What to check before buying a house in Spain: a 12-point checklist

Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most people ever make, and yet most of us make it based on photos and a twenty-minute viewing. Before signing anything, there are 12 concrete things to check: the real prices paid in the area, the legal situation, the physical risks of the location, the land status, the surroundings, the building's condition and the seller's paperwork. This checklist walks through them one by one, with the official source where each one is verified.

1. The price: compare against what is actually paid in the area

The listing price is the seller's aspiration, not a market fact. What matters is what has actually been paid for comparable homes in that area in recent months. The gap between asking and closing prices can be considerable, and knowing it is your main negotiating lever.

Also compare against the Cadastre's reference value, because it is the minimum base the tax office will use for transfer tax even if you pay less. And before making an offer, run the full numbers with a purchase calculator: deposit, taxes and valuation fees change how much cash you really need.

2. The legal situation: land registry extract, ownership and charges

The nota simple from the Land Registry tells you who the real owner is and what charges the property carries: mortgages, court liens, easements or tax liabilities. It costs a few euros and can be requested online. Never sign a deposit contract without reading it, because uncancelled charges transfer to you.

Be aware: the nota simple says nothing about flooding, radon, planning status or the building's condition. They are complementary documents, not alternatives. Here we explain what the land registry extract tells you versus a risk report, point by point.

3. Flood risk: the official map, not intuition

Spain has official flood-zone cartography (the SNCZI, from the MITECO ministry) delimiting areas at risk of river and coastal flooding for 10, 100 and 500-year return periods. A home inside one of those zones can mean costlier insurance, use restrictions and very real scares. It is checked against the parcel's exact location, not the neighbourhood's name: two adjacent streets can fall one inside and one outside.

4. Wildfire risk: forest mass and past fires

If the house is near forest mass, what matters is the exact distance to the vegetation, whether the area fell inside burnt perimeters in recent years, and whether satellites are detecting active fires. All of that is public and mapped. This guide covers how to assess wildfire risk when buying a home.

5. Radon, seismicity and other ground risks

Radon is a natural radioactive gas that accumulates in homes built on certain terrains, mainly granitic ones, and is classified as a carcinogen. Spain's Technical Building Code requires protection against it in hundreds of municipalities. Seismicity is also officially zoned (the NCSE-02 standard): buying in the Levante or Granada is not the same as buying in Madrid.

Both are checked by location in seconds. You have the full list of physical risks and how to consult them in the complete guide to a home's physical risks in Spain, or you can check the risks of a specific home directly.

6. Land status and planning: what that parcel legally is

The fact that the house exists does not mean it can be legalised or extended. The land classification (urban, developable, rural) determines what can be done with the parcel, and sectoral restrictions — coasts, riverbeds, livestock trails, roads — can limit works or even use. It is the classic problem that is invisible during the viewing and surfaces years later. Here we explain land classification and the SIU and why it matters before buying.

7. The surroundings: what sits within 500 metres matters

Industrial estates, landfills, high-voltage power lines, major transport infrastructure with its noise, dams upstream or a nuclear plant within 30 km: none of this appears in the listing and all of it shapes daily life and resale value. The exact distance to each facility is an objective, checkable fact.

• Industrial facilities near the home: officially registered emissions and activity.
• Landfills: odours, heavy traffic and the price effect depending on distance.
• High-voltage power lines: what distance is reasonable and what the evidence says.
• Road, airport and railway noise: strategic noise maps are public.
• Nuclear power plants: what the 10 km and 30 km emergency planning zones mean.

8. The building: technical inspection, special assessments and real age

In flats, the building's condition matters as much as the home's. Three concrete checks: whether the building has passed its mandatory technical inspection (ITE/IEE) when its age requires it; whether the owners' association has special assessments approved or coming (ask the administrator and demand the debt certificate); and the construction's real age according to the Cadastre, which does not always match the listing.

9. Hidden defects: what the law covers and what it does not

If serious defects that were not visible surface after the purchase, Spain's Civil Code gives you room to claim, but the deadlines are short and proving the defect pre-existed is hard. The best defence is documenting the property's condition before signing. Here we explain what hidden defects are and how to avoid them. And if you are wondering whether the UK-style survey exists here, this answers it: property survey in Spain.

10. The documents to demand from the seller

There is a short list of papers the seller must be able to show without excuses: the land registry extract, the latest property tax (IBI) receipt, the community debt certificate, the energy certificate, the habitability certificate where required, and the community statutes. Refusing to show any of them is information in itself. The details are in the 7 documents to request from the seller.

11. The full numbers: taxes and transaction costs

On top of the purchase price you need to add transfer tax (ITP) on resale homes — a percentage of the value that varies by region —, the processing and registration fees, the valuation if there is a mortgage, and its arrangement fee. In total, the operation usually requires savings well above the deposit. The purchase calculator runs the numbers for your specific case.

12. Put it all together before negotiating, not after signing

Every check on this list lives in a different official source: the Land Registry, the Cadastre, the MITECO, the CSN, the noise maps, municipal planning. You can work through them one by one — here we explain how to do it yourself and how long it takes — or cross-check them all at once against the home's exact location.

And if you are still at the browsing stage, bookmark this page: it is the part of the decision the photos never show. There is a shorter, practice-oriented version in analysing a house before buying.