Arras contract in Alicante: 10% to lock your resale home

It is a Thursday morning in Alicante. You have seen the flat three times, you have climbed and come back down the stairs, you have measured the living room with arms outstretched. The seller looks at you and smiles: yours. But until you sign a piece of paper and hand over money, the flat is still on idealista that same afternoon, open to the first buyer in a hurry.

That piece of paper is the arras contract. A private agreement, no notary required, that reserves the property and binds both sides for the next 30 to 60 days. It gets signed on a café table on calle Castaños or in your estate agent's office. And yet it decides whether in two months you will hold keys or hold a lawsuit.

Arras are not a tip, they are a lever

The Spanish Civil Code mentions arras in a single article, number 1454, and only regulates one of the three possible types. The rest is decided by your contract. So what you sign matters more than what you pay.

The customary amount sits between 5% and 15% of the sale price, with 10% the most widespread practice in Spain. For a 220,000 euro flat in Playa de San Juan that is 22,000 euros handed over the same day, normally by bank transfer or certified cheque. The sum is later deducted from the final price at the notary.

Three types, three very different consequences

The name we give the contract is not rhetoric. It completely changes what happens if someone pulls out.

Confirmatory arras

These are the Civil Code default. They confirm that the contract exists and that performance has begun. If buyer or seller breaches, the other side can demand forced performance (that is, force the sale or purchase in court) or claim damages. The arras are deducted or returned, but they are not a penalty in themselves.

Penalty arras

These add a penalty clause on top of the confirmatory model: if a party breaches, beyond performance the other side can claim the loss of the sum or the double payment as a sanction. Courts read this pact strictly against whoever signed it.

Penitential arras

These are the only ones regulated by article 1454. They work as a paid right of withdrawal: the buyer can pull out and lose what was paid, the seller can pull out and pay back double. No court drama, no lawsuits, just a clean exit. They are the most frequently signed in private resales and the type recommended by most of the lawyers cited at the end of this article.

One key detail: if your contract does not explicitly say penitential, case law tends to read the arras as confirmatory. The intent to allow withdrawal must be clear and unequivocal. An omission can leave you trapped in a contract you thought you could walk away from for a price.

What the paper must include to be worth anything

A contract of arras worth signing always lists:

• Full personal data of buyer and seller: name, DNI or NIE, address, marital status and matrimonial property regime.
• Identification of the property: exact address, catastral reference and Land Registry data (finca, tomo, libro, folio).
• Total agreed price and amount delivered as arras, with the payment method.
• Type of arras (confirmatory, penalty or penitential) written out in full.
• Deadline to sign the public deed before the notary.
• State of charges: existing mortgage, embargos, pending community levies. Who clears them and when.
• Allocation of costs: notary, registry, gestoría, municipal capital gains tax, ITP.
• Furniture included if there is any.

Before signing, ask the seller for an up to date nota simple from the Land Registry and the last community fee paid. Two minutes of paperwork that save months of pain.

The clause that saves you if the bank says no

In 2026 many purchases hinge on a bank approving the mortgage, and banks in Alicante take three to six weeks to close an operation. If you sign penitential arras with no protection and the financing falls through, you lose the 22,000 euros you handed over.

The fix is called a suspensive financing clause. A line that says, almost word for word: if the buyer does not obtain a mortgage of at least X euros by date Y, the arras will be returned in full with no penalty for either side. It has to fix the minimum amount, the precise deadline and, while you are at it, demand a couple of documented bank denials. Without that detail, courts have sided with the seller in more than one recent case.

From arras to deed: the next six weeks

Once the arras are signed, a tight calendar begins. The most common timeline is 30 days if the buyer pays in cash, 60 days with a mortgage. In that window the bank values the property, the notary requests a fresh nota simple, the gestoría prepares the ITP filing (10% in the Valencian Community for resale) and the appointment at the notary is coordinated. In Alicante, many signings happen at the notarial offices on Avenida Alfonso el Sabio or calle San Vicente, a short walk from the Mercado Central.

On signing day the buyer pays the rest of the price (less the arras), the seller hands over the keys and the notary elevates everything to a public deed. From there it goes to the Land Registry within another 15 to 60 days, depending on registry workload.

Do you need a notary for the arras?

By law, no. In practice, often yes. An arras contract is a private document: it binds the parties, but it cannot be entered in the Land Registry. Taking it to a notary and elevating it to public deed costs a few hundred euros and protects the buyer against a possible second buyer or a later embargo. On larger operations (from 300,000 or 400,000 euros up), or when the seller lives in another province or another country, the cost pays for itself.

What can go wrong, and how to avoid it

The three most common traps are the same ones that have been repeating themselves in Alicante courts for twenty years:

1. Arras paid to an intermediary without authority. If you pay an agency that does not hold a notarial power to receive funds for the seller, and the agency vanishes, you lose the deposit and the flat. Always ask for the power of attorney or pay the registered owner directly.
2. Deadline too short. Signing 30 days when you depend on a mortgage is racing the clock. Ask for 60 minimum, plus an automatic 15 day extension if the bank delays for reasons not attributable to you.
3. Charges that surface later. Aluminosis, levies voted but not collected, a mortgage the seller swears was cancelled but is still on the registry. The nota simple from the eve of signing is the only reliable snapshot.

Arras are the border between dreaming about a flat and beginning to own it. The better the contract is written, the cleaner the crossing. The lighter you take it, the more expensive that Thursday morning at the café can turn out to be.

At ESYS VIP we walk with buyers through every step of the arras contract and the deed that follows. If you are close to signing, contact us before you put pen to paper, or explore our properties to see what is on the market today.