Additional costs when purchasing a property in Mallorca

Once you have found your dream property in Mallorca, it goes to the financial planning. Can I purchase the property from my own funds? Do I need partial financing? What costs are incurred in addition to the agreed purchase price? and this brings us to our topic for today: the additional purchase costs when buying property in Mallorca. This applies to the value added tax, the land transfer tax and the stamp duty which needs to be calculated and considered.

We have presented the tax side of the property purchase in a separate article “Mallorca Real Estate – Taxes for Non-Residents” in our info. guide.

In addition to the purchase taxes there are other costs, namely for the notary, the land register, the Gestoria and possibly for the real estate agent and a lawyer.

1. Notary fees

The costs of the Spanish notary are based on a binding table of fees and amount to between 0.1% and 0.3% of the purchase price. Additional copies and duplicate copies, as well as any translation services that may have been carried out, are subject to additional fees.

2. Registration costs

The property register (land register) also has a binding scale and table of fees. For the property register, one should calculate with fees between 0.1% and 0.2% of the notarised purchase price.

3. Gestoria (Accountant) costs

Unlike in Germany, the Notary does not arrange for the registration and supervision of the purchase transaction after the notarisation. In Spain this is done by an administrative company, a so-called Gestoria (if no lawyer is appointed). The Gestoria handles e.g. the payments of the land transfer tax and the legal transactions with the property register (deletions and entries). For this, processing fees of between €200 and €1,000 (depending on the complexity of the case) are charged.

4. Attorney’s fee

Since Spanish notaries have a lower examination and information obligation than their German colleagues, it is often advisable to call in a Spanish lawyer. Lawyers specialising in real estate sales usually agree a fee for their work of between 0.5% and 1% of the purchase price, depending on the complexity of the transaction. For difficult structuring issues, such as the clarification of preliminary questions of inheritance and family law, cross-border tax issues and corporate law issues, the lawyer’s fee will also be significantly higher than this average rate.

5. Real estate agency fees

In Spain the real estate agent is regularly paid by the seller, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise. In Mallorca the real estate agency commission rate is between 5% and 6% plus VAT (IVA), of the agreed purchase price.