What a good lawyer checks before you sign anything.

Due diligence is the fortnight of the purchase where nothing seems to happen. Here is what is actually happening, so you know what you are paying that 1% for, and what to insist on if anyone suggests skipping a step to save time.

Title and charges

The Land Registry extract (nota simple) confirms who owns the property and what hangs off it: mortgages, embargoes, court charges. In Spain some debts follow the property, not the person, so this is not bureaucracy, it is the difference between buying an apartment and buying an apartment plus a stranger's problems. Anything found should be cancelled at or before completion, out of the seller's money, and your lawyer's job is to make sure it is.

The community's books

A certificate that the seller is current on community fees (arrears for the current year and the three before can transfer with the apartment), plus the minutes of recent owners' meetings. The minutes are the gossip that matters: upcoming special levies for the roof, disputes, plans to restrict holiday lets. Ten minutes of reading that regularly changes a buyer's mind, in both directions.

Licences and legality

The licence of first occupation (in Andalusia, newer buildings now usually have a declaración responsable de ocupación instead), planning status, and whether that lovely terrace enclosure or pool was ever actually permitted. On newer property, the developer's paperwork; on country property, planning history checks that can save you from buying a legalisation project. If letting matters, the tourist licence position gets confirmed in writing here too, as our holiday lets guide explains.

Taxes, bills and the boring rest

IBI receipts, utility standing, cadastral records matching reality (surprisingly often they do not, and fixing a square-metre discrepancy is easier before completion than after). Then the contracts themselves: the reservation, the arras, and eventually the deed, each drafted or reviewed on your side of the table.

What this costs and what it saves

Roughly 1% of the price plus VAT, for two to three weeks of work. Set against the €12,000 community levy, the unlicensed extension or the embargo nobody mentioned, it is the cheapest insurance in the transaction. Our position is unchanged from the lawyer guide: independent, English-speaking, answering only to you.

One thing the lawyer doesn't check is the building itself. The roof, the damp, the cracks and the wiring need a surveyor, and on an older house that's worth doing before the deposit. It's in getting an older house surveyed.