Property care after buying in Costa del Sol
Signing at the notary is not where our work ends. We help you take the property over, get it working, and deal with the things that arrive in the first few weeks and in the years after that. Most of it costs you nothing: the ordinary help, the answers and the contacts stay free for as long as you own the place. Three things are a paid service you can order or not, which are looking after an empty property, cleaning and maintenance, and short-term rental. This page is the map of the whole of it.
What happens after the keys, and who does it
The purchase has a clear end. Ownership does not. A property here comes with a community of owners, a set of annual charges, a tax filing you may not know about, a building that needs things doing to it, and a country where the ordinary way of getting something dealt with is not the one you grew up with. Most of what a new owner needs in the first two years is not a service. It is knowing who to call and what is normal.That is what this page is. It sets out the eleven things people actually come back to us with after the keys, the fourteen categories of people we can put you in touch with, which three of those we do ourselves, and what any of it costs. The short answer on cost is that the help, the answers and the contacts are free, and three specific jobs are a paid service you can take or leave.It is worth saying why we do the free half, because "we care about our clients" is not a reason anybody should believe. A large part of our new business arrives through people we have already helped, and we are paid from the seller side of a purchase rather than by you, so a client who is still glad about their property in five years is worth considerably more to us than the difference on any single deal. That is also why we would rather talk you out of a property than into one. A home you should not have bought becomes our problem too.
One wording note that runs through everything below. We stay your contact for tax, legal and technical matters. We do not do them. The lawyer and the tax adviser do that work, and part of what we are useful for is knowing which of them a given question belongs to.
What is free and what is a paid service?Free: the answers, the contacts, the introductions, help working out who is responsible for something, and being the person on this coast you can ring. Paid: looking after an empty property, cleaning and maintenance, and running a short-term rental. Those three are ordinary commercial services with their own pages and prices, and nothing about the free half depends on whether you buy them.
How long does the help last?For as long as you own the property. There is no period and no expiry, which sounds like marketing until you look at what it actually consists of: answering questions and passing on phone numbers, from people who live here anyway. We still hear from buyers from years ago, usually about something that has nothing to do with the property, and that is the point of it.
Do I have to use the people you recommend?No, and plenty of clients do not. Bring your own lawyer, your own architect, your own plumber. What we recommend are people we work with ourselves and would use on our own property, and we take no commission from any of them for the introduction. If you have somebody you already trust, that is usually better than anybody we could suggest.
Who we can put you in touch with
Some things we do directly and for the rest we have specialists we use ourselves. When you need a lawyer, an architect or a tax adviser, we introduce you to somebody we trust, and we stay your main contact and keep an eye on the parts joining up. Fourteen categories, and we do three of them ourselves.
| What you need | Who does it | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Referred, and the introduction is free | ||
| Lawyers | A law firm we work with regularly, or your own | Their fee. We take no commission for the introduction, and we say so on the homepage. |
| Tax advisers | A tax adviser | Their fee. The annual filings are theirs, not ours, and this page never quietly becomes tax advice. |
| Mortgage advisers | A broker who places Spanish mortgages for non-residents | Their fee, where there is one. |
| Technical inspectors | An independent inspector | Their fee. Usually before you buy rather than after. |
| Architects | An architect we work with | Their fee. Needed sooner than people expect on anything structural. |
| Tradespeople | Plumbers, electricians, air conditioning, locksmiths, painters | The contact is free. Having us book, supervise and re-check the work is the paid service. |
| Ours. We do the work ourselves, and it is a paid service | ||
| Property management and keys | Us. Our own team | A monthly fee. Its own page, with the price on it. |
| Short-term rentals | Us. Our own team | A commission on what the property earns. Its own page. |
| Cleaning | Us. Our own employed cleaners | Priced per job. Its own page. |
| Referred, and the introduction is free | ||
| Pool and garden maintenance | Contractors we use on our own properties | Their price. Check first whether your community fee already covers it. |
| Insurance | A specialist who will go through the cover with you | The premium. The introduction is free. |
| Energy and internet transfers | Your lawyer does the transfers after the purchase; we help when something later goes wrong | Part of the legal work you are already paying for. |
| Registering a car with Spanish plates | A gestor who does this all day | Their fee. Relevant the moment you stop being a visitor. |
| Doctors, schools, veterinarians | Us, from living here | 0 €. It is a conversation, not a service. |
Free, and paid, drawn properly
The homepage says it in one sentence: the ordinary help and the contacts stay free, and property management, cleaning and short-term rental are a paid service you can order or not. That is easy to write and harder to draw, so here is the line in the places where owners actually meet it.The difference is never knowledge. It is somebody physically being at your property, and time.
