How long does an internet install take, and is fibre available?

Fibre coverage in Spain is high and the copper network was switched off entirely in 2025, so on the coast fibre is the normal fixed option rather than a premium one. The install is an engineer’s appointment and in our own experience runs from a couple of days to about ten. In a just-completed urbanisation the line may not reach the street yet, and then no useful estimate exists.

On a resale property, do the supplies transfer, or is a new contract opened?

They transfer. The regulation is explicit that a holder with proper title changes the existing contract into his name without further formalities, and that it may not be treated as a termination followed by a new connection. That matters because a termination and a new connection is the expensive, slow version.

Who calls the supplier if something breaks while I am in Czechia?

If it is a network fault, the supplier or the distributor. If it is inside the property, an electrician or a plumber. You can call us either way and we will tell you which of the two it is and who to ring. If you would rather not have that conversation at all, property management is a paid service and includes renting a tradesman in.

What will I pay every year?

IBI, community fees, refuse, insurance, energy and water, and as a non-resident a Spanish tax obligation as well. Energy and water is the only line we publish monthly, at 100 to 300 € and sometimes more, because it behaves differently from the rest.

Can the lawyer do all of it, or do I have to deal with anybody myself?

The electricity and the water, yes, as part of the standard post-completion work. The internet is the one where somebody usually ends up choosing a package and being present for the install, and if that is difficult from Czechia it is worth saying so early rather than discovering it in the first week.

Services

Changing utility contracts in Spain after buying a property

Signing at the notary is not the end of the work. The property still has to be handed over and made usable, and that means the electricity, the water and the internet in your name and paid by direct debit from a Spanish account. Your lawyer does those transfers as standard post-completion work, so on most purchases this is already paid for. What we do is make sure it happens in the first days rather than the first months, and stay the person you call when something goes wrong three years later.

Who actually does the transfer

We do not transfer your electricity. Your independent lawyer does, as part of the post-completion work he is already being paid for, and on most purchases that is the end of the story. We say that plainly because the alternative is selling you a service you have already bought.The reason the page exists anyway is that four different organisations are involved and none of them talks to the others. Knowing which one owns which problem is the difference between a phone call and a fortnight.

What has to happen	Who does it	What that means for you
In the first days after the keys
Electricity into your name	The lawyer, with the supply company	On a resale property this is a change of holder on the existing contract. On a brand-new build with no supply yet it is a first connection, which is a different job with a different price and a different timescale.
Water into your name	The lawyer, with the municipal water company	Who that company is depends on the town. It is not one supplier for the whole coast, which is the first thing to establish rather than assume.
Internet installed	You, or the lawyer if you ask	The only one of the three with a real waiting time, and the only one that can simply not exist yet in a just-finished urbanisation.
The direct debits	The lawyer, against your Spanish account	Ask for every supply to be on direct debit from day one. An unpaid bill can lead to a disconnection, and reversing a disconnection from another country is slow and unpleasant.
IBI into your name at the town hall	The lawyer, with the town hall and the cadastre	The annual property tax follows the property, so a bill issued to the previous owner does not become somebody else’s problem just because you now own the flat. The change of holder is filed at the town hall, the cadastral record is updated to your name, and the payment goes onto direct debit from your Spanish account. Get all three done together. A missed IBI on a property nobody visits is the single most common way a surcharge quietly attaches itself to a Czech-owned apartment here.
Telling the community you own the flat	The lawyer, with the administrator	The administrator has to be told who the new owner is, where to reach you and which account the fee comes out of. It is the same first-week job as the utilities and it gets forgotten because nobody sends a bill for doing it. Without it the notices, the meeting dates and the first demand all go to an address that is no longer anybody, and the first you hear of a special levy is a debt.
Billed separately, by somebody else
The refuse charge, the basura	The town hall	Not a utility company at all, which is why it arrives separately and catches people out. We publish it at 80 to 200 € a year.
Water, light and upkeep of the shared areas	The community of owners	Inside the community fee, not on your bill. The pool, the gardens, the lift and the corridor lighting are paid collectively and have their own subject.
Later, when something changes
A supply that stops working	The supplier, or an electrician or plumber	A fault on the network is the distributor’s. A fault inside the property is yours, and it needs a tradesman who will actually turn up.
Reviewing the contracted power	You, with the supplier. We say when it is worth doing	The fixed part of a Spanish electricity bill is charged per kilowatt of contracted power, so a second home carrying the power level a full-time family needed is paying every month for capacity nobody uses. Lowering it is a request to the supplier rather than a building job. This is the direct answer to the empty-property costs further down this page, and it is worth looking at once rather than never.
Finding out who to call	Arevont	This row is the whole service. When something changes later or a problem appears, we help you work out where to turn, and if we do not know we will usually know who does. It stays free.

