer heat.
• Crime: quarterly Ministry of the Interior statistics — importantly, these are available only at municipal level, never by street or individual building.

Notice the pattern: all these datasets share three features. They are public, georeferenced (so they can be matched to a specific plot) and have a verifiable source and date. When data meets all three conditions, it can be rigorously automated for any home in Spain. When it does not, someone is filling the gap another way.

The grey area: information that exists, but not instantly or for every home

• Land Registry extract (nota simple): this exists, costs around €10 and may be requested by anyone, but it is not instant (it usually takes several hours to a couple of working days). More importantly, the registered property cannot always be located from its address or cadastral reference alone because the Land Registry and Cadastre are independent databases and most properties have yet to be coordinated. We explain this in detail in another article.
• Energy performance certificate: registers are maintained by the autonomous communities and public access varies by region. A certificate can be retrieved for many homes; for others, there is no searchable record or no valid certificate at all.
• ITE / IEE building inspections: records are maintained by each autonomous community and local council, with highly uneven coverage. Finding the case file, result and deadlines for a particular building is the exception, not the rule.

An honest report handles this category with nuance: it says either ‘we found this in register X, dated Y’ or ‘no record appears in the searchable registers’, without disguising the second answer.

What is not held in any database — and therefore cannot be delivered in seconds

• Special assessments and owners' association resolutions: meeting minutes, approved special assessments and unpaid fees are held by the property manager and owners' association. They can be obtained for a particular home by asking the seller or manager, but there is no public register from which they can be extracted automatically. If an instant report gives you the amount of an assessment and the meeting date, ask where it came from.
• Debts owed to the owners' association: only a certificate from the secretary-manager proves these debts under Article 9.1(e) of the Horizontal Property Act (Ley de Propiedad Horizontal). It is requested for the sale; it is not downloadable data.
• The building's structural system (concrete, waffle slab, steel, etc.): the Cadastre does not record it and no public source does. It can be established only from the technical project, the Building Logbook or an inspection.
• The actual outstanding balance of a mortgage: the Land Registry extract records the mortgage originally created and the secured liability, not the current balance. Only the bank holds that information, in the outstanding-debt certificate.
• The condition of internal services (plumbing, electrics and hidden damp): this cannot be seen from outside and is not held in any register.

None of this means the information is unimportant; it matters enormously, which is why every buyer should request it from the seller, property manager and bank before signing. It means it cannot be automated. When it appears in a report produced in seconds, it is either a manually prepared example or an estimate presented as fact.

Warning sign no. 1: a ‘score’ with no methodology

An overall rating such as ‘this home scores 61 out of 100’ is extremely appealing: it reduces a complex decision to a number. The problem is that a score means something only if you know how it is built: which variables are included, how they are weighted, which sample is used for comparison and how it was validated. Without a public methodology, a score is not a measurement; it is an opinion with decimal places.

For precisely this reason, Hogarfax does not currently provide an overall score. We prefer to show each check separately, with its source, and leave the final judgement to you. If we introduce a score one day, its methodology will be published alongside it. Until then, our advice applies to every report: if you are given a rating, ask for the formula. The response will tell you a great deal.

Warning sign no. 2: ‘AI-powered analysis’ as a sales pitch

Artificial intelligence is an excellent tool for explaining, summarising and making complex information accessible. It is a terrible source of facts. Generative models can ‘hallucinate’, producing plausible, well-written but false claims. That risk matters in a report informing the largest purchase of your life.

The right question is not ‘Does it use AI?’ but ‘Where does every item of data come from?’ There are two possible architectures. In one, every item results from a deterministic intersection with an official source, and AI, if used, only drafts or explains. In the other, the model generates the report content directly, filling gaps with inferences. The first is verifiable. The second produces reports that look complete precisely because nothing prevents them from doing so. Hogarfax uses the first: our own deterministic algorithms applied to official sources, without a single invented fact to fill a gap.

Warning sign no. 3: structural diagnoses based on a photograph

Assessing the condition of a façade or roof from a street or satellite image has limitations regardless of whether a person or a model is looking. The photograph may be years old or show the wrong entrance. At that resolution, a ‘crack’ may be a joint, shadow or stain. No visual analysis, human or automated, can see inside a wall, assess a floor slab or inspect a concealed waste pipe.

Automated visual analysis may offer preliminary guidance if presented for what it is. It becomes a problem when written in the language of an expert opinion (‘deterioration of waterproofing along the northern perimeter’, ‘corrosion of anchors’) despite no surveyor having visited the building. There is only one reliable way to establish a home's physical condition: an on-site inspection by a building surveyor or professional inspector. This costs around €200–€400 and is probably the best-spent money in the entire transaction. Any online report, including ours, is a preliminary step, never a substitute for that inspection.

Five questions to ask before paying for any report

• Does every item in the report state its official source and update date?
• Does the report clearly distinguish between verified data, estimates and unavailable information?
• If it includes information absent from all public sources (special assessments, structure or debts), does it explain how it obtained it for this particular home?
• If it gives a score, does it publish the methodology?
• Does the sample report represent what you will receive for any address, or is it a prepared case using information that cannot be replicated?

The final question is the most revealing. The definitive test of any service is simple: request a report for a home you know well — your own or your parents' — and check how much of what it says is true.

Our rule at Hogarfax

We were the first in Spain to offer instant property-risk checks, and from day one we have followed a rule that both limits and defines us: if data does not come from a verifiable official source, it does not appear in the report. That is why we do not give you special assessments no one can search, structural diagnoses no one has inspected or mortgage balances known only to the bank. We give you everything that can be known — intersected with your plot's exact geometry, with the source and date for every check — and tell you just as clearly what to request from the seller, property manager and Land Registry. An honest report also tells you what it does not know.