Free, for as long as you own itA paid service
- We tell you who to call, in any of the fourteen categories above
- We call them, agree the time, open the door and check the work afterwards.
- We explain what the letter from the community says and what a derrama is
- We read every set of minutes as they arrive and answer the administrator in Spanish on your behalf.
- We tell you what an empty property here needs looking at and how often
- Somebody of ours holds a key and walks through it on a schedule, with photographs after every visit.
- We tell you whether your community and your licence allow short-term rental at all
- We run the renting: the listing, the pricing, the guests, the changeovers and the monthly payout.
- We answer a question about a doctor, a school, a vet, a restaurant or a form you were sent
- There is no paid version of this. It is not a service and it never will be.
Saying no to the paid half does not make the free half worse. We were free to you through the entire purchase and we expect to still be here in five years, so selling you something you did not need would be a bad trade for us as well as for you.
The tradesman question, which is where the line actually falls
This is the thing owners ask about most, and it is the one place where free and paid sit a centimetre apart. Giving you the number of a plumber we use ourselves is free, and it stays free whether you ever pay us for anything or not. You do not have to start every problem by looking for somebody unknown on the internet, and that has never been conditional on buying a service.What is paid is everything that happens after the number. Calling him, agreeing a slot, being at the property with a key, staying while he works, and going back later to check that the ceiling is dry. That is an afternoon of somebody’s time rather than a message, and it is the only version of the two that ends with the problem definitely fixed while you are in Czechia.
Who is responsible for what
Most of the confusion in the first year is not about how something works. It is about whose job it is. This is the map we would give you on the phone.
| The job | Whose it is | What we do about it |
|---|---|---|
| The paperwork after the transfer, and putting the utilities in your name | Your lawyer | It is standard and it is part of what you already paid for. We chase it if it stalls, and we help you find out where to go when something changes later. |
| The annual tax filings, including the non-resident one | Your lawyer or a tax adviser | We make sure you know who has it and roughly when it happens. We do not file anything and we do not give tax advice. |
| Insurance: choosing it, declaring how the property is used, claiming | You, with a specialist | We introduce the specialist. Declaring that a property stands empty for months is your duty and your insurer’s rule, and it matters more here than people expect. |
| The community fee, the rules, the votes and any derrama | The community of owners, and you as a member of it | We explain what arrives and what it will cost. Reading every set of minutes for you and answering the administrator is the paid management service. |
| IBI, the waste charge and the direct debits | You | We tell you what they are and what they run to. Watching that they are still going out is the paid service. |
| Repairs, and anything a trade has to do | You pay, the tradesman does it | The contact is free. Booking, access and checking the work is the paid service. |
| Defects on a new build inside the warranty | The developer | We tell you which of the ten, three and one year windows you are in and help you document the defect. Pursuing it is between you, the developer and, if it goes badly, your lawyer. |
| Doctors, schools, the vet, the car, and everything about ordinary life here | Nobody. That is the problem | This is the part we own outright, it is free, and it is most of what people actually ring about after the first year. |
What owning costs you every year
None of this is our money and none of it is optional. It is what a property here costs its owner before anybody sells you a service, and most of it keeps running during the months you are not using the place.
| What | Roughly | What it depends on |
|---|---|---|
| IBI, the local property tax | 400 to 1.000 € and more | The cadastral value and the municipality. Paid once a year and worth putting on direct debit. |
| Community fees | 900 to 6.000 € | What the complex has: pool, gardens, lift, security, the maintenance of the common areas. The single biggest line for most owners, and it is why a cheap apartment in an expensive complex is not cheap. |
| Waste | 80 to 200 € | The municipality. Small and easy to miss until a reminder arrives. |
| Insurance | 300 to 800 € | The property, the cover, and how the property is used. An empty home has to be declared as one. |
| Energy and water | 100 to 300 € or more monthly | Use, plus standing charges that run whether anybody is there or not. |
| Non-resident tax | usually hundreds of euros | Owed even when you never let the property out. EU residents are taxed at 19 % on the calculated base. |
Do I pay tax in Spain even if I never rent the property out?Yes. It is the non-resident imputed income tax, filed on Modelo 210, and it is owed on a property you use yourself. It is usually a few hundred euros. Almost nothing explains it in your language, which is why most owners find out about it late, and it is the single most common unpleasant surprise of the first year. Your lawyer or a tax adviser files it. We say it before you buy rather than after.
Does buying a property make me a Spanish tax resident?No. Owning a property here does not, on its own, make you tax resident in Spain. Spending most of the year here is a different question and it is one for a tax adviser rather than for us.
