From the files 8 min Plate 11
SM
The flat looked like the easiest file we had taken all month. Eighty-four square metres on the second floor of a restored block in Cabanyal, one owner since 2014, deed and cadastre in agreement, no mortgage outstanding. Our surveyor measured it in an hour and found nothing to argue about.
The charges search is the last check we run and the one that almost never changes anything. This time it returned a community debt of eighteen thousand four hundred euros, first registered in 2015 and growing every year since.
Attached to the flat, not to the owner
This is the part buyers get wrong, and it is not their fault — the distinction is invisible in every listing they will ever read. A personal debt follows the person. A community debt for unpaid building charges attaches to the unit itself, and in Spanish law the incoming owner inherits the current year plus the three preceding ones.
Eleven years of arrears does not mean the buyer owes eleven years. It means they owe four, and they inherit an owner who has been in dispute with the building since before the roof was replaced.
€18 400 Total arrears on the unit. Of that, €6 720 would have transferred to the buyer at completion by operation of law.
Charges registered against the unit
| Period | Charge | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 2015—2018 | Ordinary community charges, unpaid | €4 880 |
| 2019 | Special levy — roof replacement | €6 800 |
| 2020—2022 | Ordinary charges, part-paid | €3 240 |
| 2023—2026 | Ordinary charges, unpaid — transfers to the buyer | €6 720 |
What the seller said
That the levy was unjust, that the roof work was voted through by owners who did not live in the building, and that he had been advised not to pay pending an appeal that was never lodged. All of which may be true and none of which changes what appears on the registry extract.
He had not mentioned it to either of the two agencies that valued the flat before us. Neither of them had run a charges search — it is not standard practice, and it costs twenty-two euros.
What happens now
The file is held. If the owner clears the arrears the flat goes on the register clean, at the price the market supports. If he does not, we will publish it with the charge stated in the file and the asking price adjusted by the amount a buyer would inherit — which is the honest way to sell a flat with a debt on it.
What we will not do is what happened for the eleven months before the file reached us: list it as though the search had come back empty.
The refusal23 Jun 2026
Held back until the debt is discharged or disclosed in the listing.
The owner may settle it, or we publish with the charge stated in the file and the price adjusted for it. What we will not do is list the flat as clean.
- Would transfer to the buyer
- €6 720
- Arrears on the unit
- 11 yr
- Cost of the search
- €22
Replies4 replies
Verified buyers and agents only — we do not take anonymous comments.
-
IP
Iván PérezLicensed agent
Twenty-two euros. I have started running the charges search on every file before I take the valuation, and in eight months it has come back with something twice. Both times the seller was surprised, which I believe — nobody reads the community minutes.
-
SM
Sofia MarchettiAuthor
That matches our rate — roughly one file in forty carries something on the charges search. The expensive ones are almost always a special levy that was voted through and then contested.
-
-
MF
Marta FerrerVerified buyer
I bought in the same district last year and had no idea this was possible. My notary checked it, but if I had bought through a private sale with no notary search I would never have known to ask.
-
NC
Nuno CardosoVerification
Worth adding that Portugal works differently — arrears here do not transfer to the buyer in the same way, but the condominium can still refuse to issue the declaration you need to complete. Different mechanism, same held file.
Add a reply
Correct us, or add what you know.
Replies are read by the desk that wrote the piece. If you can show a figure here is wrong, we print the correction in the next issue and link it from this page.