How to check a resale flat in Spain when you're only here for a few days

With only a few days in Spain, do the paperwork before you fly and keep the viewings for what only your eyes can judge. Order the land registry extract, ask for the community debts certificate, the energy certificate and the building's inspection report, and look up the Catastro record yourself. On site, go street, building, then flat: test water, power and damp, film everything, and leave hidden defects to a surveyor.

What should you ask for before you fly out to view a flat in Spain?

Paperwork can be checked from your sofa, so check it before you book the flight. Ask the seller or agent for the certificate of community debts, the energy performance certificate and the building's inspection report; order the land registry extract (nota simple) yourself and look up the Catastro record online. If the seller refuses, you have learnt something cheaply.

The land registry extract (nota simple)

The nota simple is an informational extract from the Registro de la Propiedad (the land registry) for the district where the flat is. According to the Colegio de Registradores, it shows the property's description, the registered owner and any mortgages or seizures (embargos), as they stand on the day you ask. You do not have to be the owner to order one, but you must state your legitimate interest.

You can order it online from the registrars' website at any hour. They list the price of an ordinary nota simple at 9.02 € per property, before taxes, and a translated version at 9.02 € plus 30 € for the translation. Order it first. If the name on it is not the person selling, stop and find out why. Each section is explained in our guide to reading a nota simple.

The certificate of community debts

In a block of flats, the comunidad de propietarios (owners' community) charges every flat its share of running costs. Article 9.1.e of the Horizontal Property Act makes the new owner answer, with the flat itself, for the previous owners' unpaid general expenses: the part of the current year already due plus the three previous calendar years.

The same article requires the seller to declare in the deed that the fees are paid, or list what is owed, and to provide a certificate from the community's secretary with the president's approval. Without it the notary cannot authorise the deed, unless the buyer expressly lets the seller off. The certificate must be issued within seven calendar days of the request, so it can reach you before your trip. Ask for a recent one now and a fresh one for signing day, and never waive it. Fees, special levies (derramas) and the community's minutes are covered in our guide to community fees and the certificate of debts.

The energy performance certificate

Under Royal Decree 390/2021, the owner is responsible for commissioning the certificado de eficiencia energética, which only has legal validity once registered with the regional authority. It lasts up to ten years, or five if the rating is G. Anyone advertising a flat for sale, property portals included, must include its energy rating, and a copy of the registered certificate and label is annexed to the sale contract.

If the listing says the rating is en trámite (in progress), ask for the certificate before you fly. A low letter on an older flat tells you to look hard at the windows, the heating and the walls on the day; why that matters in winter is in our article on why Spanish flats are cold.

The building's inspection report (IEE or ITE)

Older buildings may need a periodic technical inspection, the Inspección Técnica de Edificios (ITE) or Informe de Evaluación del Edificio (IEE). Nationally, article 29.1 of Royal Legislative Decree 7/2015 only says that owners in blocks of flats may be required by the competent authority to show the building's state of conservation, accessibility and energy efficiency. The national calendar, in the decree's second transitional provision, and paragraphs 2 to 6 of article 29 were annulled by the Constitutional Court in ruling STC 143/2017. There is no national age threshold: each region or town hall sets it.

In the Comunidad de Madrid, for example, the regional government requires an IEE for collective residential buildings more than 50 years old, and Madrid City Council publishes yearly lists of the buildings obliged to file one. Elsewhere, ask the town hall. Either way, ask the seller to get the latest report from the owners' community, and if it lists defects, ask whether the repairs are agreed and how they will be paid for.

The cadastral record you can look up yourself

The Catastro is an administrative property register that depends on the Ministry of Finance, separate from the land registry. Under articles 51 and 52.1 of the Cadastre Act, anyone can see its non-protected data; only the owners' names and details and the cadastral values are protected.

Type the address into the Sede Electrónica del Catastro and you get the referencia catastral (cadastral reference), the use, the built area and the year of construction, with the area broken down by floor and common elements. The record may link to a façade photo and a floor sketch, and you can save a descriptive and graphic report as a PDF.

Read the Catastro's own definition of built area before comparing it with the listing. It includes the flat's share of common elements; covered balconies and terraces count at 50% of their surface, or 100% if closed on three of their four sides; and in homes, spaces lower than 1.50 metres do not count. If the listing claims much more, the difference can be a closed-in terrace or an undeclared extension, which our article on illegal extensions and closed terraces explains. The national Catastro does not cover the Basque Country or Navarre: properties there cannot be looked up on its site.

Two maps worth a look

Article 14 of the Noise Act (Law 37/2003) requires noise maps for major roads, railways and airports, and for municipalities of more than 100,000 inhabitants above a set density; the Ministry for Ecological Transition's SICA system lets you search and download them. For internet, the Ministry for Digital Transformation publishes coverage maps of the fixed and mobile broadband available at each location.