After receiving the keys, you can also contact us about these matters
Fourteen things, in the order they tend to come up. None of them is a service you order and none of them has a price. Some are five minutes of ours, some are an introduction, and a few of them are the reason people still have our number three years later.| What | What we actually do | Who ends up doing the work |
|---|---|---|
| The property and the money | ||
| Energy, water and administration | The transfers after a purchase are standard and your lawyer handles them. What is harder is a year later, when a bill is wrong, a supply is in the wrong name or something has changed and you cannot work out who to write to. | Your lawyer for the transfers. Us for working out where to go when something later goes wrong. |
| Taxes | The annual obligations are a lawyer’s or a tax adviser’s job. Ours is making sure you know who has it, that it exists at all, and roughly when in the year it happens. | A lawyer or a tax adviser. We are not either of those and do not pretend to be. |
| Insurance | Cover here has specifics that catch people out, particularly around a property that stands empty for long stretches and what has to be declared. | A specialist we introduce you to, who goes through it with you. No commission to us. |
| Property management | If you are not here all year, somebody has to hold keys, look at the property, deal with the community and let people in. | Us, and it is a paid service with its own page. The advice about whether you need it at all is free. |
| Renting | Whether the property can be let at all depends on the licence and on your community, and that answer comes before any conversation about income. | Checking whether it is possible is free. Running the renting is a paid service with its own page. |
| Spanish will | A Spanish property passes under Spanish succession rules unless you say otherwise. The EU succession regulation lets you choose the law of your nationality instead, which for a Czech owner means Czech succession law, and that choice only exists if it has been written down. The place it is written down is a will made before a Spanish notary and entered in the central register of wills. Without one, your heirs are running a foreign probate with translations and apostilles at the worst possible moment in their lives. | A lawyer drafts it and a notary registers it. Ours is telling you it exists, because almost nobody arrives knowing about it, and it is a short and inexpensive document set against what its absence costs. It is the single most common referral we make in the first year. |
| The building and what is in it | ||
| Tradespeople and repairs | Plumber, electrician, air conditioning, pool, garden, or something bigger. You should not have to start by looking for a stranger online. | The contact is free. Booking, access and re-checking the work is the paid service. |
| Furnishing and interior | Whether you are furnishing the whole property or adding a few things, the difference between a good supplier here and a bad one is months. | People and suppliers we have worked with ourselves, introduced. An interior designer if the job is the whole property. |
| Living here, which is most of it after the first year | ||
| Doctors and healthcare | A GP, a dentist, a specialist or a hospital, at the point where you need one rather than in advance, usually with somebody unwell in the room. And before any of that, the step people skip: being in a system at all. A Czech pensioner who moves here comes in on an S1 issued at home, somebody working here comes in through Spanish social security, and somebody who is neither takes private cover or pays into the public system under the convenio especial. Which of those you are decides whether you end up with a health card or a policy, and a European card in your wallet is for visits, not for living here. | Us, from living here. Free, and one of the things people are most relieved to be able to ask. Registering is your own act, at the health centre or with the insurer, and what we do is tell you which of the routes above is yours before you spend a morning queueing at the wrong desk. |
| Digital certificate or Cl@ve | Almost everything the Spanish state does now happens online and behind an identity: the tax office, the town hall, the cadastre, the traffic authority, your own IBI receipts and certificates. Without a digital certificate or a Cl@ve identity you depend on somebody else for every one of them, including the ones that take two minutes, and it is the quiet reason non-residents end up paying a professional for errands. | Your lawyer, who does these as a matter of course. Which route is open to you depends on where you are and what identification you hold, so we tell you which applies and whether it is worth having in your situation at all, and then we put it to your lawyer rather than sending you to a stranger with it. |
| Empadronamiento and residence registration | The padrón is the town hall’s register of who lives at an address, and Spanish administration asks for it before a great many ordinary things: a health card, a school place, a resident parking permit, local discounts. There is a second and separate step for an EU citizen who is moving here rather than visiting, the certificado de registro for stays over three months. Buying a property puts you in neither register, and nobody at the notary mentions it. | Your lawyer again. We tell you whether you need it at all, which most holiday owners do not, and where you do, it goes to the lawyer who handled your purchase rather than becoming your morning at a town hall counter. |
| Schools and family life | International, British and Spanish schools, nurseries, and the ordinary logistics of children on this coast. Terms, waiting lists and catchments do not work the way they do at home. | Us, helping you get your bearings. The choice is yours and we have no interest in any of them. |
| Restaurants and places worth visiting | After a while you stop asking us about the property. Where to eat, which beach, where to take visitors, what to do at the weekend. | Us. We live here, so ask. |
| Everyday life in Spain | The letter you do not understand, the form that needs stamping, the thing everybody local considers obvious and nobody ever explains. | Us, and when we do not know the answer we will usually know who does. That sentence is the whole of this page. |
What to expect over time
The questions change as the years pass, and they change in a fairly predictable order. This is the shape of it rather than a schedule, because the timing depends on the property and on how much you are here.Step 15 of 15, and beyond
- The first daysHandover of the keysHandover, checking the state of the property, the inventory, electricity, water and internet, insurance, and the access cards and keys. Most of it is the lawyer’s work or ours and it happens around you, but this is also the week to write down and photograph anything that is not right.New buildThe warranty clocks start now: ten years on the structure, three on the installations, one on the finish. Snagging happens either before the transfer or just after it, depending on the developer. Anything you find in the first months is worth documenting properly, because a defect with a date and a photograph is a different conversation later than a defect you remember noticing.ResaleChange the locks. You cannot know how many copies of the old key exist. This is also the moment to have the community’s zero-debt certificate on file and to confirm the utility accounts are genuinely in your name rather than still in the seller’s.
