Information provided by DN-Law, Costa de la Luz, specialized in Spanish property law. Visit their website for further articles or contact them by email.

We define the property sales contract as the agreement between two parties; one party offering the property and the other accepting it, on the transferring of determined property by receiving a payment as a counterpart. The transferring of the property and the payment do not need to happen simultaneously. However, the act of offering the property, the acceptation and the price must comply with certain legal requirements. It is essential to check with a legal specialist that the following elements of the contract have been taken into account:


Preliminary agreements:
The parties, without committing formally, express reciprocally the intention to draft a contract. Usually, pulling back at this stage does not create any obligation for the parties, if the nature of the agreements are clearly defined as not being part of the contract itself. Before committing to writing, the expression of the will should be checked by a competent lawyer.


Committing to selling or purchasing:
The contractual relationship starts when the property and the price have been determined and agreed by the parties. It is convenient to draft a proper contract at this stage, as statutory provisions will apply by default. The parties should fully understand and agree to the nature of the obligations and rights arising from this contract.


Purchasing option:
One party gives the other the option to purchase the property before certain deadline. It is possible to register the option in the Land Registry, giving this document a public effect, executable against any third party.


Deposit agreement:
It is a direct payment to an account and may be considered as part of the purchasing contract. The essential element of this contract is the amount of money deposited when the agreement is made. There is substantial case law intending to define this element and we strongly recommend getting legal advice prior to drafting this contract. There are two main types:

Confirmation: It is a direct payment to an account and is a first step that avoids the termination of the contract by the party receiving the payment, until completion or on the agreed date. This is the clause applied by default if a concrete sum has not been specified.

Penalty: Establishes the payment of certain amount of money by the seller or the losing of the same amount by the purchaser when the agreement is terminated by one of the parties.

We are going to discuss the legal stipulations arising from choosing a property until signing the contract.