Property purchase scams in Spain
In 30 seconds
Deliberate fraud is rare on this coast. It takes four forms: a fake seller who sells a property with no right to sell it (one to four years in prison under a single law), a stolen deposit, a fake rental, and an off-plan scam that takes staged payments with no bank guarantee behind them.
What counts as fraud here, and what does not?
Most of what feels suspicious about a Spanish listing is not fraud. It is a shared advertising network, an old price, or a sales technique, and that whole topic belongs to a separate page. This page covers only cases where someone takes your signature or your money for something they have no right to give you: a fake seller, a stolen deposit, a fake rental, or an off-plan payment with no guarantee behind it.One Spanish criminal law article covers the first three patterns at once. Article 251.1 of the Código Penal punishes anyone who falsely claims a right to dispose of property they do not own, and then sells it, puts a charge on it, or rents it to someone else, causing that person a loss. Selling, charging and renting are named together in the same sentence of the law. This is why a fake seller and a fake rental are legally the same crime in two different forms.
- Fake seller
- What it looks like
- Someone signs who is not the registered owner, often through a forged or expired power of attorney.
- The law behind it
- Código Penal art. 251.1: 1 to 4 years in prison for selling property with no right to sell it.
- What catches it
- The nota simple’s registered owner, checked against whoever is signing.
- Stolen deposit
- What it looks like
- Money requested before a lawyer has read the reservation contract, paid to an account that does not match the seller.
- The law behind it
- Código Penal art. 251.2, alongside the same disposition offence.
- What catches it
- The account name, checked against the seller or agency named in the contract.
- Fake rental
- What it looks like
- A holiday or long-term listing asking for a transfer before any viewing or video call.
- The law behind it
- The same article 251.1, its part about renting.
- What catches it
- A live video call at the property, arranged before you pay.
- Off-plan scam
- What it looks like
- Staged developer payments with no individual bank guarantee behind them.
- The law behind it
- Ley 38/1999, disposición adicional primera, tightened by Ley 20/2015.
- What catches it
- The guarantee document itself, checked before each payment is due.
Looks like fraudWhat it really is
- The same apartment is listed six times at different prices
- This is a shared-listing problem, not fraud. There is a separate guide about it, with checks that settle it in ten minutes.
- A property that sold months ago is still advertised
- This is an old listing nobody removed. The advertising guide covers this, not the criminal patterns on this page.
- Somebody asks for money before you have seen the property or the ownership documents
- This is the real criminal pattern: money or a signature taken by someone with no right to receive either.
How does somebody sell a property that is not theirs to sell?
The problem is almost always about identity, not about the property itself: a forged passport or ID, a power of attorney that was cancelled, expired, or never really granted, or a claim to inheritance rights that were never really settled. The targeted properties tend to share a pattern: empty for a long time, owned by someone living abroad, or recently inherited and not yet updated in the registry. These are the situations where nobody is watching closely enough to notice a stranger acting on the owner’s behalf.The defence is the same registry check a lawyer already runs, for entirely different reasons. A nota simple names the registered owner. A power of attorney used to sign on someone else’s behalf must be genuine, current, and specific to this sale. A lawyer checks this against the notarial record it came from, instead of just trusting the document. Arevont’s free listing-verification check confirms who is really behind a listing, including a check of the registered owner’s name, before you send any money or book a flight to see it.
- Stop and verifyThe seller’s name does not match the registered owner on the nota simpleSomeone with no right to sell is trying to signWhat to do insteadGet the nota simple and compare names before any money moves
- Check firstThe seller signs through a power of attorney you have not seenThe document could be cancelled, expired, or never really grantedWhat to do insteadVerify the notarial protocol number with the issuing notary
- Check firstThe property passed by inheritance and the registry looks out of dateThe registry may not show who can really sell the property todayWhat to do insteadAsk for the inheritance deed alongside the registry entry
Would a notary catch a fake seller automatically, without my own lawyer checking first?The notary checks identity and the registry entry again at the moment of signing. This is a real, independent check, but it happens at the very end of the process, after a reservation deposit has usually already changed hands. Your own lawyer’s check happens weeks earlier. This means a fake seller is caught while it is still realistically possible to withdraw, rather than after the money has already moved.
What happens to a stolen deposit, and how is it different from a real one?
A genuine reservation deposit is real money at real risk, on purpose: it is the one payment in a Spanish purchase that sits outside the whole guarantee system built to protect everything that comes after it. This is exactly why fraud targets this payment. The pattern is almost always the same: money requested before a lawyer has read the reservation contract, paid to an account that does not match the seller’s or the agency’s name, sometimes described as refundable, "just to hold it", instead of the real commitment a reservation really is.A legitimate reservation deposit is paid to an account named in the reservation contract itself, after your lawyer has read the contract’s conditions for getting the money back. Arevont’s legal coordination service reads that contract before any money leaves your account, at no charge, because the lawyer represents you, not the seller or the agency.