- When something does not workThe first monthsDefects, warranty claims, the developer, tradesmen and the documentation. The useful question here is almost never how to fix something. It is who should be paying for it: the developer under the warranty, the community out of the fee you already pay, your insurer, or you.
- When you are not hereFrom your first departureAn empty property, ordinary upkeep, access for anyone who has to get inside, and renting it out if you want to and the community allows it. This is the stage where the three paid services live, and it is also the stage where plenty of owners find that a good complex with staff on site already covers most of it.
- Everyday lifeYear one and beyondSchools, doctors, services and local administration. This is the part people do not anticipate before they own something here, and it becomes the majority of what we are asked about after the first year. It is free, it is not a service, and it is mostly a phone call.
- Every yearAnnuallyDeadlines, taxes and charges, with your lawyer or your tax adviser. IBI, the waste charge, the community fee, insurance renewal and the non-resident filing. Ours is knowing that they exist and who holds each one; the filing itself belongs to the professional you appointed.
- And perhaps again one dayIn a few yearsThe history of the property, the documentation and preparing to sell. You can sell whenever you like; the question is at what price and how quickly. A property with a file behind it, invoices, reports, works and warranties, sells differently from one with a story. As a non-resident, expect costs and taxes on the sale itself, and take that to your lawyer early rather than late.
What happens after signing
The same purchase, the same week at the notary, and what the next three years look like.| The seller's agent | Arevont | |
|---|---|---|
| After completion | His role generally ends. He was paid by the seller and the seller no longer owns the property. | We stay with you after the keys are handed over. It is the same relationship, without a transaction at the end of it. |
| Who finds you a tradesman in two years | Nobody. You start with a search engine, in Spanish. | We put you in touch with people we work with ourselves, and the introduction is free. |
| Who tells you where to go to a doctor | Nobody. It is not what an agency does. | We do, along with schools, the vet, and the form you do not understand. |
| The language it happens in | Usually Spanish or English. | Czech, from people who are on this coast. |
| Who is physically here | Whoever is in the office that week, if there is an office. | We live here all year, since 2019, not a week a year. |
| What it costs | 0 €, and there is nothing to get. | 0 € for the ordinary help. Three services are paid and you can order them or not. |
The questions change, and that is the whole service
This is a pattern rather than a client, and we are not presenting it as one. It is what the messages from an owner tend to look like as the years pass, and it is the clearest description we can give of what "aftercare" actually is when nobody is selling anything.- The first weeks: the propertyHow the community works, why the electricity bill looks like that, whether the mark on the ceiling matters, what the letter that arrived is. Frequent, short, and almost all of it is either the lawyer’s work already in progress or something we can answer in a sentence.
- The first year: the practicalitiesA plumber. A dentist. Whether the annual tax thing has been done and by whom. Where to buy the thing that does not exist here under the name you know it by. A school, if children are involved. This is where the fourteen categories earn their place.
- Year two and three: the coastWhere to eat when the in-laws visit. Which beach in August. Whether the roadworks affect anything. Whether the new development up the road changes the view, and quietly, what the property might now be worth. Almost none of this is property agency work and all of it is why the number is still in the phone.
- And sometimes, later, the property againA bigger place, a second one, a sale, or a friend from home who is now asking the same questions you were asking four years ago. That last one is where a large part of our new business comes from, which is the honest commercial reason the rest of this page is free.
