A completion statement is a single page, and for most buyers it is the first time the purchase appears written down the way it actually happened: the price on one line, and beneath it a short column of items nobody mentioned at a viewing. The figure in this piece’s title is the habit that is meant to cover that column. It is worth knowing what it covers, and where it stops.
So this is not a tax table. No rate appears in this article, deliberately: the tax on your purchase is set by an authority, revised when that authority decides, and depends on what you buy rather than on who you are — a rate printed here would be out of date long before anyone noticed. What I can set out is the shape of the bill: which items exist, who fixes each one, when each falls due, and why the money goes aside before you bid.
A reserve, not a rate
Thirteen per cent — or any other single percentage — is a reserve: money you ring-fence so the purchase survives its own paperwork. As a reserve it is useful; as a forecast it misleads, because the largest item inside it is not one tax but two different taxable events. A resale is taxed as a transfer, under ITP. A first delivery of new-build by its promoter falls under IVA, with stamp duty, AJD, on the deed. Two regimes; no rule of thumb covers both.
Both sit inside one state framework — Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1993, the consolidated law on transfer tax and stamp duty — but the rate that reaches your completion statement is set a level down, by the autonomous community, which on this coast means the Junta de Andalucía. It changes by legislative decision, not across a negotiating table. So the only figure worth budgeting against is one your own lawyer confirms in writing, dated, for your transaction — not one an agent, mine included, mentions in conversation.
What the figure is actually made of
Take the rule of thumb apart and you find two kinds of item: the ones somebody else fixes, and the ones you negotiate. Knowing which is which tells you where anything is left to discuss.
- The tax on the transfer. The largest item and the only one nobody at the table decides: ITP on a resale, or IVA with AJD on a first delivery of new-build. Have your lawyer confirm in writing which regime and rate apply to your property.
- The notary and the Registro de la Propiedad. Both charge on published state tariffs — nothing here to shop around for.
- Your own lawyer. A market fee for the work that protects you: the register checks, the licence file, the contract you sign. Ask for a written quote before you instruct anyone.
- The mortgage, if you take one. Ley 5/2019 divides the costs: the valuation to the borrower; the gestoría, the notarial tariff on the loan deed and the inscription of the security to the lender.
- The apportionments at the table. The annual municipal property tax, IBI, and the community charges for the running year are settled at completion, on the same statement.
Tariffed items do not move, so a tight budget gets no grip on them. Commercial items look negotiable — which is why an under-reserved buyer starts cutting the lawyer, the one item that exists to protect him.
The lines buyers do not see coming
Two items surprise almost everyone. The first belongs to the seller’s tax and lands among the buyer’s obligations: where the seller does not live in Spain, the non-resident income tax law makes the buyer responsible for withholding a proportion of the agreed consideration and paying it in, on account of what the seller owes. It comes out of the price, not your reserve — but the obligation is yours.
The second is the community of owners. Article 9 of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal obliges the seller to declare in the deed that the charges are paid and to produce a certificate; without it the deed may not be authorised, unless you expressly release him. Do not release him. The same article makes the home itself answer for what previous owners left unpaid over the elapsed part of the year of purchase and the three calendar years before it.
A reserve is not pessimism. It is what lets you keep saying no after you have already fallen for the house.
Why the money goes aside before the first bid
The costs do not arrive together, which is what makes a reserve something other than a savings target. The money moves in three waves, and the first starts while there is still no deed in sight.
- Before signing. The reservation or the arras deposit, the fiscal number, your lawyer, the register checks and, with a mortgage, the valuation. Ley 5/2019 puts the pre-contractual pack in your hands at least ten calendar days before signature and sends you to a notary of your own choosing, at the latest the day before the loan deed, for a free acta. Fixed calendar as much as budget.
- At the table. The tax on the transfer, the notarial tariff, the withholding where the seller is non-resident, the apportionments. This is the day the reserve was built for.
- The year after. The inscription in the register, the annual property tax on its own cycle, the community charges, and the running costs no purchase calculation shows.
Setting the money aside first changes how you negotiate, and that is the real argument for it. A buyer whose costs are funded can hold a price, walk away from a file that reads badly, or take the extra week a planning question needs. A buyer quietly hoping the costs come in light is negotiating against himself.
What to ask your own abogado or gestor
None of this is tax advice, and I am not the person to give it: I am the agent, and the figure that binds you has to come from someone who answers for it. So ask early, in a form that produces a written answer: which regime your property falls under, what rate is in force for your transaction, which costs the other side carries, and what each professional you instruct will charge — dated, on one page.
If you would rather have the order of events than the sums, the free legal checklist on the guides page runs through the documents in the order they appear. And if you would simply rather ask, I would much rather have that conversation before you start looking than after.
