According to www.homesoverseas.co.uk, it is a legal requirement for foreigners to acquire a fiscal identification number (known as an NIE, or Numero de Identificacion de Extranjero) when buying a property in Spain, often applied for at the beginning of the buying process but frequently not until well after the transaction was completed.

Now, however, the law has been changed and obliges property buyers in Spain to get their NIE before completion, so that the usual time scale of around two to six weeks to be given your number must be factored into the buying process.

The NIE is necessary in order to identify buyers to the Spanish tax authorities and is also a requirement when setting up utilities, applying for a driving licence, starting a business and when purchasing anything over the value of €3,000 (around £2,000). Application for your NIE can be made at many police stations or provincial Foreigners’ Offices in Spain, or from the Spanish Consulate from the UK.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Spain, property market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.