Reading a Spanish property listing without walking into surprises
A Spanish property listing is a sales text, not a register entry: almost all of its figures are true and almost none of them is measured the same way. Knowing who wrote the advert and which word it used for each square metre removes half the surprises of a viewing.
You are not looking for lies, you are looking for translations, and here some of them are literal: the decisive words stay Spanish on every document. The same flat can appear with three different floor areas, with its condition described in two elastic words, and with a gallery chosen so that nothing is left over. Three questions and one dimensioned plan correct all of it.
Who it is for
- Buyers comparing homes across Spanish portals who find that the square metres do not match from one advert to the next.
- Buyers flying in for a few days who want to decide in advance which viewings are worth the time.
- Buyers who meet «a reformar» or «para entrar a vivir» and cannot tell how much either phrase commits anyone to.
- Buyers who cannot tell whether they are talking to an agency, to a portal or directly to the company building the flats.
What it covers
The three floor areas behind one property listing
Superficie útil is the floor you can walk on, measured inside the walls: it answers whether the table fits. Superficie construida is measured outside and includes walls, partitions and service ducts; it is usually the figure in the deed and on the developer's price list. And there is a third number that mixes the interior with part of the terrace: the common commercial practice is to count a fraction of the terrace, often half, and add it. That mixed figure — some adverts call it computable or «superficie total» — is not standardised and depends on who calculated it. One short question settles it: of the metres you advertise, how many are under a roof and enclosed? Expect the answer to be in metres, not feet, and expect the deed to use construida.
«A reformar», «a estrenar», «para entrar a vivir»
All three describe condition and none of them obliges anybody by itself. «A reformar», for renovation, means the seller already assumes work is needed, and usually points at old installations: wiring, plumbing, exterior joinery. «Para entrar a vivir», ready to move into, means habitable, not updated. «A estrenar», brand new, tells you nobody has lived there — not that the sale is a first transfer: a never-occupied flat resold by an investor is second hand for every legal purpose. What matters sits underneath those labels — whether the energy certificate is current, whether the building has passed its technical inspection, whether the owners' meeting has approved a derrama, a one-off levy for works on top of the ordinary service charge — and none of that follows from the adjective. It is asked.
Photographs say less than they appear to
Spanish estate photography is shot wide-angle at the best hour of light, and that is not a trick, it is the trade. The informative part is the inventory of what is missing. No picture of the kitchen, the bathroom or the drying area usually means those are the least presentable rooms. No picture of the entrance hall, the stairs or the façade means the building is. No shot from the window means the view is the neighbour. And an image of a home not yet built is a 3D visualisation rather than a photograph: it should say so, because materials, planting and furniture can change in the finished building.
The dimensioned plan is the most honest part of the advert
A plano acotado — a plan with measurements written on it — gives in one page what no gallery gives: the real layout, the metres of each room, the width of the corridor, where the load-bearing walls run, which rooms could be sacrificed and which way each window opens. If it carries a north arrow it also gives the orientation, which on this coast decides the temperature of the home in August. An advert without a plan is not suspicious, but a plan without dimensions is decorative: good for imagining, useless for comparing. In new construction the dimensioned, signed plan is also a contractual document, and it belongs in the contract as an annex.
Who publishes a property listing, and what each of them can promise
A portal is a noticeboard: it hosts the advert, does not answer for its content and has never seen the home. An agency acts on the owner's instructions and can commit only what those instructions allow, which almost never includes the final price or the payment terms. A promotor sells what it builds itself and is the only party that can commit specifications, dimensions and timing, because it is the party that will answer for them; in exchange it will only ever show you its own scheme. The same flat published by three senders produces three different texts, and the question that orders everything is whose advert it is: whoever signs it is whoever has to stand behind it in writing afterwards.
The same sea, two markets
Benidorm is visible from the project's terrace. Eight kilometres separate two different ways of buying.
How a new-build purchase moves, step by step
First, who signed the advert
Before reading the features, find the sender: trading name, company, telephone and, where it appears, a professional or regional agent registration number. An advert with no identifiable sender is an advert nobody will stand behind. That detail also explains the tone of the text and how much of what it promises can travel into a contract.