Document	Spanish name	Who issues it	How you get it	What it tells you
Land registry extract	Nota simple	The land registry for the district (Registro de la Propiedad)	Online from the Colegio de Registradores; 9.02 € per property before taxes; translated version 9.02 € plus 30 €	Description, registered owner, mortgages and seizures in force on the day you ask
Certificate of community debts	Certificación sobre el estado de deudas con la comunidad	The community's secretary, with the president's approval	The seller must provide it; it must be issued within 7 calendar days of the request	Unpaid community expenses; the flat answers for the current year's due part and the three previous years
Energy performance certificate	Certificado de eficiencia energética	A competent technician commissioned by the owner; registered with the region	From the seller; the rating must appear in any advert	Energy rating; valid up to 10 years, 5 if rated G
Building inspection report	IEE / ITE	A competent technician; in the Comunidad de Madrid, the owners or the community must have it done	From the owners' community, via the seller; when it is required depends on the region or town hall	State of conservation, accessibility and energy efficiency of the building
Cadastral record	Consulta descriptiva y gráfica	Dirección General del Catastro (not Basque Country or Navarre)	Online, open to anyone for non-protected data	Use, built area, year of construction, breakdown by floor and common elements

Source: Colegio de Registradores; Horizontal Property Act, art. 9; Royal Decree 390/2021; Royal Legislative Decree 7/2015, art. 29; Comunidad de Madrid; Dirección General del Catastro.

How should you plan a short viewing trip in Spain?

A viewing only helps if you can test things, and an empty flat with the water and electricity cut off tells you very little. Before you fly, ask the agent for three things for every flat on your list: supplies connected on the day, a daylight slot, and access to the shared parts of the building.

Group the viewings by area, and keep a free slot near the end of the trip for a second visit to the one you liked. Ask whether each flat is empty, lived in, let to a tenant or used as a holiday let: it changes when you can go in and what you can film.

Pack a phone with a compass and a spirit-level app, a torch, a phone charger to test sockets, a tape measure and something to take notes. Bring the nota simple and the Catastro record on your phone, so you can compare rooms, floors and terraces with what is registered while you are standing in them.

In what order should you inspect the street, the building and the flat?

Work from the outside in. The street and the building show you costs you will share with the neighbours, and fresh paint inside the flat cannot hide them. Spend the first minutes outside, then the entrance, stairs and roof, and only then the flat itself, when you already know what kind of building it sits in.

The street and the façade

Cross the road and look up. Note cracks across the façade, rust stains under balconies, concrete that has fallen from balcony edges and left the steel showing, and netting put up to stop pieces falling. At street level, look for damp rising from the pavement and for what sits on the ground floor: a bar with a terrace, rubbish containers or a bus stop under the bedroom window are things you will live with.

The entrance, the stairs, the lift and the roof

Read the community notice board: calls to meetings and notices of works say a lot about the building's plans and its money. Look at the stairwell walls for cracks, at the lift, and at any basement or garage for damp. Ask to go up to the roof terrace. Standing water, cracked tiles and patched waterproofing are worth a photo, and so is the meter room.

What can you check inside the flat in a few minutes?

Inside the flat, check water pressure and hot water, the gas certificate, the electrical panel, damp, cracks, windows, noise, orientation and mobile signal: test what you can and photograph what you cannot. Your phone, a torch, a charger and a coin are enough. Ask before you open taps, cupboards or the panel cover; the answer is information too.

Water pressure and hot water

Open the kitchen tap and the shower at the same time, then flush the toilet and watch the flow. Run the hot water and note how long it takes to arrive. Find out what heats it: a gas boiler (caldera), an electric water heater (termo) or a heat pump, and photograph its data plate. Look under each sink for stains, swollen chipboard and buckets.

If the flat has gas, ask for the last inspection certificate. Under ITC-ICG 07 of Royal Decree 919/2006, installations on a distribution network must be inspected every five years by an authorised gas installer or the distributor, and when the result is favourable the installer gives the owner a copy of the certificate. Where the gas does not come from a network, the owner must have the installation checked every five years by a gas installation company.

The electrical panel

Find the panel (cuadro eléctrico). A panel with old fuses or a single switch needs a registered electrician's opinion before you budget. Test a socket in each room, and count the extension leads.

Damp and condensation

Smell first: a musty smell in a flat that has just been aired is a clue. Then look where outside walls meet the ceiling, around window frames, behind wardrobes and inside built-in cupboards for black mould spots, and at ceilings under the bathrooms and kitchens of the flat above. On a ground floor, check the base of the walls for tide marks and white salts. A single freshly painted patch, or a dehumidifier in a corner, deserves a question.

Cracks

Beyond fine lines in the paint, photograph cracks with a coin or a ruler next to them for scale, above all cracks running diagonally from the corners of doors and windows, cracks in the same place on both sides of a wall, and gaps between walls and ceilings. Doors that stick and floors that your spirit-level app shows sloping go in the same folder. You are not diagnosing; you are collecting evidence for a technician.

Windows and shutters

Open and close every window and roller shutter (persiana). Check the seals, whether the glass is single or double, and for mist trapped between the panes of double glazing, which points to a failed seal. Old single glazing is a cost to budget rather than a reason to walk away, but it changes the flat in winter.

Noise

Ask for a minute of silence with the windows closed, then open the bedroom window and listen again: the lift motor, pipes, the neighbours above, the street. A weekday mid-morning viewing tells you nothing about Friday night, so plan to come back at other hours.

