The number one fact you should be aware of when buying any property in Spain, be it an auction property, bank repossession or private sale is that any debt or liens that has been incurred by the previous owner remains with the property and not the previous owner, so if you don’t do your due diligence or have this checked out at the land registry you could end up taking on this debt, not good right?

The Spanish government tax agency run public property auctions but there is a different process and criteria to follow. If you wish to bid on a property you must first register at the Electronic Auction Portal, if you simply want to browse auction properties that are available then you do not have to register.

The General Treasury of the Social Security (TGSS) is the agency responsible for the collection of all Social Security debts throughout Spain and its Islands, both in voluntarily and repossession circumstances where they are able to recover monies owed by public auction.

The department is lawfully able to seize assets and sell them by auction resulting in the collection of outstanding debts.

Auctions are the last phase of the administrative enforcement procedure to enforce the collection of previously seized goods from the debtors of the Social Security.

The funds that are raised in the auction is purely to settle the outstanding debt and in the case of having surplus monies it is returned to the debtor.

The debtor has the option of stopping the procedure at any time before the auction by clearing the outstanding debt, for this reason many of the auctions are withdrawn before the auction date.

A word of warnıng, the auction registration process in Spain is complicated and the auction procedure is not as you would expect at a regular auction elsewhere in Europe. These are sealed bid auctions and it is advised to employ the services of a Spanish lawyer who is familiar withe the idiosyncrasies that can arise.