Should we have the original Escritura de Compraventa (title deed) if we have completed with no mortgage

We completed the purchase of our apartment 2 years ago and requested the original  Escritura de Compraventa (title deed) as we paid for the property outright (no mortage)

Our lawyer sent us a copy and said that the original copy stays with the notary. We are really worried about whether this is correct, does anybody know?

Your solicitor should have collected this from the notary and handed it over to you, they need to collect it to pay the taxes and so on, it would be very weird if your solicitor does not have it.

If it is still at the notary you can collect it yourself, there could be a cost of around €600 depending on the purchase price, if they have never collected it i would make sure all taxes and so on have been paid.

Joan

It's correct in that the original of any notarial document stays with the notary and if that notary retires his files go to another notary etc

The copy you have is an official notarised copy and that will have been used to pay transfer tax etc - that should be stamped on it somewhere.

I paid for my Villa with out a mortgage,my Solictor gave me a simpla(copy).

I started hearing of some dodgy solictors were using peoples title deeds to obtain mortgages for other people,I contacted my solictors and arranged to pick up the original,this was duly done with no problem.

The original is packaged with the notary name and of course the black stamp.

Hopefully this is the way you should be able to do it.

The Escritura de Compraventa is now safely in my possession

It's true that in Spain the original Deed stays with the Notary, and you get an notarised copy. You can ask for another copy if you lose the one you have. It's not necessay to guard it under lock and key like in England as it is only a copy. 

The most important thing to check is that the Deed has been registered in YOUR NAME in the "Registro de Propiedad" (Property Registery Office), in the area where the property is located.  You can check this by asking for a "Nota Simple" from the property registery office and your name should be the last one to appear on this with the date that you bought the property, It will also show you if there are any debts registered on the property. It is of course all in Spanish so your solicitor should be able to get this for you. Once you have confirmed that you are the registered owners then you don't need to worry.

 I for one have my original deeds as most people i know, i would not leave it at the notary, whats the point? It belongs to you so you should have it even if the copia simple is valid there is no reason not to have your original

Joan - what you have is the primera copia.

The original never leaves the notary's office.

This applies to wills also and why we have a central registry in Spain.

It's a good system really

 Yes, original copies of Notary deeds always stay, for safety, at the Notary´s archives.

We used a lawyer and a gestor to conduct our property purchase. They advised it was all above board and that we could have the peroperty registered in our name. A Copia Simple was produced at the time of purchase (the sales contract?) and a Nota Simple of the property registration was also entered into the contract. As the property had been sold on various Compraventas only since the 1970's the property was not registered in the sellers name. (Although he had a legal compraventa etc.) Our lawayer advised that she would apply to the local court to get a judgement that we were now the legal owners, and then go to the Registro de Propiedad to update the Escritura. (We have never infact seen an escritura, I think because one was never actually applied for, just the Nota Simple?) 

Unfortunatly the judge ommited one of our names and on arriving at the Registro, it was rejected as they said it had to include both names that were on the Copia Simple of the sales contract.

We are having to re-apply for another court hearing. All at our expense.  Our lawyer has not replied to us whether there is a system in place for compensation when the judge is at fault.

Also the process has now been 30 months (2.5 years) in the hands of the lawyer. And no sight of fast tracking at the court depsite it being their error. 

We have been told we are still the legal owners of the property, but it is just taking longer than normal to get us registered at the Reistro de Propiedad. 

(We would welcome any advice on what to do in this instance, where the judge made an error and we are having to pay twice for the same thing.) 

Susan,

it is difficult to answer without seeing actual paperwork. I am happy to give to you a second opinion if you send to me current Nota Simple and the Court Decission you obtained.

Thanks

María