Nota simple in Spain: what it proves and what it leaves out

The agent sends a PDF of a few pages. The seller's name is there as owner, there is no mortgage on it, and the square metres match the listing. It looks like a clean bill of health, and it is the document most foreign buyers rely on before paying a deposit.

Legally it proves nothing. The Mortgage Act says so in as many words, and several of the debts that can follow a Spanish property are not in it at all. That does not make it useless. It makes it a first check, to be read for what it is.

What a nota simple is, and what it is not

The land registry is public for anyone with a known interest in finding out the state of a property. The nota simple is the short extract of what is registered, and the statute gives it purely informative value: it does not attest to the content of the entries. The registrar remains liable for errors and omissions in it, but it is not evidence.

Evidence is a different document. Only a registry certificate proves, against third parties, whether a property is free of charges or encumbered. For a purchase the notary deals with that at signing, as explained below. For a dispute, a court or a bank will want the certificate, not the nota simple.

Any land registrar in Spain can issue a nota simple on any property in the country, so it does not matter which registry office holds the property.

How to get one, and how to check the one you were sent

You have to show a legitimate interest, and the registrar judges that case by case. Lawyers, estate agents and banks are presumed to have one as long as they state the reason for the enquiry. The owner can see which requests were made about their property and the reasons given, so a nota simple is not an anonymous search.

The official tariff for a nota simple is about €3 per property. The registrars' own website lists €9.02 per property for its online service, plus tax.

Since 9 May 2024 all registry information is issued electronically, with the registry's electronic seal and a verification code. That matters when the document comes from someone else: a PDF forwarded by the agent or the seller can be checked against the code, and one without it should be requested fresh.

Registrars also decide which personal data to include or leave out, under data protection rules, so a nota simple may show less about the owner than you expect.

What to read in it

• Owners and shares. Everyone who has to sign. A property owned by a married couple or by several heirs needs all of them, or their representatives.
• Charges. Mortgages, seizures and other annotations, and easements. A mortgage that the seller says has been paid off is still a charge until its cancellation is registered.
• The description. Surface, boundaries and what is built. This comes from the title deeds, not from a survey.
• The cadastral reference and coordination. Every form of registry information must show the cadastral reference and whether the property is graphically coordinated with the cadastre on a given date.
• The property code. Each registered property has a unique registry code; the fourteen-digit number known as IDUFIR identifies it.

Coordination is the line most buyers skip, and it is the one that tells you whether the boundaries are settled. Once a property is coordinated, the law presumes that its location and limits are those shown in the cadastral plan. If it is not coordinated, there is no such presumption, and the physical property, the cadastral plan and the registered description can each say something different.

What it cannot show

This is where most surprises come from. A registered title does not protect you against the following, and none of them appears in a nota simple:

• Unpaid IBI. The property itself answers for the unpaid annual property tax, by statute, without any registration.
• Unpaid community fees. The buyer is liable, with the property, for the unpaid part of the current year and the three previous calendar years, and the law says so even where the buyer's title is registered.
• A tenant. A buyer takes over a residential lease for the first five years, or seven if the landlord was a company, even where the buyer meets every condition of the registry's protection. An unregistered lease still binds you.
• Planning proceedings. The opening of an enforcement file can be registered, and then it shows. If it was not, it does not.
• What was built later. An extension, a pool house or a closed terrace that was never declared by deed is not in the description, because the description comes from the deeds. The land plot article explains how that is put right: buying land in Spain.

So the nota simple answers one question: who owns this, and what is registered against it. The debt questions need a certificate from the community of owners, the last IBI receipts, and a look at the property itself.

Why the registry still matters

None of this makes the Spanish registry weak. Once you are registered, it protects you strongly. Rights that are not registered do not prejudice third parties, and a buyer who acquires in good faith and for value from the person the registry shows as able to transfer, and then registers, keeps the property even if the seller's own title is later annulled for reasons that did not appear in the registry. Good faith is presumed. That protection does not extend to someone who receives the property as a gift.

That is the real point of the exercise: the registry protects the buyer who relied on it, and the nota simple is how you see in advance what you will be relying on.

Between the nota simple and the signature

A nota simple obtained weeks before completion can be out of date by the time you sign. The notary closes that gap, not you.

• Immediately before signing, the notary must consult the registry electronically and record the result in the deed, with the day and the hour.
• On the day of signing, or at the latest the next working day, the notary sends an electronic copy of the deed to the registry. That presentation creates an entry that gives the purchase priority.
• For sixty days from that entry, no conflicting title can be registered ahead of it.

So the order is: nota simple to decide whether to go ahead, the notary's own check at signing, and the presentation the same day.

After you own it

The registrars run a free alert service for private owners who are registered, which tells them when something is presented against their property. It is informative only, but it is the simplest early warning against someone trying to register a false deed. There is also a formal certificate with continuous information for thirty calendar days, which only registered right holders can request, so it is not available to a buyer before the purchase.

Questions we get

Is a nota simple enough to buy?
It is enough to decide whether to continue. It is not enough to pay a non-refundable deposit on its own, because the debts that follow the property are not in it.

How recent should it be?
There is no legal maximum age for your own purposes. What counts is the notary's check at signing. For the deposit, ask for one dated in the same week.

The nota simple shows a mortgage the seller says is paid. What now?
Until the cancellation is registered, the charge is there. The usual solution is to cancel it at completion out of the price, with the bank present or with its certificate of the outstanding debt.

Do I need a NIE?
Not to read a nota simple, but to buy, pay the tax and register the property in your name, yes: see what is a NIE number in Spain. What the purchase costs is in the cost of buying a house in Spain.

Why Buenaley?

Buenaley is a Spanish law firm working with international clients. On a purchase there are two things we take off your hands, in this order.

The first is the NIE. Without it the property cannot be registered in your name, and the registry protection described above only starts at registration. We handle it through our NIE service, for every buyer on the deed.

The second is the check before you commit: reading the registry, the cadastre, the community and the tax position together, before the deposit.

• NIE applications for every buyer, started on day one
• Nota simple obtained and verified, and read against the cadastre
• Community of owners certificate and IBI position requested from the seller
• Tenants, extensions and planning checked where the registry cannot show them
• Registry alerts set up once the property is yours

Found a property? Send us the listing or the cadastral reference and you will hear what the registry shows and what it cannot. Or start with the NIE application, because the registry only protects you once the property is registered in your name.