Purchasing a property in Valencia City Spain

Arras Agreement

Once your lawyer has carried out the due diligence, you will make a payment of 10% or more of the price of the property plus VAT. This step, the “Contrato de Arras” or “Contrato privado de compraventa”, is the process of signing a private sale contract with the owner.
The deposit is given to the owner and put together with a private contract specifying the terms of payment (the purchase price, the amount of deposit required, the completion date, and a declaration by the sellers that the property is free of any charges, mortgages and tenants). You then have 30 days before completion in which to organize everything, however this time period can be longer, especially for foreign buyers.
As this private contract cannot be registered on the land registry (the only truly secure guarantee of ownership), you will not own the public title deeds to the property until you have signed the public purchase deeds in the presence of a notary.
You do not need to be in Valencia to sign this contract. In order to speed the process up a contract signed by the seller can be faxed to you to counter sign and return, although signed originals do need to be exchanged by post.
The Arras agreement (Contrato de Arras) is the point of no return: From there on in you cannot back out without financial penalties, probably involving the loss of any and all payments that have been made to the seller. Please note that we cannot accept any liability for any consequential damages resulting from the condition of property bought via our services. For more information, check our legal disclaimer.