House completed but deeds not ready?

[PaddyW]

Has anyone been in the position that the house has been completed and the contract says that the money must be handed over on completion but some of the legal preliminaries regarding the status of the urbanisation have not been completed. This means that the deeds cannot be drawn up until this is finalised. The contract nevertheless says that the money must be paid once the house is completed (or a date may be specified). If you hold this final payment back you have effectively terminated the contract and you will forfeit a large percentage of the money already paid. The contract says the money has to be paid by March 2005. The contract also states that the title must be finalised by April 2006.

Is this usual in Spain? Do people move in and then sort out the title deeds once all the legalities with the regional government have been sorted out? The contract says that the builder has agreed to sell you the property - you have paid the money - the house is yours.

If the money has been handed over what pressure is there on the builder to keep things moving on the title?

Has anyone had similar experiences?
PaddyW

[Jane C]

I have some experience of helping a couple in this situation. They point blank refused to complete on their house because there was a delay with the deeds. In this case it was because of a by-law regarding a shepherd's right of way which the builder was challenging in court. In the end the builder won the case and the situation was resolved. I went with them to the town hall to look into the reasons for the delay and translated some correspondence to the estate agent. I can't remember all the ins and outs but I do remember their exasperation that all the other neighbours had been happy to move in to their houses without deeds because they'd been told that's "how it was done" in Spain. If the court case had gone differently these trusting souls could have found themselves in a very complicated situation.

Jane

[JWhite]

We completed on our property at the end of February but did not actually get notification that our deeds were ready to collect from the solicitor until August. Apparently it is quite normal for the deeds to take 3-4 months to be completed and arrive at your solicitors. We had to trust the solicitor as she said that this was normal.

We collected a copy of the deeds when we visited recently. The solicitor told us that it is normal for the solicitor to hold the original deeds to the property as long as we receive a copy.

I was told by my daughter's partner who also had a villa in spain to bring the title deeds home to England. Can anyone tell me if you can insist on doing this and is it advisable to bring them home to an english solicitor to hold for you? What would happen if you lost them?

Deeds

I think you might be getting confused with the escritura that you sign at the notary and the registered copy you receive sometime later. If no escritura is available what proof would you have that you have purchased anything?

[JWhite]

Our document is headed in spanish "Transaction of House" and was given to us by our solicitor and referred to as the Title Deeds by her. I thought the Escritura and the Title Deeds were one in the same thing. This was what I thought we signed in the presence of the Notary. The document referred to above which we collected contains an official stamp and serial number on the back page.

I agree without any signed paperwork you cannot prove you own anything and this did worry me when we had to wait so long to collect a copy.

Deeds

Hi J White
The situation in Spain is much the same as in the UK. Perhaps I wasn't very clear. The Notary checks that the Deeds( Escritura) are in order and this is what you sign. These then go off to be registered but the Notary retains a copy. In the UK the Deeds go to be registered at at the land registry. We received ours nearly nine months after we purchased! I thought previous posters had said that they paid up without any documents in place at all. As far as where you keep them is up to you but as I said the Notary retains a copy.

[R2D2]

Someone previously suggested that it would be a good idea to keep such valuable documents in a Bank in Safe Custody, if you can find a bank that does this. Perhaps someone could advise?

[icicle]

[R2D2]

Thanks, Perry and Icicle, but I was thinking of a bank in Spain which might do this?