Then, which floor area is quoted and where it is recorded
Ask for the figure with its surname — útil, construida, with common parts — and ask which document it appears in. Construida is recorded in the deed and in the división horizontal; the catastral figure sits in the Catastro, and the two do not always agree. That discrepancy is ordinary and can be corrected, but it is better known before you negotiate than at the notary's desk.
Next, the referencia catastral and the nota simple
The referencia catastral is the twenty-character code that identifies the exact property in the Catastro, with its recorded surface and boundaries. The nota simple, a short extract from the Registro de la Propiedad, names the registered owner and lists the mortgages, charges or seizures over it. The two registers are separate things and do not check each other. Both searches are yours to make without the seller's involvement, and together they turn an advert into a specific property.
How to compare two listings that look identical
Put both homes in the same unit before comparing: útil in both cases, terrace counted separately, and the recurring costs — community charge, the municipal property tax known as IBI, approved derramas — written beside each one. The ratio between útil and construida tells you by itself how much is lost to walls and corridors. In that format, two adverts that looked equivalent almost never are.
Finally, the viewing with the advert printed out
Go with the text and the plan in your hand and test what they claim: the rooms that were advertised, the orientation, the state of the exterior joinery, damp on ceilings and at the foot of the walls, the water pressure, the noise with the window open. Whatever the advert promised and the viewing does not confirm has to end up written into the contract or taken out of the price.
What you can check yourself, and whom you ask for the rest
Without asking anyone: the referencia catastral, surface and boundaries in the Catastro; the owner and the charges in the nota simple from the Registro de la Propiedad; zoning and licences at the ayuntamiento; and the sender's company in the commercial register of the country where it is incorporated. In new construction the licencia de obra also carries a municipal file number.
From the seller or the agency you ask for what is in their hands: the dimensioned plan, a current certificado de eficiencia energética, the statutes and the minutes of the last owners' meeting, the certificate that the service charges are paid up, the latest IBI receipt and, in a new home, the memoria de calidades and a copy of the guarantee covering sums paid on account.
Two habits save a foreign buyer more than any translation. Ask who pays the person advising you, because in Spain the agency usually works for the seller even when it is entirely pleasant to you. And remember that the notary who reads the deed aloud is a public official checking the document, not your lawyer; if you want someone on your side, you hire an abogado separately. Nothing here is a promise from us and none of it replaces either of them. It is the list of what can be checked and the name of whoever holds it — plus one rule that ends most arguments: what does not end up in the contract or in a signed annex was never promised, whatever the advert said.
Questions about new-build on the Costa Blanca
- 01
Why does the same flat show different floor areas on two portals?
Because each advert quotes a different surface without saying which. One may be giving the construida from the deed, another the catastral figure, another the interior plus part of the terrace. None of them is necessarily lying: they are answering different questions. It is settled by asking for the figure with its surname and for the document it appears in.
- 02
Does a terrace count as floor area of the home?
It is floor area of the home, but it is not enclosed covered space, which is why commercial practice counts only a fraction of it. The problem appears when it is added without warning: a flat with a large terrace can be advertised with the same metres as one with a much bigger living room. Ask for the two numbers separately and compare interior with interior.
- 03
Can I trust the service charge quoted in the advert?
As an order of magnitude, not as a fact. The charge is approved by the owners' meeting each year and can rise, and on top of it sit derramas, one-off levies voted for building works that never appear in the ordinary charge. The documents that settle it are the minutes of the last meeting and a certificate showing no debt to the community.
- 04
What does it mean when an advert gives no exact address?
It is common and rarely serious: the seller is keeping the neighbours from knowing, or another agency from poaching the instruction. What should be given before you travel is the area precisely and the referencia catastral once you ask seriously. If that is withheld too, what is missing is not the address: it is the identification of the property.
- 05
Are the images of a new scheme photographs of the building?
No. While the building is unbuilt they are 3D visualisations and must be identified as such. They show the intention of the project: geometry and layout usually hold, while materials, planting, furniture and views can shift. What binds is not the image but the dimensioned plan and the memoria de calidades that get signed.
Tell us what you are looking at
Two or three sentences are enough: which area you are looking in, whether new-build or resale interests you, and how you would like to be answered. The person who handles the Spanish market replies.