Question over using a UK bank to take a mortgage on the purchase of a Spanish property ...

Hi , 

A general question about house purchase ... is it possible to use a British based bank to take out a mortgage to buy a Spanish property or is it a better option to use a local Spanish Bank to borrow on a purchase .. if so do Spanish Banks provide competitive mortgage deals or are there any other reasonable options... many thanks Imee  

Finding a British bank who would provide a mortgage on a Spanish property may be few and far between, if any. Usually a British mortgage is written under English law and therefore would have possible legal problems within Spanish law.

If you have a UK property the easy option would be to remortgage it and use the funds for your Spanish purchase.

Spanish banks do provide mortgages, however many got their fingers burnt in the 2008 financial property crash so now they are strict who they lend to and the rates may not be so generous.

You could rent.

Thanks for your response ... we are in the early stages of considering all our options if we proceed ...

If you take out a Spanish mortgage you will need a minimum of a 40% deposit ..and they tend to want to lend you a minimum of €50,000 ..I doubt it very much if any UK lender's would give you a mortgage on a Spanish property... even if you did have 40% to put down ...if you go down the Spanish root you will be looking at buying a property at a minimum of €90,000 you will also need a further 12% for legal costs and purchase tax ..they will not factor the 12% in to the mortgage so in total you will need to find 52% of the total purchase price ... Spanish mortgages are much more expensive than UK lender's as they are not in competition with each other.

I have a close friend who owns a Mortgage Brokers in the Uk and he says that no UK financial institution will offer you a mortgage for a Spanish property. The main reason is should you default in the UK the process for them to repossess is fairly straightforward, however for a UK company to repossess in Spain would entail many hurdles. As Kav has suggested you would be better re-mortgaging your UK property.

** EDITED - Against forum rules **

This message was last edited by Xasader on 12/27/2021.

From my perspective, you need to take the mortgage from the countries' banks with the most favorable conditions.

Why do we get new users popping up with 1 post and putting an answer to something that was asked a year or two ago? Are these phishing type posts where people just open an account for some nefarious reason? 

They seem to crop up pretty regularly lately. The ones that are blatantly advertising are quite easy to spot and reported on. Others just appear for not apparent reason.