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It is not legally compulsory, but the purchase is completed in a public deed before a notary whose role is to verify legality and identity — not to act for you, negotiate on your behalf or check what you are actually buying. The searches that protect a buyer (Land Registry charges, planning status, community debts, whether the seller can validly sell) are made before you sign, and nobody makes them unless your lawyer does.

They are different regulated professions. A solicitor is qualified in a common-law jurisdiction such as England and Wales; an abogado is admitted to a Spanish Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados) and both advises and appears in court. For any matter governed by Spanish law — property here, a Spanish estate, Spanish tax — the professional you need is an abogado. A notary and a gestor are also distinct roles and neither of them acts as your legal adviser.

The NIE (Número de Identidad de Extranjero) is the identification number Spain assigns to foreign nationals, and it is required for practically any legally relevant act here: buying or selling property, accepting an inheritance, filing tax returns, incorporating a company or being appointed a director. It can be applied for in Spain or through a Spanish consulate abroad, and it can also be obtained by a representative acting under a power of attorney, which spares you a trip.

The estate has to be accepted in a Spanish notarial deed and registered, which requires the death certificate, the certificate from the Spanish register of last wills (Registro de Actos de Última Voluntad) and the will itself, duly legalised and translated where the documents are foreign. Spanish inheritance tax is due within six months of death, extendable by a further six if the extension is applied for within the first five. Under EU Regulation 650/2012 a foreign national may have chosen the law of their nationality to govern the succession, which changes who inherits and in what shares.

If you own property in Spain you do, even with no income from it: non-resident income tax (IRNR) is filed on Modelo 210, on an imputed income for property kept for your own use, or on the actual rent if you let it. When a non-resident sells, the buyer is obliged to withhold 3% of the price and pay it to the tax authority on account of the seller’s liability, which is recovered or topped up in the subsequent return. Whether you are resident at all is a separate question, decided by law and not by choice.