Insurance sits next to these in the same list of first-week jobs and is a separate service with a separate page, because it is a separate decision and a separate search.

Property insurance

Who transfers the electricity and water after completion?The lawyer, as standard. It is part of the post-completion administration he handles along with the tax obligations, and it is inside work you are already paying for. We stay your contact here on the coast, so when something changes later or a problem appears you know who to ask.

Do I need a Spanish bank account for the supplies?In practice yes. You will need a Spanish account for the electricity, the water, the community fees and any mortgage, because that is how they are all paid. It has a page of its own rather than a paragraph here.

Three supplies, three completely different jobs, and sometimes a fourth

Foreign buyers reasonably expect one errand. It is three, and the third one is the only one that can hold you up.

Electricity: a national supplier, a national contractThe retailers are national names and every one of them has its own tariffs. On an existing supply the job is a change of holder on the contract that is already there, and your lawyer can arrange it. What decides the monthly bill as much as your usage is the contracted power, which is charged whether you use it or not.
Water: municipal, and it changes with the town hallWater is supplied by a municipal company or a concession, and which one depends on the municipality. On this coast that can mean a public company, a mixed one or a private operator within a few kilometres, so the honest answer to the question "who is my water company" is that it depends on the address.
Internet: the only one with a queueElectricity and water are almost always physically there. A fixed line may not be. Fibre coverage in Spain is high and copper has been switched off entirely, so on the coast fibre is not an upgrade, it is the only fixed option. The install is still an appointment with an engineer, and in our own experience it runs from a couple of days to about ten.
Gas: sometimes there is none, and it is worth knowing whichPlenty of apartments on this coast have no gas at all and run everything on electricity, which is one fewer contract to think about. Where there is gas it arrives in one of three ways and they are not the same job. A bottle of butano, bought and swapped rather than contracted, and there is nothing to transfer. A communal supply for the building, which is billed through the community rather than to you. Or a piped or tank supply with a contract of its own, which needs a change of holder the same way the electricity does, and on a tank somebody also has to know who owns and inspects it. Establish which of the four situations you are in before completion, because "there is gas" and "there is a gas contract" are different sentences.
And two things that are not utilities at allThe refuse charge is a town hall tax and arrives on its own. The water, lighting and upkeep of the shared areas come through the community fee. Neither is on a supply bill, and mistaking them for one is why people think a bill has gone missing.

Is the refuse charge part of my utilities?No. Refuse collection is charged by the town hall, not by a utility company. We publish it in our annual running-cost table at 80 to 200 € a year, separately from the 100 to 300 € a month for energy and water.

A transfer and a new connection are not the same thing

One line in our published purchase-cost tables reads "transfer and connection of utilities" and puts about 600 € against it, the same figure on a new build and on a resale property. That single line hides two completely different jobs, and the difference is worth understanding before you plan the first weeks.What follows is what the regulation and the network operators publish themselves, rather than what the comparison sites repeat. Where nothing is published we say so.

What buyers assumeWhat the sources actually publish

Putting the electricity in my name costs money: The distributor is not allowed to charge for it. The Spanish electricity supply regulation that came into force in February 2026 says in as many words that no amount may be charged for issuing the new contracts arising from a change of holder, and the same applies to the supplier on a regulated tariff. Endesa says the same on its own page: the procedure is entirely free.
They cut the supply off and reconnect it in my name: They must not. The same regulation says a holder with proper title, and a purchase deed is proper title, formalises the change of the existing contract into his name without further formalities, and that this may in no case be treated as a termination followed by a new connection. If somebody proposes a disconnection and a fresh connection on a supply that is already working, that is a conversation to have with your lawyer.
On an older property they will demand a new electrical certificate: This is the most repeated claim on the subject and the regulation contradicts it. For a change of holder on a low-voltage contract more than twenty years old, where the technical conditions and the tariff arrangement are unchanged, the distributor may not require a new installation certificate or an inspection. Nor may any advance payment be demanded.
A new build is the same, just newer: It is the opposite. Where no supply has ever existed, the property needs a first connection: an electrical installation certificate, the occupancy documents, the cadastral reference, and payment of the network extension charge, published by the local distributor at 17,37 € per kW. The connection number itself, the CUPS, is issued by the distributor once its works are finished, so it is not something you can supply in advance.
And that takes a few days too: The distributor’s own guide gives response times of under three weeks for ordinary domestic power and execution times of four to eight weeks depending on what has to be built. It then says the plain thing everybody leaves out: obtaining the necessary licences and permits can take three to six months, and that sits outside those timescales. On a brand-new urbanisation, plan around that rather than around the four weeks.
Water works the same way as electricity: On the free part, yes. Andalusian regulation lets the holder ask for the change of holder on the same contract against proof of identity and of the right to occupy, and says the supplier may charge nothing for it beyond updating the deposit. A genuinely new water contract is different again: there is a contracting charge set by a formula on the meter size, plus connection rights. Same distinction as the electricity, same reason to know which of the two you are in.
So the water costs nothing to put in my name either: Almost. The change itself is free, but the supplier is allowed to update the deposit, the fianza, and on a change of holder that is a real payment leaving your account in the first weeks. It is a deposit and not a charge, so it is returned when the contract is eventually closed, and the amount is set by each water company’s own approved tariff rather than nationally. Ask what it is for your municipality rather than assuming it is nothing, because it is the one line in this whole process that surprises people who were told the transfer was free.
So how long does the transfer take: Nobody publishes a maximum. The regulation sets none for a change of holder and no supplier we can quote gives one. Every confident "seven to ten days" you will find online traces back to a comparison website, so it is not on this page. What we would say is that it is measured in days rather than months, and that it depends on the supply having a clean history.

