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Ahi te dejo Madrid
So it says Shakira´s famous song. There I leave you Madrid . However, in my case, it was not due to a bad love story (poor Shakira, she does not seem be very lucky with men, does she?) but to the fact that I had to return back home after completing a property transaction for…
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A Swiss story (or how a Swiss Will and testament ended up applying to a Spanish estate)
Being a dual qualified Spanish Lawyer and English Solicitor who is used to deal with the administration of Spanish estates of British citizens, the norm for me is to to deal with either Spanish Wills or English Wills. However, I have been recently instructed by the beneficiaries of a Spanish estate where there is an…
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Completing the purchase of a Spanish property on behalf of a UK Company
This week I had the honour of completing the purchase of a Spanish property on behalf of a client. The interesting thing about this completion, which as you may know needs to take place physically at the office of a Notary Public in Spain, is that my client was a UK company buying a commercial…
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Paying the purchase of a Spanish property in stages: a story about family, trust and taxes
I just came back from a property completion in Fuengirola that has proved anything buy easy. While sipping an extremely hot americano in the plane, elbows locked between two passengers-I hate it when I get assigned the middle seat- I started to to convey into paper, well in this case it is a laptop, my…
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Uncle Jimmy has died: A practical case on intestacy rules on a Spanish estate
There is no better way to learn and update our knowledge than with life itself. Very often, a lawyer´s knowledge updates as new cases get through the door of the office. This is what happened with uncle Jimmy´s case. Obviously, this is not his real name but it is a name that could perfectly apply…
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Practical case: phishing and bank transfers on completion of a Spanish property purchase
Phishing is a type of online scam where hackers try to trick a person to provide personal information, like passwords, bank details, etc but it could also lead to misleading lawyers and trick them to make a bank transfer to the fraudsters´ bank account. I was in a property purchase completion this week at the…
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Under-declaration of the sale price of a Spanish property
Believe it or not, I still come across property transactions where one of the parties, usually the seller, asks for part of the sale price to be paid in cash or, even worse, paid with a bank transfer but not shown on the deeds. The first one is flagrantly illegal but the second is simply…
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SUBJECT TO MORTGAGE OR NOT SUBJECT TO MORTGAGE : THAT IS THE QUESTION
I have to confess—sometimes estate agents drive me crazy, especially here in my hometown of Barcelona. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of reliable and professional agents. But lately, probably due to the rising property prices in the city, I’ve noticed a recurring practice that really frustrates me. I’m talking about the buyer’s right…
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Varying a Spanish Will Using an English Deed of Variation
Most people familiar with the administration of an English estate know that a Deed of Variation can be used in England (and Wales) to change the distribution of an estate within two years of the date of death, provided certain criteria are met: That much is well-known — but what about foreign assets, such as…
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Returning the keys to the bank after the death of a relative
One of the first phrases that I learnt when I moved to the UK to work as a Spanish lawyer was “catch 22”. At the beginning I did not have a clue as to what it meant (‘a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations’ says Wikipedia) but…
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