The Spanish solicitor your UK lawyer can't replace

Every UK buyer we work with arrives with a UK solicitor. That's correct — you need one for the UK side of the transaction (source of funds, UK tax position, structure planning, sometimes inheritance). What's less obvious is that you also need a Spanish abogado, and these are not interchangeable roles.

What the UK lawyer handles

• Source of funds and proceeds-of-crime checks under UK regulation
• UK Capital Gains Tax position on the eventual sale
• UK Inheritance Tax planning where the property will form part of an estate
• Holding structure decisions if you're buying via SPV — UK side
• Documents signed in the UK (power of attorney for the Spanish completion)

What the Spanish abogado handles

• Title due diligence at the Registro de la Propiedad
• Local tax position (ITP / IVA, IRNR, IBI, wealth tax)
• Community of owners (comunidad) review — outstanding charges, statutes, planned works
• Cadastral discrepancies (the cadastre and the title don't always agree)
• Planning history — illegal extensions are common at the high end and notoriously hard to unwind
• The completion itself at the notary
• NIE acquisition for non-resident purchasers

If your UK solicitor offers to handle "the Spanish side too" because they have a corresponding firm, get a second opinion. The corresponding-firm model usually means you're paying twice for one set of work.

The choice of Spanish abogado matters

Most Spanish abogados are perfectly competent. The differentiation at the high end is whether they actually work in cross-border high-net-worth transactions or whether they normally do retail conveyancing for British retirees. The first costs more. The first is correct.

Signals of the right kind of practice:

• Membership of the Spanish Bar in more than one autonomous community where you might transact
• Working knowledge of Anglo-Saxon trust structures and how they interact with Spanish civil law
• Past clients you can reference (they may need to ask permission — fine)
• Fee quoted as a fixed amount per transaction, not a percentage of price (percentage fees create misaligned incentives)

If you're starting a Spanish property search and don't have an abogado, that's part of the introduction we run. We work with three firms across the Costa del Sol, Balearics, and Madrid — different specialisms, all senior, all cross-border fluent.