The practical consequence is a single question to settle before you plan anything: is there already a working supply at this address. On a resale property there almost always is, the transfer is free at the distributor’s end and the job is paperwork. On a brand-new build there is not, somebody has to pay to bring it in, and the licences are the part that decides the date.

Handover coordination

Sources

What is different on a brand-new build?Everything about the electricity. A resale property has a working supply and the transfer is free at the distributor’s end. A new build may have no supply at all, which means a first connection: an installation certificate, the occupancy paperwork and a network extension charge. The licences behind it can run to months, so it is the developer’s and the lawyer’s timetable rather than yours.

What you pay for when nobody is there

This is the single thing foreign buyers are told least often, and it is not a small number. A property here carries fixed charges that run whether anybody is in it or not, and for an apartment used a few weeks a year they can be most of what the utilities cost over the year.Our own published range for energy and water is 100 to 300 € a month and sometimes more, and that is the only line in our annual-cost table given monthly rather than yearly. Part of it is consumption. The rest is below.

What keeps running	Where it comes from	What it depends on
The fixed term on the electricity	Charged per kilowatt of contracted power	You pay for the power you have available, not for the power you use. The Spanish energy regulator states this plainly. It is also the one lever an empty second home can actually pull: contracted power that is too high is money leaving every month for nothing.
The meter rental	A separate line on every electricity bill	The regulator lists it as one of the five components of the bill alongside the energy, the regulated costs, the retailer margin and the taxes. Small, permanent, and it does not care whether the property is occupied.
The taxes on the electricity	VAT and the special electricity tax	Both are percentages of the bill and both moved during 2026, so any figure has to carry a date. As of June 2026 the VAT on electricity is 21 % and the electricity tax is 5,1 %. Check the current rates rather than assuming these.
The standing charge on the water	The service charge in the Andalusian water regulation	Defined as the amount users pay periodically for having the supply available, whether or not they use the service. It is regulation, not a supplier’s choice, which is why switching provider is not an option here: there is only one.
The community fee	The community of owners	Not a utility, but it behaves the same way. The pool, the gardens and the lift are paid for by the month regardless of whether you swam in it. We publish 900 to 6.000 € a year and this is often the biggest difference between two apartments at the same price.

A new build helps here in a way the brochures undersell. The best energy classes mean lower consumption and lower bills, and a resale property from an older decade means the opposite. It is one of the few running costs you choose at the moment of purchase rather than manage afterwards.And a property that stands empty for months needs someone to walk into it: air it out, check for damp, and be somebody the community can actually reach. That is a separate paid service and it is not required, but the reason it exists is on this page.

Annual ownership costs

Do I pay anything when the property is empty?Yes, and it is the point most foreign buyers miss. Both the electricity and the water carry fixed charges that run regardless of consumption, and the community fee runs regardless of everything. Our published range of 100 to 300 € a month for energy and water is consumption plus those standing charges.

What has to exist before a transfer is even possible

None of this can start on the day you pick up the keys unless three things are already in place. They are the same three every time, and they are the reason the paperwork earlier in the purchase is not busywork.

