Málaga City · Legal & mortgage support

Málaga legal ground: an urbanism agency, nine court sections

Málaga runs its planning through the Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, Obras e Infraestructuras, a local public agency rather than a counter inside the town hall, and the city is also where the province's courts sit. Buying here means dealing with an administration built for a capital, not for a resort.

Municipality
Málaga
Province
Málaga
Part of
Fuengirola – Nerja

The first practical difference is that urbanism in Málaga has its own front door. The Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, Obras e Infraestructuras is an agencia pública administrativa local, which means licences, planning files and infrastructure sit in an organisation with its own procedures rather than in a department of the Ayuntamiento. It publishes its own guidance and runs its own licensing assistant. For a buyer that is mostly good news — the questions a lawyer needs to ask have a defined route — but it also means an answer obtained from the tax office or a district board is not an answer about what may be built.

The second difference is the courthouse. Málaga is the seat of its province's justice, and the Audiencia Provincial sits in the Ciudad de la Justicia with nine sections — three civil, five criminal and one that hears both — while the city's own judicial district carries seventeen courts of first instance. If a dispute over your flat ever becomes litigation, it happens in this city rather than travelling to it. Planning, meanwhile, is in motion: on 26 January 2026 the council opened the procedure to draft a new general plan that will partly replace the one now in force, which is a reason to date every planning answer you are given.

What is national, what is Andalusian, and what is the Gerencia's

The three-layer split holds in Málaga as it does everywhere, but the third layer looks different here. National law governs the contract, the escritura, the Registro de la Propiedad and the mortgage regime. Andalucía sets the tax on the transfer: ITP on a resale, IVA with AJD on a new unit, at rates the regional parliament changes and no page should print. The municipal layer then splits in two. Planning, licences and the licencia de primera ocupación belong to the Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, Obras e Infraestructuras, while the IBI and the plusvalía are collected by the city's own tax organism. Two addresses, two procedures, and a lawyer who confuses them loses weeks.

There is a fourth consideration, and it is one of scale. Málaga's judicial district covers eighteen municipalities from a single seat and holds seventeen courts of first instance, and the Audiencia Provincial sits in the same city. That concentration cuts both ways: enforcement is close and competent, and so is everybody else's litigation, so timetables are the timetables of a capital rather than of a small town. Add the general plan the council began replacing in January 2026, and the sensible instruction to a lawyer is to date every answer — a planning position confirmed a year ago is a historical document, not advice.

Key facts about Málaga City
Who runs planning Planning, licensing and infrastructure in Málaga are run by the Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, Obras e Infraestructuras, an agencia pública administrativa local, which also operates a licensing assistant for technical and legal queries and case consultation. 2026-08-27
A new plan in preparation On 26 January 2026 the Ayuntamiento de Málaga announced the start of the procedure to draft the new Plan General de Ordenación de Málaga, which will partially replace the plan currently in force. 2026-08-27
The provincial court The Audiencia Provincial de Málaga sits in the Ciudad de la Justicia de Málaga and has nine sections — three civil (4, 5 and 6), five criminal (1, 2, 3, 8 and 9) and one civil and criminal (7), whose seat is in Melilla. 2026-08-27
Courts of first instance Partido judicial number 3 of Málaga province, created by royal decree in 1983 and covering eighteen municipalities, holds seventeen juzgados de primera instancia seated in Málaga. 2026-08-27

How this runs, step by step

  1. Step 1

    NIE, and a Spanish account

    The NIE is the foreigner's Spanish tax number, and the bank account that will pay the notary and the taxes usually needs it too. Book both early, because in a city this size an appointment is the constraint rather than the paperwork. Evidence of where the purchase money came from belongs in the same week, since a Spanish bank will ask and a notary may ask as well.

  2. Step 2

    Send the planning question to the Gerencia

    Specific to Málaga

    Anything about what a building may become — a change of use, an extension, a division, a roof terrace — is a question for the Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, Obras e Infraestructuras and not for the tax office, the district board or the seller's architect. Ask it in writing, by address, and keep the reply. In a city where the same street can carry three different protections, a general answer is worth nothing.

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  3. Step 3

    Put a date on every answer

    Specific to Málaga

    The council opened the procedure for a new general plan on 26 January 2026, and it is intended to replace part of the plan currently in force. Nothing about that changes what is licensed today, but it does mean a planning answer has a shelf life. Record the date on every certificate and every written reply, and re-ask anything older than a few months before you commit money to a project that depends on it.

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  4. Step 4

    Check the charges, not just the owner

    The nota simple names the owner in a line and the encumbrances in a paragraph, and the paragraph is the important part: mortgages not yet cancelled, embargoes, rights of way, and the notes that a division was never completed. Have your lawyer read it against the Catastro and against the flat itself, and ask the administrator for the community's certificate of no arrears at the same time rather than on completion day.

  5. Step 5

    Open the mortgage on a city valuation

    A valuer working in a dense city prices comparables from the same block and the same floor level, which makes the exercise faster than on the coast and less forgiving of anything undocumented. Give the bank the registry position, the community accounts and the planning reply before the valuation is instructed. A non-resident income file also takes longer to evidence, so start it in parallel rather than afterwards.

  6. Step 6

    Notary, registry and the city's tax office

    Specific to Málaga

    You sign the escritura before a notary, the transfer tax or IVA with AJD is filed inside its window, and the purchase is registered. Afterwards the municipal side splits: the planning file stays with the Gerencia, while the IBI and the plusvalía are handled by the city's own tax organism. Notify both, set up the direct debits, and keep the seller's plusvalía settlement in your file for the next buyer's lawyer.

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The statutory half of a Málaga purchase is the same as anywhere in Andalucía: the transfer tax on a resale, IVA with AJD on a new unit, the notary's tariff and the registry fee, with the plusvalía settled on the seller's side. What is different here is that the municipal costs arrive from two directions, so budget for the planning certificates from the Gerencia as well as for the annual bills from the city's tax office. The negotiable half is the usual one — lawyer, survey, agency — plus one item this city raises more than the coast does: who pays to regularise a flat that was divided years ago and never re-registered.

GUIDE An indication of where this area sits, not a valuation of any particular home. Ask Paula for a figure you can act on.

Questions about this in Málaga City

Who answers a planning question about a Málaga flat?

The Gerencia Municipal de Urbanismo, Obras e Infraestructuras, and nobody else with authority. It is a local public agency rather than a department, with its own procedures and its own file system, and it is where a licence, a change of use, a division or a protection status is actually decided. A seller's architect can tell you what he believes; the district board can tell you about street furniture; the tax office can tell you what is owed. Only the Gerencia can tell you what may be done to the building.

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Is a planning answer from last year still reliable here?

Treat it as history rather than as advice. The council opened the procedure for a new general plan in January 2026, and although that does not retroactively change what is already licensed, it does mean the framework a certificate was written against is being revised. Anything you intend to spend money on — a change of use, a division, an extension, a roof terrace — deserves a fresh written answer with a fresh date. Re-asking costs a fee and a few weeks; assuming costs a project.

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Does buying in the provincial capital speed up a dispute?

It shortens the distance rather than the queue. Málaga's judicial district serves eighteen municipalities with seventeen courts of first instance, and the Audiencia Provincial sits in the same city, so nothing about your file has to travel and the specialist lawyers are local. Against that, a capital's courts carry a capital's volume. Paula's practical advice is the same as anywhere: the cheapest litigation is the one prevented by reading the community minutes and the registry entry before the deposit, not after it.

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