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How to transfer a Spanish vehicle to your name
In Spain, drivers have 15 days after buying a car to transfer ownership to their own name
If you’re planning on buying a second-hand car in Spain, it’s important to remember that the process of changing the vehicle ownership details is quite a bit different to the UK. While transferring your name is pretty straight-forward, there is a set procedure that needs to be followed and plenty of form-filling, but it’s absolutely a job most people can undertake themselves without paying a professional.
Once you buy a car, you have 15 days to transfer it into your name, and here we’re going to explain the process step by step.
1. The first thing you’ll need is a dated sales contract between the buyer and the vendor. From the moment this important document is in your hands, you are the provisional owner of the vehicle.
2. Next, the buyer needs to make an appointment with their local Traffic Office and take along the following documents:
- Sales agreement signed by both parties.
- Photocopy of the seller’s ID.
- Original and copy of the buyer’s ID.
- Originals of the vehicle logbook (Permiso de Circulación) and ITV sticker.
- A receipt for payment of the previous year’s Suma Tax.
- A receipt for payment of the Transfer Tax (Transmisiones Patrimoniales, modelo 620), which can be paid at the Tax Office (Hacienda).
- Completed change of ownership application form, which in Spanish is called the Solicitud Cambio de Titularidad. This can be downloaded from the DGT website or picked up in any Traffic Office.
You can make an appointment with the Traffic Office on the aforementioned DGT website or by calling 060.
The modelo 620 form can be downloaded from the Treasury website here. The transfer tax costs between 4% and 8% (depending on the region) of the fiscal value of the vehicle.
There is also a fee that the buyer will have to pay at the Traffic Office for the transfer. As of January 2023, the charge is 55.70 euros for a car and 27.85 euros for mopeds.
And that’s all there is to it! Once you have completed all of the above steps and bring along the correct documentation, the process shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
If, however, the prospect of so much paperwork overwhelms you, you can always hire a specialist paperwork and legal documentation services company like expat-run Heniam & Associates to handle it for you!
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