Your NIEYour Spanish identification number. It goes on the supply contract the same way it goes on the deed. It is filed by the lawyer alongside the legal due diligence rather than after it, precisely so that nothing later is waiting on it.
A Spanish bank accountYou will need a Spanish account for the electricity, the water, the community fees and any mortgage. The supply companies expect a direct debit against a local account, and setting every supply up that way from the first day is the single best protection against a disconnection you find out about from two thousand kilometres away.
The CUPS number of the propertyThe unique reference for the supply point at that address. On a resale property it is on the seller’s bill and it identifies exactly which meter is being transferred. On a new build it does not exist yet: the distributor issues it once its own works are finished.
And a meter reading at handoverTake the readings the day the property changes hands, with photographs, and keep them with the inventory. It is thirty seconds of work and it is the only evidence of where one owner’s consumption stopped and the next one’s began.

Opening a bank account

Do I need a NIE and a Spanish account for this?The NIE yes, and in practice the account too. Our own answer elsewhere on the site is that the NIE is required for the purchase and the Spanish account is very useful, and the utilities are exactly where "very useful" turns into "you will want this".

What has to be to hand

Your lawyer normally holds all of this already, because it is the same paperwork the purchase produced. These are the three that every change of holder needs, whichever supply it is. The full list, including what a brand-new build needs on top and what the internet install asks for, is on the guide.

What is needed	Who is asking for it	How it usually goes
Your NIE and your passport or ID	Every supply company, on every contract.	The lawyer already has both from the purchase.
The deed, or the private purchase contract	The supply company, as evidence that you have the right to hold the contract.	Proper title is what makes the change of holder a formality rather than a negotiation.
The CUPS number, from the previous bill	The electricity or gas supplier, to identify the exact meter.	Ask the seller for a recent bill during the handover. It is easier than obtaining it afterwards.

On a resale property almost none of this touches you: the lawyer works from the purchase file. It matters most on a brand-new build, where the documents belong to the developer and the delay belongs to the licences, and that is the case the guide sets out in full.

All six documents, step by step

Where this sits in the purchase

The full purchase is fifteen steps from the first call to the keys. This page owns the last one, and it starts at the one before it. Steps one to thirteen belong to other pages.

Steps 14 and 15 of 15

The notary and the keysCompletion day
The deed is signed, the balance is paid and the property is yours. This is also the moment the meters change hands, which is why the readings and the photographs belong in the same hour as the keys rather than in the following week. We are there on the day watching the handover through.
Now it is truly yoursFrom the first day
The lawyer completes the post-completion administration, transfers the utilities and helps with the annual tax obligations. We stay your contact here on the coast. At the start you will ask us about the property. Later it may be which tradesman to call, where to go to the doctor, or where to eat, and that is fine.

The entire buying process, step by step

Doing it yourself, or with us

The same three supplies, handled two ways.

	On your own	With Arevont
After the sale completes	The selling agent’s role generally ends at completion, and the transfers are somebody else’s problem.	We stay with you after the keys, and the lawyer who did the purchase does the transfers as part of it.
The language it happens in	Spanish or English, with a supply company’s call centre, on their timetable.	Czech, from the first call to the keys, with people who are on this coast.
Working out who to call	Four organisations, none of which knows what the others do, and no way to tell which one owns your problem.	One number. If we do not know the answer, we will usually know who does, and that stays free.
What it costs you	The transfer is free at the distributor’s end either way. What it costs is your time and your uncertainty.	Nothing extra. As a buyer you never pay us, and the transfers sit inside work the lawyer is already doing.
Three years later	A bill you do not understand, from a company you did not know you had a contract with.	The same person you bought through, still here, still answering the phone.

How it works

From the keys to a working flat, in order

This is not a client story and we are not presenting it as one. It is the sequence the process allows, put in order, so you can see which parts are quick and where you would actually notice if nobody was watching. Three steps, and they are the three we run.

At the notary, the readingsElectricity and water readings photographed on the day, with the meter numbers, filed with the inventory. This is the whole defence against an argument about somebody else’s consumption, and it takes half a minute.
The same week, the change of holderThe lawyer files the electricity and water transfers from the purchase file: the deed, your NIE, the CUPS, the meter number, your Spanish IBAN. On a resale property with a working supply the distributor cannot charge for this and it is paperwork rather than an event.
Every supply on direct debit from the startNot later, not once the first bill arrives. A missed bill on a property you visit twice a year ends in a disconnection, and undoing a disconnection from Czechia is the slowest possible version of this entire subject.

