The costs that come on top of your bid at a Spanish auction
Last updated:
A winning bid of a hundred thousand euros does not mean you will spend a hundred thousand euros. There is a fixed part you can calculate in advance, and an uncertain part you have to establish yourself before bidding. The largest item of all, moreover, is not necessarily calculated on your bid.
The tax is not necessarily calculated on your bid
Transfer tax — in Spain ITP, Impuesto sobre Transmisiones Patrimoniales — is the heaviest additional item. Since the 2021 reform, the taxable base is the highest of three values: your bid, the property's cadastral reference value, or the declared value. Almost every registered Spanish property has such a reference value, and in practice that is then the base. Buy a property for sixty thousand when its reference value is a hundred thousand, and you pay tax on a hundred thousand.
There is one exception that matters. Where no cadastral reference value exists for the property — which occurs with certain rural plots — the acquisition price does apply at a public auction, so your bid. Look that value up, rather than assuming your bid is the base or that it never is.
The rate varies widely by region. It runs from 4% in the Basque Country and 6% in Madrid, Navarre, Ceuta and Melilla up to 10% in Catalonia, with progressive bands reaching 13% in Catalonia and the Balearics at higher values. Catalonia has also applied a 20% rate since June 2025 to certain buyers and certain acquisitions; its conditions and exceptions are set out by the Catalan tax authority. Where the seller is a business rather than a private individual, VAT — IVA — may apply instead of ITP, with AJD on the deed on top; never ITP and AJD together. All rates change with regional budget decisions, so check the current rate before you calculate.
Notary and registry fees are fixed
Both fees are set by law as a regressive scale and are not negotiable. An example gives the order of magnitude: on a bid of a hundred thousand euros they come to roughly five hundred euros together, assuming the statutory scales, the statutory discount that applies to residential sales, and 21% VAT on both. That is a worked example at one value, not a fixed amount; the full calculation is on our page about the bidding process and costs. The registry fee is additionally capped by law. At a judicial auction the award decision is itself the title for registration, so a notarial deed is not always required — that saves the notary fee, though not the registration.
What attaches to the property, not to the previous owner
Two debts travel with the property, and only these two: they are statutorily limited items, not a general assumption of whatever the previous owner owed. Unpaid contributions to the comunidad de propietarios, the Spanish owners' association, pass to you for the current year plus the three preceding calendar years. Unpaid property tax follows directly for the year of acquisition and the year before it; earlier years only through a separate liability procedure. Other personal debts of the previous owner do not pass to you. This can be nil and it can be several thousand euros; it is not in the auction notice, so you ask the association's administrator and the municipality.
What you only learn afterwards
Viewing is rarely possible at a BOE auction. You are buying without knowing the condition of the property, and the sector commonly advises a reserve of five to ten per cent of the purchase price for repairs. If the property is occupied and the occupant does not leave voluntarily, legal costs follow; which route is open to you differs by type of auction, and that is the subject of our article on occupancy status.
What to look up before you bid
Four things, and all four are free. The property's cadastral reference value, because in most cases it determines the tax. The ITP rate of the region where the property lies. The arrears at the owners' association. And the deposit, which is stated in the auction notice itself — that is the only figure you can rely on. For orientation: at a judicial auction of immovable property the statutory deposit has been 10% of the value of the assets, with a minimum of one thousand euro, since the reform of 3 April 2025, where it was previously 5% — and the court officer may raise or lower that percentage for a given auction. LO 1/2025 applies exclusively to proceedings that were instituted on or after 3 April 2025 (disposición transitoria novena). Because an enforcement procedure usually runs for years before it reaches an auction, most of the auctions published today still fall under the previous regime. Check per auction which regime applies; the announcement and the procedural documents are decisive. Notarial and tax auctions follow a different regime. So read the notice, not a percentage.
Sources. Taxable base: Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1993 (ITP/AJD), art. 10. Notary and registry fees: Real Decreto 1426/1989 and Real Decreto 1427/1989. Unpaid community contributions: Ley 49/1960 de Propiedad Horizontal, art. 9.1.e. Deposit at a judicial auction: Ley 1/2000 de Enjuiciamiento Civil, art. 647, as in force since 3 April 2025. Regional rates: the tax authority of the autonomous region concerned; for Catalonia the Agència Tributària de Catalunya. Consulted on 18 October 2026.
This is general information, not legal advice. Conditions differ per auction and per region; always consult the auction notice itself and, where needed, a Spanish lawyer.