Spanish Mortgages - An Investors Guide

For foreigners wishing to buy a property in Spain, there are a variety of different mortgages on offer in the country. Variable rate mortgages, which come with a changing rate of interest, are the most popular form, but fixed-rate mortgages are also available which come with a fixed level of interest.

As well as being provided by Spanish banks, mortgages are also provided by international banks. Mortgage lenders are quite free to establish the terms of the mortgages that they provide, meaning there is a lot of choice on offer in the market. For this reason, borrowers should always shop around considerably before choosing a lender.

The situation for foreigners wanting to get a mortgage is slightly different to that of the local residents. We would advise you that foreigners are unlikely to get as good a deal as residents and, as a rule, foreign buyers will not usually be able to borrow more than about 60% or 70% of the total property value. This is because foreign buyers represent a greater risk to the lenders. Finding a good mortgage broker, therefore, is almost essential in order to find the best deals.

Although we would always recommend that you shop around for the best mortgage deal for you, some new-build properties, which are popular with foreign buyers, will arrange their own arrangements with a particular mortgage lender. In this situation, we would suggest that you find out all that you can about the lenders and the type of mortgage before signing up to anything, as it may not be in your best interests to take out a mortgage with them.

Mortgage Fees

It can often be quite confusing when you first start to look for a mortgage, but if you rush into proceedings and choose the first mortgage that you find then you can end up paying a lot more money in the long term. Mortgages in Spain can be quite expensive in terms of the costs involved in setting them up. As a result, you should always shop around until you find the cheapest one for you.

Before taking out a mortgage, we would inform you that there are a number of fees involved in the process, which can often add up to several thousand euros.

The first major fee comes in the form of the valuation. Every mortgage lender in Spain will require that your chosen property has been valued before they agree to provide you with a mortgage. For that reason, you will have to hire someone to make a valuation of the property, and prices for this will vary. By looking around you should be able to find a valuation service for a few hundred euros, but it is equally possible to fork out much larger sums of money, sometimes over €1,000, for the same job.

On top of this, you will then be required to pay an opening fee upon taking out the mortgage, which is usually 1% of the total mortgage. After this, you will then have to pay a whole host of other fees to complete the process. These include property insurance, which is obligatory for all buyers, a land registry fee, stamp duty and a notary fee, although the prices for these will vary between lenders.

As there are so many mortgage lenders in Spain, all of whom will offer different levels of mortgages, many people find that once they have bought a property they then come across a better mortgage and wish to change. For this reason, mortgage lenders might impose an early cancellation fee on their mortgages, which requires you to pay a certain percentage of the total mortgage if you decide to cancel.

Mortgage Procedures

When you finally get to the stage of taking out a mortgage after finding a suitable lender, one of the first things you will be required to do is to prove your earnings. If you are currently working in the UK for a company then you should take details of your pay slips. If you are self employed, then you should find out what the exact requirements are to prove how much you earn, although it is likely to be evidence of your last three years of earnings.

As mentioned earlier, if you wanted to get a greater percentage of the property value in your mortgage then you would have to be a resident of Spain. However, becoming a resident is not too difficult. In fact, we know that if you are living and working in Spain for over a certain period of time equal to about six months of the year then you will automatically qualify as a resident and will be entitled to between 80% and 100% of the property value. If you are considering trying to get a higher mortgage loan then we would advise you to move to Spain for part of the year first in order to do accomplish this.

After you have taken out your mortgage and paid all the fees, if you fail to make your payments then you will be subject to similar foreclosure procedures as anywhere else. If you default on your payments then we would warn you that you should not think that running away to your home country will provide you with any protection, as Spain has many agreements with other countries that will cover your assets in your home country should foreclosure proceedings begin.