Eric S

Hi. I'm American and my wife is Spanish. We currently live and work in the U.S. We're thinking about buying a vacation/rental property in northern Spain and wondered if anyone on here has any experience with getting a mortgage that they can share.

I've done some searching on the subject and found a few web sites that advertise international mortgage broker services. But they don't give many specifics. I've also checked the web sites of some Spanish banks, but I have to believe that getting a Spanish mortgage is going to be more complicated for us than for Spanish residents.

I know that most people on here are from the U.K and it's a lot easier for you. But I still thought I'd check here, just in case.

Thanks.
- Eric S.

missile

I don't think it would be any different for a non resident brit to get a mortgage than a non resident from USofA?
A spanish wife should be better placed to negotiate that those who don't speak spanish.
Many spanish banks still advertise mortgages available to international clients. Not exclusively to Brits. Whether you would qualify, would depend on your financial circumstances. See here > https://www.barclays.es/publico/cont...jsp?lang=en_UK

Fred James

The best way of getting a Spanish mortgage is to buy a Bank repossession.

There are quite a few of those

amideislas

Just saw a lovely bank repo the other day - huge - 5 bedrooms, 5 baths, lovely (large) lounge, a separate guest house, 2 large courtyards with 2 pools (one large pool, one small pool), a stable and corral for horses, and a large and well-established citrus garden, easy access and sitting on 22000 sq. meters of land, its own water, electricity, phone, etc, only 3 Km from nearest town with shopping. In good shape, but needs work - asking €450K.

Sounds like a lot, but I would have expected closer to €1M in that neighbourhood.

Eric S

Thanks for that link. Very helpful. I had found a couple of bank web pages with info about mortgages for Spain. But they were UK banks and the info was geared towards Brits. For example, a requirement for one was that you were a UK resident.

On the Barclays site, it's more generic. So that's good. But one thing it said in the steps to getting a mortgage was that you need an NIE. I thought that an NIE was for foreign residents in Spain. We can't get an NIE if we don't live in Spain, right?

- Eric S.

lynnxa

it's a fiscal ID number - if your wife is Spanish she'll already have one (she'll have a NIF, but it's essentially the same thing)

you can get one for the purpose of buying property even if you don't live in Spain

snikpoh

To clarify;

NIE - this is an identity number for foreigners
DNI - this is an identity number for Spanish people
NIF - this is a tax number. For foreigners it is exactly the same as their NIE and for Spaniards it's their DNI plus another letter

Eric S

I think that would be a good idea if we were looking in the south or on the coasts. But the north hasn't been hit quite as hard by the crisis, so repossessions are harder to find.

- Eric S.

Eric S

Right. My wife has a DNI.

lynnxa

I knew I'd missed something