The Document Checklist for a Deposit Contract Without Surprises

A deposit contract — the Spanish *contrato de arras* — is the moment a property sale stops being a conversation and becomes a commitment. The buyer hands over a deposit, both sides agree on a price and a deadline for the notary, and from that point real money is on the table.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: the contract itself is a short document. The risk isn't in the two pages you sign. It's in the paperwork you *didn't* check before signing them. A charge on the property nobody mentioned, community fees in arrears, a missing energy certificate — these don't show up in the contract. They show up later, when it's expensive.

This is the checklist to gather before anyone signs, so the arras protects you instead of trapping you.

First, know which kind of deposit you're signing

Spanish law recognises three types of *arras*, and they behave very differently when something goes wrong.

Confirmatory (confirmatorias): proof the contract exists. Neither party can simply walk away; the deposit doesn't buy you an exit.
Penal (penales): a penalty for breach. If one side fails to complete, they lose the deposit (or return it doubled), and the other side can still demand the sale go through.
Penitential (penitenciales): the classic *arras* under Article 1454 of the Civil Code. Either party may back out — the buyer by forfeiting the deposit, the seller by returning it doubled.

The distinction matters more than most people realise. Courts have held that the penitential character must be stated expressly; merely citing Article 1454 is not enough to give you a clean right to withdraw. If the contract is vague, a judge may read it as confirmatory — meaning you can't just lose your deposit and leave. Decide the type on purpose, in writing.

And note: a *contrato de arras* is a private agreement. It does not need a notary to be valid. That's convenient, but it also means nobody is checking the property's paperwork for you. That job is yours.

The property documents (the seller provides these)

This is where surprises hide. Ask for every item below *before* the deposit changes hands.

Nota simple from the Land Registry

The single most important document. The *nota simple* is the registry's summary of the property: who legally owns it, how it's described, and — critically — what charges sit on it (mortgages, seizures, easements, registered annotations).

Get a fresh one. Experts recommend a *nota simple* less than 30 days old, because an outdated copy may not reflect a recent charge or a change of owner. Confirm two things above all: the seller is the registered owner, and the charges match what you've been told.

The deed (escritura) and the IBI receipt

The title deed proves the seller's ownership chain. The latest IBI receipt (the annual property tax) confirms the tax is current and helps identify the property's cadastral reference. Unpaid IBI can follow the property, not just the previous owner.

Energy performance certificate (certificado energético)

Since Royal Decree 235/2013, an energy performance certificate is mandatory to sell a home in Spain. It rates the property from A to G. Skipping it isn't a technicality: selling without handing the certificate to the buyer is classed as a very serious infringement, with fines that can reach 6,000 euros. Ask to see it before arras, not on the notary's doorstep.

Habitability certificate (cédula de habitabilidad)

Required in several autonomous communities, the *cédula* certifies the home meets minimum health and habitability conditions. It's a different document from the energy certificate — one measures whether the home is fit to live in, the other how much energy it burns. Check whether your region requires it and whether the seller's copy is still in date.

Community-of-owners debt certificate

For any flat or property in a community, ask for the certificate confirming the seller is up to date on community fees. It's issued by the community secretary with the president's approval, normally within 7 calendar days of the request. Without it, the notary shouldn't authorise the deed unless the buyer expressly releases the seller — and any outstanding balance can land on you. Never skip this one for an apartment.

If pending building works or an *ITE* (technical building inspection) exist, get those on paper too.

The people documents

Simple, but skipped surprisingly often. You need the full identity details of every party: the DNI/NIE of each buyer and seller, and — where a company or an inheritance is involved — the powers of attorney or documents that prove whoever is signing actually can. If the property is jointly owned, *all* owners must appear. A missing co-owner signature can void the whole deal.

Collecting and transcribing all these ID numbers by hand is exactly the kind of low-value, high-error task worth automating; agencies increasingly pull the data straight off a photo of the document instead of retyping it.

What the contract itself must contain

Once the documents check out, the arras should spell out, at minimum:

Full identity of buyer and seller.
A precise description of the property, with its registry details.
The final sale price and how it will be paid.
The deposit amount, and confirmation it will be deducted from the price.
The type of arras (say "penitential under Article 1454" if that's the intent).
A firm deadline to sign the public deed before the notary.
Who pays which costs (notary, registry, taxes).
Any charges the property carries and how they'll be cleared before completion.

The surprises this checklist prevents

A hidden mortgage or seizure. Caught by a fresh *nota simple*. Missed if you trust an old one.
Community fees in arrears. Caught by the debt certificate. Otherwise inherited by the buyer.
No energy certificate at the notary. A last-minute scramble, a delayed signing, and a possible fine.
A co-owner who never agreed to sell. Caught by reading the *nota simple* and gathering every owner's ID.
An ambiguous arras clause. Caught by naming the type in writing. Otherwise decided by a judge, months later.

None of these are exotic. They're the everyday reasons a smooth deal turns into a dispute — and every one of them is a document you could have read first.

Keeping the paperwork straight without drowning

A single sale can generate a *nota simple*, a deed, two or three certificates, IBI receipts, and IDs for four people. Multiply that across an agency's pipeline and the checklist stops being a formality and becomes a data-entry problem: names, numbers, dates and cadastral references that all have to land, correctly, in your CRM or spreadsheet.

That's the part worth removing from human hands. Agencies are moving this work off desks and onto a single WhatsApp number instead of yet another app: forward a photo of the document, get the structured fields back. The same approach that reads a nota simple automatically also eliminates the manual data entry between the document and your records — so the checklist gets *verified*, not just filed.

If your agency handles deposit contracts every week, WhappScan turns the documents behind them into clean data over WhatsApp — no app to install, results in seconds.