Estate agency in Benidorm, developer or builder: who sells you the flat and who answers afterwards
The person who shows you the flat is not always the one who becomes obliged to you
Search for an estate agency in Benidorm and dozens of offices appear, and almost none of them owns what it shows. The person showing you the home is usually an intermediary; the party that signs the contract and answers afterwards is someone else. Knowing which of the two is in front of you decides whom you can claim against. In a new-home purchase three distinct parties are involved with three distinct liabilities: the promotor, who decides the operation and sells; the constructor, who builds; and the dirección facultativa — architect and technical architect — who design and supervise. The agency, where there is one, is a fourth: it markets. This page separates those roles so you know which document to ask of each.
What a Spanish agency is, and what this market does differently
Intermediation in Spain is a liberalised activity: no qualifying licence is required to open an agency, so the shopfront proves nothing by itself. There are colegiados — members of the official estate agents' colleges, the API title — and there are agencies that are not, and both are legal. What distinguishes a good intermediary is not the plaque, it is what it puts in writing. Two habits from other countries do not transfer. First, there is no established buyer's-agent tradition here: the agency normally works for the seller under a written instruction, so the helpful person driving you around is on the other side of the table. That is not a defect, but it changes the weight of the advice. Second, a paper often appears before the viewing — hoja de visita or nota de encargo — and it is not a formality: it can oblige you to pay if you later buy that property by another route. Read it in full and strike out what you do not accept before you get into the lift. Before leaving documents or money in any office, ask for three things: the full company identification, not just the trading name; the document showing whom it represents and who pays it; and the information sheet on the home. And be careful with two local habits. A señal — a holding deposit handed to the agency: ask whose account it enters and what the paper says about getting it back. And the same flat advertised by several offices with different data: the reliable figure is the one in the Registro de la Propiedad, not the one on the portal.
The promotor is the party that becomes obliged; the builder puts up the building
The promotor decides, programmes and finances the works, and it is the party that sells and signs with you. The constructor takes on the physical execution with its own people and plant. They can belong to the same group or be entirely unrelated, and for you the difference is practical: the contract is signed by the promotor, and it is the promotor you claim against, even when the defect was caused by a subcontractor you never met. So the useful question in front of a scheme is not «who is building it?» but «which company am I signing with?». The brand on the hoarding may be one thing and the company on the contract another. Ask for the correspondence between the two in writing, and check that the company on the contract is the one recorded as owner of the plot.
Who answers for defects, and for how many years
The Ley de Ordenación de la Edificación, the building act, spreads liability across the parties involved and fixes three guarantee periods counted from the recepción de la obra, the formal handover of the works: one year for finishing defects, three for anything affecting habitability — damp, insulation, installations — and ten for anything structural. The point that matters most to a buyer is this: the promotor answers to the purchasers alongside the other parties, even where the fault is attributable to one of them. You do not have to establish whose fault it was in order to start claiming. For that cover to be usable you need two unglamorous papers: the acta de recepción, which fixes the date the periods start running, and the libro del edificio with the technical documentation. Ask for both and keep them. One more thing worth asking before signing: a new home in Spain carries compulsory insurance for structural damage, and finding out who holds that policy, and confirming that it exists, is a legitimate question rather than an impertinent one.
Where your money is while the building does not exist
Buying off plan means handing over sums on account for a home you cannot yet occupy. Spanish law requires that money to be paid into a special, separate account used only for the construction, and to be secured by a bank guarantee or an insurance policy in the buyer's favour. Translated into questions for the table: what is the number of the special account and in whose name is it? Who issues the guarantee or the policy, and when do I receive my individual certificate? What exactly does it cover if the works are not finished? All three have documentary answers. If the answer is «that is done at the end», what you are being asked for is an unsecured loan, and you can decide with that on the table. For a buyer paying from abroad there is a further detail: the deed will have to identify every payment one by one — amount, date and originating account — so keep each transfer receipt from the first one, and make the payments from an account in your own name.
