Nota Simple in Spain: How to Read It Before You Pay a Deposit

The listing says three bedrooms, 95 square metres and no debts. The land registry may say something else.

The nota simple is the informative extract from Spain's Registro de la Propiedad, the land registry. The Colegio de Registradores, the registrars' body, says it identifies the property, names the holders of the rights registered on it and sets out their extent and limitations. Online it costs 9.02 euros plus tax, usually within two hours.

What is in a nota simple?

Four things, according to the registrars' online service: the identification of the property, the identity of the holders of registered rights, the nature and extent of those rights, and the charges and limitations that sit on the property. In practice that is where a foreign buyer first sees a mortgage that is still registered, an embargo, a usufruct that lets someone else live there, or a registered area that does not match the advert.

The same service is explicit about the document's status: it has purely informative value and does not certify the content of the registry entries. It is delivered by email as a PDF, and you can request it by the property's unique registry code, by the cadastral reference, by the owner's identity number or by the address.

What does it not prove?

Ownership, in the legal sense. The Colegio de Registradores distinguishes the nota simple from the certificación registral: the certification is a public document signed by the registrar, it attests to the content of the registry and it has effect against everyone. The nota simple is limited to the holders, rights and charges in force at the moment of the request and carries no signature. The registrars note that banks accept a nota simple for a preliminary mortgage review, while the certification is legally the only means of proving a registered right before third parties.

For a buyer the practical consequence is timing. A nota simple describes one moment. A charge registered the following week is not in it, which is why the notary requests fresh information before the deed.

Which debts never appear in it?

The community's. Article 9.1.e of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal, the law governing apartment communities, makes the buyer of a flat or premises liable, with the property itself, for what previous owners owe the comunidad de propietarios for general expenses, up to the part of the year in which the purchase takes place and the three previous calendar years. The article adds the words that matter for a registry reader: this applies even when the buyer's title is registered in the Registro de la Propiedad.

The same article gives the buyer a shield. In the public deed the seller must declare that the community charges are paid, or state what is owed, and must produce a certificate of the debt position issued within seven calendar days by the person acting as secretary, countersigned by the president. Without that certificate the notary may not authorise the deed, unless the buyer expressly waives it. The waiver is the sentence to look for in a draft deed.

Does the registry match the cadastre?

Not always, and there is a procedure for it. Since Ley 13/2015, the Dirección General del Catastro, the cadastre authority, and the registry run a coordination system in which the registry incorporates the georeferenced graphic description of the property using cadastral cartography as the base. The Catastro states that once the cadastral graphic representation is registered, the property is graphically coordinated and its location, boundaries and surface are presumed accurate for all legal purposes.

A nota simple carries the cadastral reference when it has been recorded, so a first check is whether the registered area and the cadastral area describe the same home. Where they differ, the coordination status tells you whether anyone has reconciled them.

How do you get it, and in English?

From the registrars, directly. The Colegio de Registradores states the official cost as 9.02 euros plus VAT when requested through its platform, with an average delivery time of under two hours. The online service adds an English translation for 30 euros per document, and occasional users need no subscription. The alternative is to ask at the competent registry in person.

We do not give buying advice. What the published rules support is this: the nota simple shows who owns the property and what is registered against it at one moment, it does not show community debts that the law nevertheless attaches to the flat, and it does not by itself prove title. AiMYNDi reads the nota simple, the cadastral data and the community certificate together and flags the mismatches in your language. An example of what a report looks like shows how the legal section is laid out, and how to check okupa risk before buying in Spain covers the other document trail buyers ask about.