Orientation and light

Open the compass app in the living room and the main bedroom and note which way the windows face. In Spain, south-facing rooms get the low winter sun, north-facing rooms get little or no direct sun in winter, and west-facing rooms take the afternoon heat in summer. Check what is opposite: a building across a narrow street can leave a first-floor flat in shade at noon.

Mobile signal and internet

Check the bars on your phone in every room and make a short call from the bedroom. Ask which operators have fibre in the building, and compare the answer with the official coverage map you checked at home.

What should you photograph or film during a viewing?

Back home, you will not remember which flat had the damp bathroom. Film a continuous walk-through of each flat, room by room, saying the address and the time out loud at the start, then take stills of the specific things below. Ask before filming, and leave people, family photos and personal papers out of shot.

• The façade from across the street, the balconies and the ground floor.
• The community notice board, the stairwell, the lift, the roof terrace and the meter room.
• Each room from the doorway in both directions, and every ceiling.
• The view from each window, with the compass app open on screen.
• The electrical panel with its cover open, and the boiler's data plate.
• Every stain, crack or mould patch, with a coin or ruler for scale.
• Any terrace, storage room (trastero) or parking space included in the sale.
• A screenshot of the listing and its stated area: listings change.

Name the folders by address the same evening. Notes, a video and a dozen labelled photos per flat let you, a partner who stayed at home, or a surveyor you hire later, judge the flat without flying back.

What questions should you ask the agent or the seller?

On the day, ask who owns the flat, whether the seller is tax-resident in Spain, what the community fees, special levies and property tax (IBI) come to, what works were done and with what permits, how old the installations are, and whether there have been leaks. Then ask for the answers by email: a written answer is worth more.

• Who owns the flat, and will every owner sign? Compare the answer with the nota simple. A co-owner who is not at the viewing, or an inheritance not yet registered, can delay the sale.
• Is the seller tax-resident in Spain? If not, outside the Basque Country and Navarre, under article 25.2 of the Non-Residents' Income Tax Act the buyer must withhold 3% of the agreed price and pay it to the tax office. Ask your lawyer to handle it, and raise it early.
• How much are the community fees, and are any special levies agreed or works planned? Ask for the minutes of the last owners' meetings.
• How much is the IBI, and can I see the latest receipt? Under article 64 of the Local Finance Act, the flat remains answerable, as a secondary liability, for the property tax (Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles) still owed when it changes hands, and the notary must ask about pending IBI debts and warn both parties.
• What works have been done, when, and with what paperwork from the town hall? Whether a job needed a licence depends on the region and the town; our article on illegal extensions, linked in the Catastro section above, explains how to check.
• How old are the boiler, the wiring, the plumbing and the windows?
• Has there been a leak from or into the flat, or an insurance claim?
• Is the flat let, and on what contract? Ask too whether it is or has been a holiday let.
• What is included? Furniture, appliances, a storage room or a parking space; and are the storage room and parking registered with the flat on the nota simple, or sold separately?

Why should you see the neighbourhood at different times of day?

A single viewing shows you one hour of one day. Go back on your own, at least once in the evening and once at a different hour, and walk the routes you would use every day. The flat stays the same; the street around it can change completely after dark, during the school run or on market day.

At night, listen for bars, terraces, the rubbish lorry and the street cleaners. In the morning, watch the traffic and the parking. At the weekend, see whether a market, a football ground or a beach crowd takes over. Walk to the nearest supermarket, pharmacy, bus stop and health centre (centro de salud). If a concierge (portero) or a neighbour is in the entrance, ask a polite question about the building; the answer may be franker than the agent's. On the coast, a resort in October is not the same place in August, so ask yourself which month you are seeing.

What can't you judge on a short visit, and when should you get a survey?

A careful viewing finds the visible problems. It cannot see inside walls, under floors, into the roof's waterproofing or along the drains, and it cannot test heating in July. Nor can it tell you whether works were legal. Those questions belong to professionals; bring them in before you sign anything that puts money at risk.

If you want a building survey, you have to order it yourself. If the building is old, its inspection report lists defects, you photographed cracks or damp, the flat was renovated just before going on sale, or it is a top or ground floor, hire an arquitecto técnico or aparejador (a chartered building professional) or an architect to inspect it, and make your offer and any deposit contract conditional on the result. What a Spanish survey covers and how to word that condition are in our article on surveys in Spain. For the legal side, from the nota simple to the 3% withholding, use an independent lawyer (abogado) who works for you rather than for the sale. For gas or electrics, a registered installer can price bringing the panel or the boiler up to date.

How can AskPancho help before you fly out for viewings?

Pancho is an AI assistant you talk to in a chat, in English. Paste the link to a listing and it tells you what to check for that flat and which papers to ask the seller for, so your emails go out before you book the flight. It can also research the neighbourhood before you walk it.

On the day, its guided review walks you through the flat room by room, with questions and photos, and ends with a report of what you found and how serious each point is. It does not replace a lawyer, a valuation or a technical survey; it is the step before them. You can start a chat with Pancho with your list of viewings.