When is your bid approved at a Spanish auction?
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Placing the highest bid is not the same as getting the property. Once the auction closes, the Letrado de la Administración de Justicia — the legally qualified court officer who conducts the enforcement, not the judge — assesses whether your bid meets the statutory conditions. That approval is called the aprobación del remate, and the law sets several thresholds for it that bear on your bidding strategy.
What follows applies to the judicial enforcement auction. Voluntary judicial sales, insolvency auctions and the notarial and tax auctions each have their own regime; our article on the auction type explains which family falls under which. In every case the announcement is decisive.
First: which regime governs this auction?
The regime was revised on 3 April 2025. The transitional provision is unambiguous: the new rules apply only to proceedings commenced after that date — not to proceedings that reach the auction stage after it.
That distinction is not a formality. Enforcement proceedings usually run for years before an auction takes place. Of the judicial enforcement auctions open at the time of writing, more than 91 per cent belonged to proceedings registered in 2024 or earlier, and therefore certainly to the old regime. A further 7 per cent dated from 2025, where the year alone does not tell you whether registration fell before or after 3 April. Just over 1 per cent certainly fell under the new regime.
You do not have to guess, because it is in the announcement. The Cuenta expediente field consists of five blocks, and the last block is the year in which the proceedings were registered: 4197 0000 06 0456 22 ends in 22, so 2022. If it reads 24 or lower, the old regime applies. If it reads 25, the exact registration date decides, and you will find that in the case file. Our explanation of BOE auctions describes how that field is built up.
A bid below the threshold is not automatically invalid
The statutory percentages do not determine what amount the portal has to accept while bidding is open. An auction can open at any amount; the legal test only follows after closing. A low running bid therefore tells you nothing about whether that auction will end in an award.
Whether you can see what others are bidding varies from auction to auction: the body that files the auction decides whether the amounts are confidential. If they are, you only learn the highest bid once the bidding period has ended; if they are not, the highest bid is visible at any moment. The portal states per auction which applies.
The ladder, step by step
All the percentages below rest on the value at which the property was brought to auction. Note that the law does not use the same word everywhere: the older text speaks in most places of the appraisal value (valor de tasación), the new one consistently of the auction value (valor de subasta). The two need not be equal. So work with the amount the announcement itself states.
A bid of 70 per cent or more. That is approved, on the day of closing or the day after. This is the same under both regimes.
A bid below 70 per cent: the debtor may first put forward a third party. He gets ten days to name someone who improves on the bid. Under the new regime that person must bid at least 60 per cent of the auction value; under the old one, more than 70 per cent of the appraisal value — in both cases it may be lower if it satisfies the claim in full. Under the new regime that nominated buyer also has obligations of his own: he must have lodged the deposit beforehand and then has ten days to pay the rest, counted from that lodgement. If he does not pay, he loses his deposit and a fresh auction follows where necessary.
After that the regimes diverge, and this affects you directly. Under the old regime the creditor may then, within five days, ask for the property to be awarded to himself, for 70 per cent or for the amount owed to him — provided that amount exceeds 60 per cent of the appraisal value and exceeds your bid. That is not a higher bid but a statutory entitlement, and it can still set your bid aside. Under the new regime that is expressly excluded: where bids were made and the creditor is not the highest bidder, he may not improve the price or ask for an award after the auction.
If that does not happen, your bid is approved. Under the new regime from 50 per cent of the auction value, or lower if your bid covers the claim in full, but never below 40 per cent. Under the old regime if your bid exceeds 50 per cent of the appraisal value, or is lower but covers the amount for which enforcement was ordered, interest and costs included; that text sets no 40 per cent floor.
If your bid does not reach that either, a weighing-up follows. The officer then decides, after hearing the parties, on the basis of circumstances the law itself names: the debtor's conduct, the prospect of satisfying the creditor from other assets, what approval or refusal means for each of those involved, and the benefit the creditor derives from it. That decision is open to challenge. If approval is refused, the attachment is lifted at the debtor's request.
Two things stand out here for a bidder. With a bid below 70 per cent the outcome is not final immediately after closing: ten days follow for a nominated buyer, and under the old regime another five for the creditor. During that period your deposit is tied up while you have nothing. And because most of the auctions you see today are still governed by the old regime, the chance that the creditor gets ahead of you this way is real.