Where your money really sits
- ReservationPaid before any guarantee or client account protects itThe one payment in a Spanish purchase that sits entirely outside the guarantee system. This is exactly why fraud targets this payment.
- Legal checkLawyer reads the reservation contractConfirms the account name and the refund conditions before any further money moves.
- Arras / purchase contractHeld in a lawyer’s segregated client accountReleased only at completion, under protection the reservation never had.
- CompletionPaid at the notaryThe balance changes hands at the signing itself, not by an unsupervised transfer days before.
What people assume is normal cautionWhat really protects a deposit
- Paying a small amount to hold a property before anyone has seen it is just normal caution
- A genuine reservation is paid only after your lawyer has read the contract, to an account named in the contract itself. Anything paid before that point protects nobody except whoever asked for it.
- A verbal promise that a deposit is "refundable" is as good as writing it down
- Only the conditions written into the reservation contract decide whether the money comes back. A verbal promise has no effect once the transfer has gone through.
- The account name does not matter as long as the price looks right
- A genuine deposit goes to an account matching the seller or the listing agency. A different account name, especially a personal one or a foreign one, is the clearest sign of this pattern.
If my deposit was really stolen, is there any realistic way to get it back?Two separate routes exist, and neither is quick. Your bank can try a same-day recall of a SEPA transfer, and the chances of success fall sharply after the first 24 to 48 hours, so speed matters more than anything else you do. Separately, a criminal complaint (denuncia) for fraud under article 251 also opens a route to getting the money back inside the same criminal case. This is a lawyer’s process, not a simple form, and it is worth starting immediately rather than waiting to see if the money reappears on its own.
Can somebody take rent for a property they do not own?
Yes, and Spanish law names this directly: article 251.1 covers renting out property under a falsely claimed right to dispose of it, in the same sentence as selling and charging it. This pattern usually targets people who need somewhere to stay, not people who are buying: a holiday rental or long-term listing, sometimes with photos copied from a real advert, asking for a transfer to a personal account before any viewing, and before the "landlord" agrees to a video call standing inside the real property.A foreign buyer meets this risk mainly around a viewing trip, when it is tempting to book accommodation quickly from wherever the price looks best. The methods that make a rental listing convincing, including stolen photos and reused descriptions, are the same ones already explained for sale listings on the site’s advertising guide. The difference here is that money for a stay, not for a property, is what is at risk.
- Stop and verifyThe “landlord” refuses a live video call at the propertyA genuine landlord has nothing to hide and no reason to refuseWhat to do insteadAsk for a real-time call, not a recorded tour
- Stop and verifyAsked to pay by bank transfer, outside the booking platformIf you skip the platform, you lose its payment record and buyer protectionWhat to do insteadPay through the platform’s own system, not directly to the owner
- Check firstThe same address is advertised under a different name elsewhereThe listing may be a duplicate or a stolen photo setWhat to do insteadSearch the street or development name across other listings
Could a developer just disappear with staged payments before the crisis-era guarantee existed?
This used to be the most damaging type of Spanish property fraud. It is worth understanding as history, because the law that closed this loophole is exactly what protects a buyer today. A guarantee requirement for staged new-build payments has existed since Ley 57/1968. But enforcement before the 2008 financial crisis was inconsistent. Developers regularly collected payment after payment against construction milestones, with no real guarantee issued in the buyer’s own name behind them. When a project failed, buyers found that the guarantee they thought they had either did not exist, or covered a group policy that never named them personally.Ley 20/2015 tightened the same rule, now found inside Ley 38/1999’s disposición adicional primera. It closed the exact loophole that made the old fraud possible. Every payment made before completion must now be covered by a guarantee issued in the buyer’s own name, handed over when the purchase contract is signed, not promised for later. The mechanism itself, what the document must say, and what happens if a developer still fails today, is its own topic, covered in full on a separate page.
Before Ley 20/2015Since Ley 20/2015
- A guarantee existed on paper, sometimes as a group policy covering the whole development, not any one buyer by name.
- The guarantee must be issued individually, in the buyer’s own name, for the buyer’s specific payments, and handed over when the purchase contract is signed.
- Enforcement was inconsistent. A buyer often discovered the guarantee was worthless only after a project had already failed.
- The document itself can be checked before each payment is due. This is exactly the moment to ask for it, not after signing.
- Does a guarantee document exist at all?Who decidesYou ask the developer directlyWhat it grantsMoves to the next checkIf noDo not pay. No document means no protection, whatever you are told verbally.
- Is it issued in your name specifically?What it grantsConfirms it is yours, not a group policyIf noA guarantee that names the development, not you, does not protect you personally.
- Does it cover the full amount, tax included?What it grantsConfirms the whole payment is coveredIf noA partial guarantee leaves exactly the gap this fraud uses.
