The General Council of Notaries and the College of Property Registrars have activated the protocols for managing the health crisis situation caused by COVID-19, following the resolution of the General Directorate of Legal Security and Public Faith on March 13 and after the declaration of the state of alarm in Spain, on March 15.
“The adequate provision of the public service will be guaranteed, since property, mercantile and movable property registers are a public service of general interest that must be kept open, so that citizens can carry out those actions that due to their nature Urgently, they cannot be subject to delay and, on the other hand, that the Registry service, in its capacity as a public office, is provided in full conditions of security for citizens, employees and the Registrar ”, states the statement published by this General Directorate of Ministry of Justice.
With the declaration of alarm the statute of limitations and expiration are suspended of property, mercantile and real estate registers and documents before notaries. Both notaries and registrars confirm that they will attend to all the telematic inquiries they receive and insist that citizens do not go to notaries or registries without prior appointment. Only requests for matters of serious urgency will be attended personally, which are previously attended to by telephone or mail.
Will be the notaries and registrars themselves who value the urgency of a registry or a signature before a notary public, which can range from a will to the signing of a real estate transaction.
“For deed signatures already programmed, it is convenient to contact the notary’s office to assess, depending on its urgency, its maintenance or postponement. It is possible that the signing of the sale before a notary is subject to a deadline, as it has been signed by the parties previously a private contract of sale with a deposit. In this case, the signatories may also agree to a postponement of said term to notarize, drafting an annex to the private contract of sale signed by both parties “, it states Salvador Salcedo, partner of the law firm Ático Jurídico.
For Juan Villén, head of idealista / mortgages, “On the one hand, the beginning of the mortgage application process continues smoothly, because the banks continue to provide service and will continue to analyze the mortgage applications received, although it is true that the lower availability of some bank branches may make the process difficult. That said, real estate credit intermediaries such as idealista / mortgages are still working 100%, so in cases like this they can be a very comfortable option to start the mortgage application process ”.
“On the other hand, the process of final validation and signing of the mortgage is extremely complicated: some appraisers are not visiting properties (others continue with their routine), and without the appraisal report the bank cannot issue the final offer or send the documentation to notaries. And they have restricted their activity to the strictly urgent, so that only those operations that were already prepared for signature and have a compelling reason that each notary will value (such as the expiration of the deposit contract, or the need to occupy the new home) will be able to complete the process ”.
If the parties finally sign the sale before a notary, from Legal Attic, remember that “the deadlines to self-assess or pay taxes derivatives of the operation can be considered suspended, resuming at the moment in which the aforementioned royal decree or, where appropriate, its extensions lose force. “Although it is advisable to act with caution until the administration clarifies the scope of the suspension provided for in royal decree 463/2020 “.
To contact the notaries it is available on the web www.notariado.org, with a locator of notaries by localities, postal codes and surnames. Requests for simple grades and certifications must be made through the web registradores.org.
The recommendation of both experts if you are in the process of closing an operation is caution. “Given the uncertainty of the duration of this exceptional period, consumers should avoid getting their fingers caught committing to a purchase in a short period of time, unless they are certain to carry it out”, specifies the head of idealista mortgages.
For the Ático Jurídico law firm, “buyer and seller can formalize the sale with a deposit of a property in a private document. In any case, when establishing a deadline for the notarial signature of the sale they should be aware that the return to normality may take a while. For this reason, it will be convenient to give the buyer a reasonable period, which should be longer, if possible, in case they require bank financing for the purchase. “
A drastic drop in operations is expected during this and next month
The residential market in Spain started 2020 maintaining the trend of last year. While the price of houses continues to rise (1.5%) in a discreet way, sales fell 5.9% year-on-year, according to the statistics of notaries.
For their part, the registrars, who provide data to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), They estimate that 46,927 transactions were formalized in January, which represents an improvement of 35% compared to December, but a decrease of 2.6% compared to the first month of last year. The falls have occurred both in the second hand and in the new construction, which has accounted for 18% of the operations.
The latest known data of mortgages are at the end of 2019. Despite the turmoil caused by the entry into force of the new Mortgage law and the economic slowdown, during 2019 357,720 mortgages were formalized. According to INE data, the figure has risen by 2.7% compared to 2018 and, although it is the lowest growth since 2014, the truth is that the number of loans has registered its best annual result since 2011.
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