Buying Property in Moraira: The Due Diligence Nobody Tells You About

So you want to buy a house in Moraira. Good instinct. But the part that costs people money is almost never the price on the listing. It is the checks nobody did before they signed.

I am Juan Bertomeu, lawyer, ICALI number 4643, with an office in Moraira since 1991. My son Daniel works with me on the tax side, he is a tax adviser. We deal with British, German and Dutch buyers here most weeks, and we are not the agent, which is the whole point of what follows. One warning: this is general guidance, not advice on your house, and some of these numbers changed only this June.

The one rule I repeat to every single client

Do not use the lawyer the agent or the seller suggests.

I mean it. The agent gets paid when the sale closes, and their lawyer works to make it close. That is not the same job as protecting you. The good agents say it themselves: bring your own independent legal team.

What does the independent check cover? Who really owns the place and what debts sit on it, via the nota simple. Whether the licences match what is actually built, because illegal extensions here are more common than you would think. Habitability, unpaid IBI, community fees. And near the water, the coastal position. All of it becomes your problem the day after you sign if nobody looked.

Moraira by area, and where the legal homework changes

The area changes the price. It also changes what we have to check.

El Portet is the cove everyone knows, the most expensive corner, front line villas. Close to the water here is where the coastal law bites hardest.

Pla del Mar and the streets near town are usually clean legally, though on older builds I want to see the licences before anyone gets excited.

Benimeit is hillside, big sea views, a strong German and Dutch corner. Up there we check access rights and whether older builds sit on rustic land. That detail changes what you are allowed to do with the place later, and you cannot fix it afterwards.

The Cumbre del Sol trap, and why the town line matters

This one catches a lot of buyers, and honestly some agents get it wrong too. Cumbre del Sol is not in Moraira. It is in the municipality of Benitachell, Poble Nou de Benitatxell, between Jávea and Moraira.

Why should you care? Because your town hall, your yearly IBI and the licensing for something like a tourist rental are all set by Benitachell, not by Teulada-Moraira. If the listing says Moraira but the property is in Cumbre del Sol, your paperwork belongs to a different town hall. Not a problem in itself. Just do it with your eyes open.

One more local thing. Moraira has no Land Registry of its own. Teulada-Moraira sits in the registry district of Jávea, so that is where the nota simple comes from. Exactly the sort of detail that trips people up from abroad.

The Ley de Costas thing, special to the water at El Portet

The Ley de Costas treats the first stretch of land from the shoreline as public domain, with a protection zone behind it, all along the Spanish coast. Here is the local part that shocks people.

Some of the older front line homes near the water in Moraira are not owned outright. They are held as an administrative concession, a right to use the property with an expiry date, not full ownership. Very different thing. On any purchase near the shore we request a coastal certificate. It takes a few days, and now and then it changes the whole deal. Do not skip it because the villa looks the part.

The contract, and the deposit that is not the same both ways

The process itself, NIE, bank account, reservation, due diligence, deposit contract, notary, registration, works the same in Moraira as anywhere in Spain, and the full picture, step by step, is in our legal guide to buying property in Spain on Expat Abogados. Here I will only give you the part people get wrong.

Most purchases run on a contrato de arras, a deposit contract, and the arras is not symmetrical. If you pull out, you lose your deposit. If the seller pulls out, they pay you back double. So once you sign it you are committed, and what it says is worth getting right before, not after.

What you actually pay in tax in 2026

Now the money. The numbers changed this June and the old ones are still all over the internet, so read this bit slowly.

Buy a resale home and you pay ITP, the transfer tax. From 1 June 2026, under Law 5/2025 here in the Valencian Community, the general rate is 9 percent, down from 10. There is a higher rate of 11 percent that applies once the value passes 1,000,000 euros, and if you are buying at that level, get the exact figure confirmed for your case, the difference is real money. Buy brand new from a developer instead and there is no ITP at all: you pay 10 percent VAT plus the AJD stamp duty, which also dropped this year to 1.4 percent.

Real numbers on the ordinary case. A 450,000 euro resale villa completing after 1 June 2026: ITP at 9 percent is 40,500 euros, notary and registry together roughly 1,500 to 2,000 euros, plus your own lawyer and the small paperwork. All in, on top of the price, somewhere around 11 to 14 percent.

And the trap. The tax is not always worked out on the price you paid. It is worked out on the valor de referencia, the reference value the Catastro publishes, whenever that figure comes out higher than your declared price. And no, declaring a lower price to shave the tax is not a plan, it is illegal and the tax office uses that same reference value to catch it.

Buying from a non-resident seller: the 3 percent you must hold back

This one gets missed, and it lands back on the buyer. If the person selling to you is a non-resident, the law makes you hold back 3 percent of the price and pay it to the tax office on the Modelo 211, within one month of the escritura. It is an advance on the seller's tax, not yours, but if you do not retain it the tax office can come to the property, and therefore to you, for that amount. Routine when handled. A nasty surprise when not.

Owning it, and the honest split on how we help

The house keeps costing you after completion. Every year you own here as a non-resident you file the Modelo 210, even if the place sits empty, plus IBI and community fees. People forget the 210, and then a letter arrives. That filing is one of the simple jobs our online tier handles for a lot of owners now, same firm, low cost end. And since someone always asks: buying no longer gets you Spanish residency, Spain abolished the golden visa on 3 April 2025.

The purchase itself is the other kind of work. Front line at El Portet, Cumbre del Sol under the Benitachell town hall, rustic land, licences, inheritance in the mix, that is a person across a desk, and we have done it here since 1991, from Moraira and a second office in Dénia. If you are abroad we work through a power of attorney all the time. Send a message or a WhatsApp and we will tell you honestly whether yours is a simple online job or one that needs a proper sit down.