Nota simple: the burdens that can come with your second-hand home

On Calle Arquitecto Morell, number 19, in the heart of Alicante, four property registries share the same building: Number 2 on the fourth floor, Number 4 on the third, Number 3 on the second. Behind those doors, filing cabinets, screens and a document of three to five pages that any second-hand buyer should read before signing anything. It is called the nota simple, it costs 9.02 euros plus VAT, and it says, in dry language, what the Idealista listing never tells you.

The nota simple is not the deed. It is not the cadastre. It is an informative extract from the Property Registry, without public faith, with orientative value. But when it speaks, it speaks of three things that matter: who really owns the property, what exactly is being sold, and what debts, attachments or third-party rights travel with it.

How to request it

There are two paths. In person, at the registry office that territorially corresponds to the property (in the city of Alicante these are registries 1, 2, 3 and 4, all on Calle Arquitecto Morell, postcode 03003). And online, through the website of the College of Registrars, sede.registradores.org.

The online route is usually the fastest. You request with DNI or digital certificate, pay by card, and the PDF reaches your inbox in less than two working hours. It carries a secure verification code at the foot, the CSV that anyone can check on the same site to confirm the document has not been forged. The official price is 9.02 euros plus VAT per property.

The structure: three blocks to read in order

The nota simple almost always wears the same face. First, the description of the property: address, registered surface, boundaries, cadastral reference if coordinated, ancillary spaces such as storage room or parking. Then, the title: name, tax ID, marital status, property regime, percentage of ownership and how and when it was acquired. And at the end, the most feared and most useful block: encumbrances.

The description

The first thing to match is the address and the metres against what the seller shows. A 78-square-metre flat in the listing may appear as 71 in the registry and 65 in the cadastre: each figure measures different things, and the registry one is what a mortgage bank takes as real. If the gap is large, clear it up before, not after.

The title

The name signing the offer has to be, exactly, the one shown as the holder. If the home comes from an inheritance and three siblings are co-owners at 33.33%, all three sign. If it is held under community of property, both spouses sign even if only one appears in the contact. If the would-be seller is not the holder, there is no sale.

The encumbrances: what can appear

This is where the nota simple earns its price. The registry records everything that legally affects the property, and it tells the story chronologically, with entry number, date and page of the book.

Live mortgages

If the flat was financed, the mortgage will be there. You see the lender, the date of constitution, the principal, the guaranteed ordinary interest, default interest, costs and term. The figure that matters to the buyer is not the original principal but the actual outstanding debt, which only the bank can certify through the so-called certificate of pending balance. The nota says how much was guaranteed; the bank says how much is left. A 200,000-euro mortgage taken out in 2008 may have 30,000 alive today, or zero if it was paid off economically but never cancelled registrally. That gap between economic cancellation and registry cancellation is one of the most typical traps of the second-hand market.

Preventive attachments

If the Tax Agency, Social Security, a court or a private creditor has attached the home, a preventive note will appear. It carries date, body, amount, and four years of expiry from the entry itself, extendable for another four if the extension order is filed before the entry expires. Expired entries do not vanish on their own from the nota: you have to request a literal certification or read the date carefully to distinguish a live attachment from an entry that no longer produces effects.

Easements

Real rights that third parties hold over the property: right of way, light and views, water conduction, party walls, overhang. In an Ensanche flat they are rare. In a terraced house in the old quarter, in a rural plot in the huerta or in a semi-detached chalet in Albufereta, they are possible and sometimes invisible to the naked eye. A right of way for a neighbour crosses the plot whether you see it or not.

Tax affections

The registry warns the new owner that the home is liable, for five years, for taxes the previous owner did not pay: mainly ITP, municipal capital gains, inheritance or gift tax. The affection lasts that period and, if the Tax Agency claims, it claims against the property. That is why it is wise to demand from the seller proof of payment of the taxes through which they acquired and, if the last transfer was an inheritance or a gift, to look twice.

Marginal notes and other entries

Urban planning notes, planning discipline files, equidistribution files, explicit resolutory conditions in instalment sales, registered purchase options, prohibitions of disposal due to subsidies, declarations of new building works not yet completed. Each one is a story. A home under a prohibition of disposal because of a subsidy from the Generalitat Valenciana, for example, cannot be transferred until the prohibition is lifted.

When to request it

Before any payment. Before the deposit, before the earnest money contract, before any reservation. The nota simple is the first legal photograph of the home you are about to buy, and nine euros well spent save many thousands further down. If more than a couple of months pass between the initial nota and the signing, it is wise to request a second, updated one on the very day of the deed: the notary tends to do it, but the buyer can request it independently.

What the nota simple does not say

It does not say if the building's lift has been running on a special levy for three years. It does not say if there are damp patches on the bathroom wall. It does not say if the energy certificate has expired or if the second-occupancy licence is pending. The nota is legal and registry-bound; the rest is state of repair, the community of owners, and administrative paperwork, three other doors to open before the deed.

After reading it

If everything checks out (correct holder, correct description, zero encumbrances or encumbrances cancelled at signing), you can move forward. If live encumbrances appear, the usual move is to agree in the earnest money contract that, at the deed, the seller will present registry cancellations (not only economic ones) and that part of the price will be applied to settling them at the same act, with separate bank cheques for each creditor. If what appears is a cloud (repeated attachments, strange extensions, dubious titleholders), it is best to pass the nota by a lawyer or a real-estate adviser before going further.

If you are looking at a second-hand home in Alicante, we can read its nota simple alongside you before any commitment. Explore our properties or contact us and we will walk through the first paper that counts.