In three years, you will not need to look for someone to call.
What it costs
- You0 € for the ordinary help on this page. No retainer, no membership, nothing to sign, and no expiry. The three paid services are ordinary commercial services you can order or not, and each has its own page and its own price.
- The sellerOur commission on a purchase is paid from the seller side, which is why the buyer pays us nothing, before or after. It is also why we would rather you bought the right property: we are not paid more for a worse one.
- ArevontA long relationship is worth more to us than the difference on one deal, and a large share of new clients arrives through people we already helped. That is the commercial logic of the free half, stated plainly rather than sentimentally.
Nothing on this page requires you to have taken anything else from us. The management, the cleaning and the renting are genuinely optional, and choosing none of them does not change the free half in any way.What the free half is not: it is free advice, free introductions and free answers. It is not free labour. The moment somebody of ours has to be at your property with a key and stay there, it is one of the paid services, and this page would rather draw that line clearly than blur it and disappoint you later.
You will continue to receive basic help and contacts from us free of charge.
The limits of this, said plainly
We are not your lawyer and we are not your tax adviser. The annual filings and anything legal are done by professionals you appoint, and our own homepage is deliberate about the wording: we stay your contact for these things rather than claiming to do them. If you ever get tax advice from an estate agent, from us or from anybody else, treat it as a warning sign.The Modelo 210 is the one that catches people. It is owed on a property you use yourself and never rent out, almost nothing explains it in your language and most owners find out about it after the first year rather than before they buy. We would rather tell you now, while it is a few hundred euros a year of expected cost, than have it arrive as a surprise later.The costs of owning run whether you are here or not. The community fee, the IBI, the insurance and the standing charges on the utilities do not pause for the eight months you are in Czechia, and that arithmetic is worth doing honestly before you decide whether the property should be earning something.Free means advice and contacts, not somebody at your door. That distinction runs through this whole page and we would rather repeat it once too often than have you discover it at the moment you need a plumber let in.And a limit on the free half itself: this only works because we live here and the number of buyers we work with is small. If you ring us with something that needs a professional, you will get a name and not an opinion. That is not us being unhelpful, it is the difference between being useful and being confident about something we are not qualified for.
The most common questions about care after purchase
- What can you help me with after the purchase, exactly?
- The eleven things in the checklist on this page, which run from utilities, taxes and insurance through tradesmen and furnishing to doctors, schools, restaurants and whatever the letter you were sent means. Some of that is us doing something small, and most of it is an introduction to a person we already work with. The ordinary help, the answers and the contacts are free.
- Who transfers the electricity and water into my name after the purchase?
- Your lawyer, as part of the completion work you have already paid for. It is standard and you should not need to organise it. What is less standard is what happens a year later when a bill is wrong or a supply is still in the previous owner’s name, and that is the point where we are useful: we help you find out who to write to and what to say.
- Will you recommend a doctor and a school?
- Yes, and it is one of the most common things we are asked once the property itself is settled. GPs, dentists, specialists, hospitals, and international, British or Spanish schools and nurseries. We tell you what people we know have actually experienced. The decision is yours and we have no arrangement with any of them.
- Can you help with re-registering a car onto Spanish plates?
- We can point you at a gestor who does it all day, which is the right way to handle it. It comes up the moment somebody stops visiting and starts living here, along with the driving licence, and it is one of those jobs where the difference between the right office and the wrong one is several weeks.
- What do I have to pay every year?
- IBI, the community fee, the waste charge, insurance, electricity and water, and as a non-resident, the annual tax filing. The table on this page has the ranges. For an apartment the community fee is usually the largest of them and the one that varies most, because it depends entirely on what the complex has to maintain.
- How do I reach you after the keys?
- The same way you reached us before them, with the same people. We are not going to publish a guaranteed response time we have not built, because a promise like that is easy to write and expensive to keep in August. What we will say is that we live on this coast all year and you are dealing with the same two people, not a ticket queue.
- What happens if I want to sell in two or three years?
- You can sell whenever you want. The real question is at what price and how quickly, and that is largely decided on the day you buy rather than the day you sell. As a non-resident, there are costs and taxes attached to the sale itself, and those are for your lawyer to set out for your situation. What we can do is make sure the property has a documented history behind it, which is worth real money to the next buyer’s lawyer.
- Why is any of this free?
- Because we are paid from the seller side of a purchase and because a large share of our new clients comes through people we have already helped. A client who is still glad about their property in five years is worth more to us than the difference on any single deal. It is also the reason we will argue with you about a property we think is wrong: we are the ones who would be dealing with it afterwards too.