On a resale property this is a fortnight of paperwork you barely see. Two things sit outside it and both take longer than the transfers do: the internet, where availability at your exact address is not the same as coverage in the town and somebody has to be inside the flat for the install, and a brand-new urbanisation, where no supply has ever existed and the timetable belongs to the developer and the distributor. Both are set out in full on the guide. On a new build it is the part of the handover most worth asking about early, and it is one of the questions we put to a developer before you commit rather than after.

How much does it cost?

Buyer0 €Our help and our contacts stay free after the keys as well. Utilities is not one of our paid services: those are property management, cleaning and short-term rental, and you can take them or leave them.
Developer or seller
New build
2,5 to 6 %
Resale properties
1,5 to 4 %
The commission is already inside the price and is paid by the seller side, whether you come through us or go direct.
ArevontOur fee is part of that commission, and only if a purchase happens. Nobody in this chain pays us for a referral.

The transfer itself is normally inside your lawyer’s post-completion work, and his fee appears on our published purchase-cost tables as one per cent of the price. At the distributor’s end a change of holder on an existing electricity supply may not be charged for at all, and the Andalusian water regulation says the same about a change of holder on water, other than updating the deposit.The line we publish for this is about 600 €, listed as "transfer and connection of utilities" and carried at the same amount on a new build and on a resale property, at every price point, with the rates dated for Andalusia. Treat it as a planning figure for the whole first-connection-and-deposits item rather than as the price of a transfer, because on a resale property the transfer part of it is free. ⚠️ Whether that should be published as two different figures is an open question for Samuel.The running cost is a different thing from the fee and is labelled as such: 100 to 300 € a month and sometimes more for energy and water, consumption plus the standing charges, on an apartment. A villa runs higher, and a pool or a garden adds to it.The calculation is indicative. Exact costs vary with the property, the municipality and the supplier.

You will continue to receive our usual help and contacts free of charge.

Straight talk

What we do not do, and what we cannot promise

Most of this is the lawyer’s job and it is already paid for. We are not selling you a transfer service and we do not perform the transfers. What we sell, in the sense that it is part of why you would use us at all, is that somebody is watching whether it happened and somebody answers the phone in three years when a bill turns up that you do not understand.The standing charges run whether you are here or not. Both the electricity and the water carry a fixed component payable regardless of consumption, and the community fee runs regardless of everything. For a property used a few weeks a year that is most of the annual utility cost, and it is the thing nobody tells a Czech second-home buyer.We will not give you a date for anything. The regulation sets no maximum for a change of holder, no supplier publishes one, and the numbers circulating online come from comparison websites rather than from anybody who has to honour them. On a brand-new build the licences behind a first connection can run into months and that is outside everybody’s control including the developer’s.Rules and rates change, and the electricity taxes changed twice during 2026 alone. What is on this page is what the sources published on the date shown beside them. Confirm anything you are going to rely on with your lawyer and with the supplier.

Frequently asked questions about transferring utilities

What does the transfer and connection cost?: We publish about 600 € in our purchase-cost tables for the transfer and connection of utilities, the same figure on a new build and on a resale property. At the distributor’s end a change of holder on an existing electricity supply may not be charged for, and the same is true of water beyond updating the deposit. So on a resale property that 600 € is mostly deposits and administration rather than a transfer fee.
How long does an internet install take, and is fibre available?: Fibre coverage in Spain is high and the copper network was switched off entirely in 2025, so on the coast fibre is the normal fixed option rather than a premium one. The install is an engineer’s appointment and in our own experience runs from a couple of days to about ten. In a just-completed urbanisation the line may not reach the street yet, and then no useful estimate exists.
On a resale property, do the supplies transfer, or is a new contract opened?: They transfer. The regulation is explicit that a holder with proper title changes the existing contract into his name without further formalities, and that it may not be treated as a termination followed by a new connection. That matters because a termination and a new connection is the expensive, slow version.
Who calls the supplier if something breaks while I am in Czechia?: If it is a network fault, the supplier or the distributor. If it is inside the property, an electrician or a plumber. You can call us either way and we will tell you which of the two it is and who to ring. If you would rather not have that conversation at all, property management is a paid service and includes renting a tradesman in.
What will I pay every year?: IBI, community fees, refuse, insurance, energy and water, and as a non-resident a Spanish tax obligation as well. Energy and water is the only line we publish monthly, at 100 to 300 € and sometimes more, because it behaves differently from the rest.
Can the lawyer do all of it, or do I have to deal with anybody myself?: The electricity and the water, yes, as part of the standard post-completion work. The internet is the one where somebody usually ends up choosing a package and being present for the install, and if that is difficult from Czechia it is worth saying so early rather than discovering it in the first week.

Not sure how far your budget really goes?

Talk it through with us