Knowledge

What Spanish law provides on rental contracts, with the source attached. Written for offices that draw up contracts on behalf of someone else.

• Signing on behalf of the owner: when does your power of attorney not cover the contract?

  Anyone signing for an owner without the contract stating the basis of their authority delivers a document whose validity depends on later ratification — and a general power of administration covers less than most offices assume.

• Requalification: when your temporada contract turns out to be a residential tenancy

  The heading on a contract decides nothing. What counts is whether the stay is genuinely temporary and whether the file shows it — otherwise the tenant gets the protection of a residential tenancy, with years of term instead of months.

• Lodging the deposit in Spain: which body, which deadline, which penalty — by region

  How much deposit you take is set by national law and is mandatory. Whether you must lodge it, with whom and within what period, differs by autonomous community — and that is the question the fine attaches to.