There’s a lot to think about making a Spanish home purchase — the purchase process, transaction costs, legal requirements and what to expect working with Spanish agents and lawyers from search through closing.
When you're thinking about renovating a home in Spain, one of your first questions should be: what am I actually allowed to do without a permit? The answer isn't as simple as "big projects need permits, small ones don't." Spain runs on a three-tier system, the rules vary by municipality, and getting it wrong can mean fines, a stopped project, or a home you can't legally sell until you fix it.
If you've traveled to Europe, you've probably noticed persianas on a lot of apartment and home windows. In the US, there's really nothing similar on residential homes. A persiana is a roller shutter that lives in a box above the window frame. It rolls down to fully cover the glass. Spaniards use them every day, and once you understand why, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them.
As we were just renewing our auto, home and umbrella liability insurance policies for the remaining months we have in the states, we wondered should we keep our US liability insurance after moving to Spain? After we did our research it appears for us and most people the answer is no. Not because it stops being useful, but because it stops working the way you'd expect long before you'd think to cancel it.
There's a lot more to consider with home security systems in Spain than in the US. Home security systems in Spain are common in new home construction. Expats who buy an existing home usually install a system if it doesn't already have one.
There are many professional firms that you can purchase systems from, but if you're thinking about doing it yourself, it's not as simple as just ordering some cameras or a video doorbell, installing them wherever you want, and forgetting about it. Real planning is required to make sure you don't run afoul of Spain's privacy laws.
If you've never given a second thought to the water coming out of your tap, the Costa Blanca will change that. Hard water in the Costa Blanca region is a given since a large part of it sits on limestone bedrock. As water travels through it, it picks up dissolved calcium and magnesium along the way. The result is what's called hard water. It's one of those small daily-life differences that catches a lot of newcomers off guard.
You'll find more about the basics of what hard water is and how it shows up on your utility bill on our Utilities page. Here we talk about what it means in day to day life and what to check before you buy a home.
Somewhere between agreeing on a price and signing at the notary, real money has to move, often hundreds of thousands of euros, wired across an ocean to a bank account we've only ever seen typed in an email. That single moment is exactly where wire fraud when buying property in Spain does its damage and it cost American buyers $275 million in 2025 alone.
It has nothing to do with someone hacking an account or stealing a password. It's about someone convincing you to send the money yourself, to the wrong place, at the one moment you're not expecting to double-check.
Bank deposit insurance and card liability rules discussed here aren't Spain-specific, they're harmonized across the entire EU by directive. That means the figures below apply the same way whether the account is in Spain, France, Germany or anywhere else in the EU.
Investor compensation is the exception. The EU only sets a €20,000 floor there and each country decides whether to go higher. Spain chose to go well above that floor, which matters if you ever end up comparing a Spanish brokerage to one elsewhere in Europe.
Negotiating home prices in Spain when you're ready to purchase a home isn't easy. One of the first things Americans notice when they're ready to make an offer on a property in Spain, is that the familiar comparison pricing information isn't there.
No Zillow. No Redfin. No Zestimate telling you whether the asking price is reasonable or wildly optimistic. No public database of what the house next door sold for last spring. If you've spent any time shopping for real estate in the US, the opacity can feel disorienting at first.
Solar power for a home in Spain is one of the first topics that comes up when you start seriously evaluating properties and for good reason. The sun hours here are among the highest in Europe, electricity prices have climbed steadily, and a well-sized system can cover the majority of a typical household's needs year-round.
What hasn't existed until now is one place that actually walks through the practical questions: how many panels you need, what it costs, what it costs to maintain, how long it lasts and what to look for whether you're buying a home that already has solar or adding it after the fact.
If you've been following along, you know that finding a home in Spain is not quite like buying a house back in the US. The agents are charming, the properties are beautiful and the questions you actually need to ask rarely come up on their own.
As we've been going through this process ourselves, one thing we kept running into was the gap between "interesting property" and "properties to make the list for final consideration." To help close that gap — for ourselves
If you've been spending time in expat groups or reading about life in Spain, you've almost certainly run into the word "gestor" — usually in the form of someone saying "just get a gestor" without explaining what that actually means or what one costs.
We kept running into the same gap as we researched our move. The concept came up everywhere — NIE applications, car registration, annual tax filings, TIE renewals — but nobody seemed to explain the full picture in one place. So we built the page to help others who were in the same situation.
There's an upcoming reduction in the ITP tax in the Valencian Community coming on June 1, 2026. The Valencian regional government has passed a landmark reform that will reduce the Property Transfer Tax (ITP) for second-hand property purchases. The Stamp Duty (AJD), applicable on new build purchases will also reduce slightly, from 1.5% to 1.4% on June 1 as well.
US expats can get Spanish mortgages as residents or non-residents. The Spanish mortgage system is more conservative. Banks typically require larger down payments, especially for non-residents and place a strong emphasis on income stability and overall risk