Checking the company in half an hour, from your own desk
Almost everything you need to know about a Spanish company is public. With the exact registered name you can request an extract from the Registro Mercantil and see since when it has existed, who administers it, its registered address and its capital. With the tax identification you can confirm the number is valid, and if the company is registered in another European Union country, its VAT number is verified in the European online validation system. Then the home itself: a nota simple from the Registro de la Propiedad, which gives the registered owner, the recorded surface and any charges. Note that this is a different register from the Catastro, which describes the physical property and its surface for tax purposes and says nothing about title; foreign buyers routinely merge the two. Then the plot: at the town hall you can consult the building permit granted and its file number. If the signing company is foreign, its own national register does the same job as the Spanish one — in Lithuania, for instance, the register of legal entities lets anyone look up a company code. Three signals that deserve one more question: a seller who will not say which company signs, a scheme with no licence file number, and a reservation document with no identified account.
Why this site has a developer behind it rather than an agency
This page is published by SAVO, an investment and development group: it buys land, designs, builds, sells and then looks after what it has built. We are not an agency and we do not broker other people's sales, so you will not find a portfolio of third-party homes here. European contracts are signed by UAB Savo investicija, company code 304499183, VAT number LT100011304015, registered office at Gerosios Vilties g. 27-131, Vilnius, Lithuania. Both numbers can be checked without asking us, and that check is exactly the one we recommend making with any developer, ourselves included. There is no SAVO office in Benidorm and no Spanish telephone line; enquiries are answered in writing at [email protected]. The group has been on the market since 2006 and builds in Spain, Lithuania and the Kyiv region. In Villajoyosa, eight kilometres up the coast from Benidorm, it is designing a building that today exists in 3D visualisations and in the master plan drawing: nothing built, nothing for sale and no announced date. Saying so is cheaper than withdrawing it later.
Benidorm, Costa Blanca, Spain
- The city is built around two urban beaches, Levante and Poniente, separated by the rock of the old castle; the viewpoint on top of it is the Balcón del Mediterráneo, and the old town occupies the isthmus between the two bays.
- The vertical skyline is a planning decision rather than an accident: the plan approved in the middle of the twentieth century chose tall buildings with open ground between them instead of closed city blocks, which is why the seafront is a line of towers.
- Buyers here read the city by district before they read square metres: Levante and Rincón de Loix to the north-east, the old town in the centre, Poniente to the south-west, inland neighbourhoods such as Salto del Agua, and the western edge where the built-up area continues into the separate municipality of Finestrat.
- Tourism runs all twelve months, with a winter season of residents from northern Europe, so shops, the urban buses and medical services stay open outside the summer — which is not true of every town on this coast.
- Services in English, German and Dutch are normal rather than exceptional here — doctors, banks, trades, bars — which is the practical reason many foreign buyers start their search in this city rather than in the smaller towns around it.
- The TRAM narrow-gauge tram has its terminus in the city, linking Alicante in one direction and the Marina Alta and Dénia in the other. The AP-7 motorway and the N-332 coast road give road access, and Alicante-Elche airport is a little under an hour away.
- The housing stock mixes buildings from the nineteen-sixties and seventies with recent schemes, so buying here means looking at the age of the building, the state of the communal installations and any approved derrama — a levy voted for works — before looking at the view from the terrace.
- A large part of that stock is used only a few months a year, and it shows in the owners' associations: tight budgets, poorly attended meetings and repair decisions that drag on. The minutes of the last meeting say more about a building than its advert does.
Questions about new-build on the Costa Blanca
- 01
Is it better to work with an estate agency in Benidorm or to go to the developer?
It depends on what you want. To compare a lot of resale stock across several districts of the city, a local agency saves weeks. For a new home in one particular scheme, the developer is the party that signs and answers, and the agency only adds an interlocutor. In both cases the contract is read the same way.
- 02
Who pays the agency's commission?
Normally the seller, through a written instruction, although some agencies also charge the buyer for search services. Ask on day one and ask for it in writing: knowing who pays tells you whom the person advising you represents.
- 03
If the builder caused the defect, do I have to claim against the builder?
No. The promotor answers to the buyer alongside the other parties to the construction, so you claim against whoever sold to you and the internal apportionment of blame is their business. What you do need is the acta de recepción, because it fixes the date from which the guarantee periods run.
- 04
I do not live in Spain. Does anything change in these checks?
The checks are the same and all of them can be done remotely. What changes is your own paperwork: an NIE to sign and to pay the tax, a Spanish account to pay from, and a notarial power of attorney — apostilled and translated by a sworn translator — if you will not be present at the deed.
Ask about Benidorm
Say what you want to know about this area: what is being built, what stage it is at, or which documents to ask for before reserving. The person who handles the Spanish market answers.