- Was it issued by a bank or an insurer?What it grantsConfirms a real guarantor stands behind it, one you can hold responsibleIf noAnything else is not the guarantee the law requires.
The version of this fraud that still happens today is smaller and harder to notice than a developer simply disappearing. It looks like a payment schedule that moves faster than the guarantee is issued, or a guarantee document that exists but was never issued for your specific payments. Ask to see it before the payment is due, not after.
Does buying from a large, well-known developer make this risk disappear?It reduces the risk. A large developer with a public reputation and other active projects has far more to lose by failing to deliver than a small or newly formed one. But it does not replace the check itself. The law requires the same personal guarantee no matter the developer’s size. The document protects you, not the developer’s reputation alone.
What you can check alone, and where it really needs someone here
Every check below is real, and you can do it. The right-hand column is not the only way to do the check. It shows what changes when the check happens here on the coast, instead of from a screen far away.| Alone from Czechia | With a local check | |
|---|---|---|
| Whether the seller owns the property | You can ask for a nota simple and read the owner’s name. But translating and understanding a Spanish registry document alone is where most people get stuck. | Arevont’s free listing-verification check compares the registered owner against the person or agency you are dealing with, before any money moves. |
| Whether a reservation deposit account is genuine | You can ask for the account holder’s name and compare it to the seller’s or the agency’s own name in writing. | Arevont’s legal coordination reads the reservation contract’s conditions before the money leaves your account, at no charge. |
| Whether a rental listing is real | A reverse image search on the photographs, the same ten-minute check that catches a stale or duplicated sale listing. | A live video call at the property, arranged on your behalf when you cannot travel yet to do it yourself. |
| Whether a developer’s guarantee covers your payment | You can ask to see the document and check it names you personally, for the specific amount, before you pay. | Confirmed as part of legal coordination before each staged payment is due, not after. |
How rare is this, honestly?
There is no published statistic that measures deliberate property fraud against foreign buyers on the Costa del Sol specifically. Inventing one would be worse than saying so honestly. What we can say honestly is this: most of what feels alarming about buying here, the shared listings, the old prices, the sales techniques, is not fraud at all. Treating all of it as fraud makes a buyer worried about the wrong things, and careless about the real ones.The four patterns above are real crimes, with a real article of the Código Penal behind each one. The checks that catch them, reading the registry, reading the contract before paying, calling the "landlord" on video, seeing the guarantee before the money is due, are the same checks a careful buyer should run anyway, for ordinary reasons, on every purchase. This is general information about how Spanish law treats these patterns. It is not legal advice on any specific transaction, and none of it performs the checks it describes. An independent lawyer does that, on your behalf. The site’s own guide to what a lawyer checks explains this in full.Arevont takes no referral fee from the lawyers it works with, and charges the buyer nothing for the checks described above. This does not make any purchase risk-free. It means the checks that catch these four patterns are available to you before you commit anything.
Frequently asked questions about purchase scams
- How is a stolen listing turned into fraud, rather than just a bad advert?
- The advert itself, even with copied photos, is not the crime. The crime happens the moment someone uses that fake advert to collect money, or a signature, for a property or rental they have no right to give you. A stolen listing you never paid anything towards is just a bad advert. The same listing becomes fraud once you send a deposit to an unrelated account.
- Does buying through an agency like Arevont mean this cannot happen to me?
- No, and nobody here claims that. Arevont’s free checks confirm the registered owner, read the reservation contract before you pay, and verify a rental listing on a live call when asked, all before money moves. They remove the specific blind spots a buyer in Czechia has when looking at a screen. They do not make fraud impossible everywhere in the world.
- What is the single biggest tell that something is one of these four patterns rather than an ordinary bad listing?
- Money or a signature requested before verification is possible, whether that means a viewing, a lawyer reading a contract, or a video call at the property. Every pattern above shares this one feature. A legitimate seller, agency or developer has no reason to refuse the order of check first, then pay, because the check makes the transaction real for them too.
- Can I get a stolen deposit back through the Spanish courts, not just my bank?
- A criminal complaint for fraud under article 251 opens a route to getting your money back inside the same criminal case. Your lawyer can pursue this alongside, or instead of, a separate civil claim. Getting the money back is never guaranteed, especially once it has left Spain. This is exactly why the checks above exist: to prevent the loss in the first place, not to fix it afterward.
- I found a much cheaper version of a listing I like reposted somewhere informal, like a Facebook group. Should I assume it is one of these scams?
- Not automatically. Most of the time, this is exactly the old, mispriced or duplicated-listing pattern the site’s advertising guide explains, not fraud. It becomes criminal fraud only when someone asks you to pay, or sign, before you or your lawyer can check who they really are. Treat the repost as a lead worth checking, not as proof of either pattern on its own.
