Spanish Estate Agent Inspections by the Consumer Services

24 July 2008

In view of the diverse amount of Spanish public regulations and requirements, all estate agents must comply with high number of requisites; to always have available a series of documents that protect consumer and user rights of their services, and that these consumers can exert at any moment.

The majority of the documentation that is obliged to be available concerns information regarding sales or leases – rent – of homes. Among the documents for land occupancy and mandatory positions of the law, complaint forms must be included – with their availability being clearly visible – however the most significant, being necessary, as required by law, is the documented information of specific aspects for each operations, such as:

  • Identification data – name, surname or registered name – and locations – address – of the owner/seller, as well as inscription in public registers – of the property and/or Company.
  • Site and interior plans of the property.
  • Floor area.
  • Description of the property and of the building in which it is located, with the communal areas and any supplemental services indicated.
  • Materials used in the construction of the property and the building. etc.

This list is of course not exhaustive and in reality will be much longer, but an informative note such as this where brevity is required, has only to cover the current situation.

The matter and current situation is that the councils, initially those of large Spanish cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, are starting to carry out estate agent inspections, requiring the aforementioned documentation and information. As a result, the inspectors are granting a ten day “grace period”, within which requirements must be complied with by supplying the documentation; however it is possible that this “grace period” may be no longer be granted in the near future.

Lack of possession, availability or provision of the obligatory documentation required for the inspection, is officially seen as a punishable offence. The value of these fines, for these specific real estate cases, in practice is still not defined or uniform, but apparently will not be less than 1.000 Euros, and possibly closer to 10.000 Euros.

For further information, please contact Alex Ensesa: [email protected]