The payment term is not a single figure
An approved bid is only a property once you pay, and the law attaches different terms to different outcomes. Under the new regime a bid of 70 per cent or more carries a term of twenty days, counted from the closing of the auction. If your bid was lower and no third party was put forward, or that attempt failed, you are called upon after approval to pay within twenty days — so the clock starts later there. If the creditor himself is the highest bidder above 70 per cent and above the principal, he pays the difference within ten days of being notified of the settlement; if he does not, the auction is declared failed and he bears the cost of a new one. And the nominated buyer has ten days from his own lodgement.
Under the old regime the general rule is more generous: forty days for the highest bidder. If you do not pay, you lose your deposit in every case; it is applied to the enforcement.
One possibility few people know about. If you need a mortgage to pay the price, you can request a certified copy of the approval decision in order to create that mortgage — even before you have paid. That request suspends the payment term, which starts running again once you have the copy. This is precisely the mechanism by which you finance the property with the property itself.
With a main residence it is different, and different under each regime
Where the property is the debtor's main residence (vivienda habitual), a separate rule applies. It sits in a different place under each regime and does something different.
Under the new regime it is a threshold for your bid: a bid is not approved below 70 per cent of the auction value, unless it covers the full amount due to the creditor — and then 60 per cent acts as the floor. If the creditor himself is the highest bidder with a bid that does not meet this and the debtor puts nobody forward, approval still follows at 70 per cent, or at the amount owed with 60 per cent as the minimum.
Under the old regime those 70 and 60 per cent figures sit with the auction that attracts no bids, and they set the price the creditor pays if he takes the property over: 50 per cent for ordinary property, but 70 per cent for a main residence, or 60 per cent if the amount owed is lower. On the approval of your own bid that provision has, under the old regime, no bearing.
The rule therefore does not rule out a low bid in all circumstances; it operates within the conditions of the regime that applies to those proceedings. Whether a property is marked as a main residence is stated in the announcement.
If no bid is made at all
Under the old regime the creditor may ask for an award within twenty days of closing: for 50 per cent of the value at which the property came to auction, or for the amount owed to him on all grounds — and for a main residence 70 per cent, or 60 per cent if what is owed is lower. If he does not do so within those twenty days, the officer lifts the attachment at the debtor's request.
Under the new regime the attachment is lifted at the debtor's request. In addition, the law provides that the debtor — himself or on the creditor's proposal — may name someone to take the property over for at least 50 per cent of the auction value, or for an amount that satisfies the claim in full and is not lower than 40 per cent.
In both cases: an auction without bids does not automatically free the property from attachment.
The debtor can head it off until the last moment
Up to the approval of the bid, the debtor can release his assets by paying in full what he owes the creditor in principal, interest and costs. The auction is then cancelled, or undone if it had already ended. This is a risk the law provides for and one you have to reckon with as a bidder.
What to check before you bid
When were the proceedings registered? The last block of the Cuenta expediente in the announcement gives the year, and that determines which regime applies to you. If it is 2025, check the exact date in the case file before you start calculating.
Which amount do the percentages rest on? Take the amount as the announcement states it and work out where 70, 60, 50 and 40 per cent of it fall.
Is the property marked as a main residence? Under the new regime that changes your own floor, and under the old one the price at which the creditor can take it over.
Which payment term applies to your situation — and do you need the mortgage route to meet it? Arrange the financing before you bid, not afterwards.
Sources. Ley 1/2000 de Enjuiciamiento Civil, consolidated text. For proceedings commenced on or after 3 April 2025: arts. 670 and 671 as in force since that date (Ley Orgánica 1/2025), and the ninth transitional provision of that act for the criterion. For proceedings commenced earlier: arts. 670 and 671 in the version in force from 15 October 2015 to 2 April 2025. No floor while bidding and the deposit: art. 647. Visibility of bids: the help page of the Portal de Subastas. Consulted on 19 and 20 October 2026.
This is general information and not legal advice. Conditions vary from auction to auction and from case to case; always consult the auction announcement and the case file themselves and, where needed, a Spanish lawyer.