Reservation, Arras, Escritura: the Three Contracts When You Buy in Spain

When you buy a house in Spain, you sign your way to the keys through a chain of documents. First a reservation contract, then an arras contract, usually a private purchase contract after that, and finally the public deed at the notary. Three of them are fairly manageable if you handle them with care. One of them, the arras, can cost you tens of thousands of euros if you sign the wrong version of it. That one is what this article is really about.

My name is Daniel Bertomeu. I am a tax advisor, and I work alongside my father Juan Bertomeu, a lawyer with offices in Moraira and Dénia on the Costa Blanca since 1991. We are independent lawyers and tax advisors, which means we act for the buyer, not for the seller and not for the agent. And in purchases for non-resident buyers, the arras contract is where we see the most expensive mistakes. I also walk through this whole chain on camera here, in German, for our German-speaking clients. Same road, same warnings.

One contract at a time, then.

First: the reservation contract

You found the house and you agreed a price. The first paper that lands in front of you is the contrato de reserva, the reservation contract. You pay a small amount, usually a few thousand euros, and in exchange the property comes off the market for a short period while the next steps get prepared.

It looks harmless, and most of the time it is. But two things before you pay. Read what the document says happens to that money if the purchase does not go ahead, because the answer lives in the wording, not in some standard rule everyone follows. And check that the document is actually a reservation. Some papers called reserva quietly carry obligations that belong in an arras contract, and you should know which animal you are signing.

Now, you do not need a law degree for this first check. If you already have a reservation document in your hands, run it through our reservation contract checker. It takes a few minutes and it flags the clauses we would look at first.

Second: the arras contract, the delicate one

The contrato de arras is the deposit contract. You normally hand over around 10 percent of the price, the contract fixes the deadline to complete at the notary, and from that moment both sides are bound. This is the most delicate contract of the entire purchase, and I want to be very clear about why.

The best known version is the arras penitenciales, the withdrawal deposit of article 1454 of the Spanish Civil Code. It works like this. If you, the buyer, walk away, you lose the deposit. If the seller walks away, the seller has to give you back double.

Let me put numbers on that. Take a 350,000 euro house with a 10 percent deposit, so 35,000 euros. You change your mind: your 35,000 euros stay with the seller. The seller changes his mind, maybe because a better offer appeared: he hands you 70,000 euros, your 35,000 back plus another 35,000 as compensation. That is what double means, and yes, sellers do that maths before accepting a second offer behind your back.

Not all arras are equal

Here is the part most buyers never hear. Not every deposit contract gives you the right to walk away. In Spanish practice you will also come across names like arras confirmatorias and arras penales, and the difference is not academic. Depending on how the contract is worded, you can withdraw and lose only the deposit, or you can be held to the purchase even after you have changed your mind, with the other side pressing for completion or for damages beyond the deposit.

So do not assume that handing over a deposit buys you an exit. In our experience, if the contract does not say expressly that either party may withdraw on the terms of article 1454, you should treat it as a contract that commits you to buy. On a 350,000 euro house, that is 350,000 euros of commitment riding on a document somebody handed you across a desk. Do not sign it just because the agent says everyone signs this. Get your lawyer to read it first, before the money moves.

"Okay, Daniel, but what if my mortgage is refused?"

Well, this is exactly the question the arras contract has to answer in writing before you sign it. If you are buying with a loan, the arras is where it gets decided whether a bank saying no counts as you walking away. If the contract is silent on that point, you can lose the entire deposit over something that was never in your control.

So two rules. Get a mortgage decision in principle before you sign the arras, not while the completion clock is already running. And make sure the contract has a financing clause that says, in plain terms, what happens to the deposit if the loan is refused. That is not a detail. On the house above, that clause is worth 35,000 euros.

Third: the private purchase contract

At this point there are two ways forward. You can go straight from the arras to the public deed, and plenty of purchases do. But as independent lawyers, we prefer to sign a contrato privado de compraventa first, a private purchase contract, especially when there is time or complexity between the deposit and the notary appointment.

Why? Because that document fixes everything the arras usually does not. The full conditions of the sale, the price and exactly how it will be paid, the deadlines, the state the property has to be in on handover, and what happens if either party fails to deliver. Things do go wrong between deposit and deed. Furniture disappears, paperwork arrives late, dates slip. When that happens, this is the contract that decides who pays for it.

Last: the escritura pública, the deed

The escritura pública de compraventa is the notarial deed. This is the day you pay the price, you sign in front of the notary, and you receive the keys. The property is now yours, and after the signing the deed goes to the Land Registry to be recorded in your name.

If the earlier contracts were done properly, notary day is the calm one. Everything that could be argued about was already agreed and written down. For the full picture of the process around these contracts, the searches, the taxes and the costs, read our step-by-step guide to buying property in Spain as a non-resident.

One tax detail that hangs on these dates

Now, a detail that sits between the lawyer and the tax advisor, and people miss it. On a resale purchase, the transfer tax is triggered by the transmission itself, which in practice means the day of the deed. Not the day of the arras, and not the day you paid the deposit.

Why does that matter? Because rates change. In the Valencian Community, the general ITP rate dropped from 10 percent to 9 percent for deeds signed from 1 June 2026. A higher 11 percent rate for properties whose value goes over one million euros already existed before that change, since 2023, and it still applies, on the whole taxable amount, not just the part above the million. The cut-off is the deed date. A buyer who signed arras in May 2026 and completed in June 2026 paid 9 percent. On a 350,000 euro house, that is 31,500 euros instead of 35,000. The month of the deed was worth 3,500 euros.

One caveat so you do not budget short. The tax is not always calculated on your price. If the Catastro's reference value of the property is higher than what you agreed to pay, the tax is calculated on that higher value. Ask for that number before the arras, not at the notary.

Before you sign anything

So, the short version. The reservation is small money, but read where that money goes if the deal dies. The arras is the dangerous one: know which type you are signing, make sure your exit and your financing clause are written down, and check the completion deadline is one you can actually meet from abroad. The private contract is your insurance for everything between deposit and deed. And the deed is the finish line, where the earlier work either pays off or comes back to bite.

If you are at the reservation or arras stage right now, run your document through the reservation contract checker first. And if you want a second pair of eyes on it before you sign, that is exactly the work we do from Moraira and Dénia, mostly for buyers who are not in Spain. You contact us, we tell you what we see.

A quick legal note before you go

One last thing, and Juan makes me say it, because this is a law firm and a law firm has to say it. This article is general information, current as of July 2026. It is not legal advice for your specific purchase, and reading it does not make you our client.

Every arras contract is different, and the differences are exactly where the money is. So before you sign anything or pay any deposit, get advice on your own case. That is what we are here for.