Selling an inherited or jointly owned property in Spain
Inheriting an apartment in Alicante or a house in Dénia and then wanting to sell it is one of the most common situations among foreign owners in Spain. It runs into one simple rule: you cannot sell a property you do not yet legally own. Between the death and the signature at the notary, a Spanish estate has to be accepted, a tax settled, the property registered in your name and, very often, several heirs brought into agreement. Here is the real path, in order.
First step: rebuilding the estate file. Three documents open the way. The death certificate (certificado de defunción). The certificate of last wills (certificado de últimas voluntades), which states whether the deceased left a will in Spain and before which notary it was signed; it is only issued after a short waiting period following the death, of around fifteen working days. And finally an authorised copy of the will itself. Where there is no will, a notarial deed called a declaración de herederos identifies the legal heirs, which adds several weeks to the process.
Second step: accepting the estate. This takes the form of an escritura de aceptación y adjudicación de herencia, signed before a notary by all the heirs, in person or represented. It lists the assets and assigns a value to each. Be careful: that declared value becomes your acquisition price when you resell, and therefore the basis for calculating your future capital gain. Understating it to pay less inheritance tax can cost far more at the sale. Each heir also needs a NIE, even one who never sets foot in Spain.
Third step: the taxes on the inheritance. The first is the impuesto sobre sucesiones y donaciones (ISD), to be declared within six months of the death, a deadline that can be extended by a further six months if the request is filed within the first five. Its scale, allowances and reliefs are set by each autonomous community: the gap between two regions can be considerable, and no single national figure would mean anything here. Non-resident heirs can in principle rely on the rules of the autonomous community concerned, a point worth confirming with an adviser. The second tax is the municipal plusvalía, also due on a transfer by death, with its own six-month deadline, which can likewise be extended.
Fourth step: registering the property in your name. Once the ISD is paid, the escritura de herencia is filed with the Registro de la Propiedad. That is what puts the heirs on the nota simple. As long as that document still bears the deceased's name, the sale is blocked in practice: no buyer financed by a Spanish bank will reach the signing.
One very common configuration deserves to be singled out: the surviving spouse. Under Spanish law they often receive the usufruct of the home, while the children receive the bare ownership. Nobody can then sell alone: the usufructuary and the bare owners must all appear at the deed. The price is then divided between them according to the respective value of the usufruct and of the bare ownership, calculated from a tax rule that depends on the usufructuary's age. There is an alternative: first bringing the usufruct and the bare ownership together in one pair of hands, which simplifies the sale but can carry a tax cost of its own. Here too, the question is settled before going to market, not in front of the notary.
Then comes the question of joint ownership. Several heirs become copropietarios en proindiviso, each holding a share. Selling the whole property requires everyone's agreement, without exception. A co-owner can of course sell their own share alone, but it sells badly and at a steep discount, and the other co-owners hold a pre-emption right — the retracto de comuneros — allowing them to step into the buyer's place.
Where the deadlock lasts, Spanish civil law provides that no one is obliged to remain in joint ownership: a co-owner can ask a court to divide the common asset. For an apartment, which cannot be physically divided, this ends in a public auction, slow and almost always below market value. In other words, the worst amicable agreement is often better than the best court proceedings.
Selling as a group therefore calls for some method. Appoint a single point of contact for the agency and the notary. Have a power of attorney (poder notarial) drawn up for the heirs living abroad, with an apostille and a sworn translation if it is signed outside Spain: that avoids gathering everyone on signing day. And put in writing, before going to market, the floor price you all accept, how the costs are shared and how the proceeds will be split.
That leaves the tax on the sale itself. Your capital gain is calculated from the value used for the ISD, increased by the inheritance tax paid and by documented costs. If you are not a Spanish tax resident, the 3% withholding applies to each seller's share, and the position is regularised through the Modelo 210. The municipal plusvalía will be due a second time — this time on the sale.
How long does it take? The estate stage is by far the longest, and it is counted in months rather than weeks. The best advice is simple: start the inheritance file before putting the property on the market, not after finding a buyer. These points are indicative and an abogado or a gestor should validate your case. At Alveo Properties, we regularly work with heirs spread across several countries and coordinate the estate, the powers of attorney and the sale on a single timeline.
