Due diligence in six jurisdictions

A buyer from one country arrives in another with the diligence habits of home, and the habits are wrong. The English survey the building and barely read the planning; the Germans trust the notary and are surprised that in Spain the notary checks nothing; the Americans expect title insurance and find a land register instead. Each jurisdiction has one document that decides the purchase, and it is rarely the one a foreign buyer thinks of first.

Spain: the planning file

The house is the licence. What was permitted, what was built, whether the first-occupation certificate exists, whether the tourist licence is valid and in the seller's name, what may be rebuilt on the footprint. The lawyer obtains the municipal file and the cadastral record and reads them against the house as it stands; the discrepancies are the negotiation. The notary at completion checks identity and title, nothing else. Buyers who skip the lawyer because there is a notary have bought unlicensed extensions on every coast.

France: the notary's searches

The notary is neutral, appointed by the state, and does the searches: title, mortgages, easements, the commune's pre-emption right, the diagnostics on asbestos, lead, energy and termites that the seller must provide. Appoint your own notary as well; it costs nothing extra, the two share the fee, and yours reads for you. The file to insist on is the planning history of any extension and the copropriété minutes for an apartment: a façade voted last year is a bill this year.

Italy: the geometra

Before the compromesso, a geometra surveys the conformity of every building on the land against the planning consents and the cadastre. Unpermitted volumes cannot be sold in that state and must be regularised or demolished, and half the farmhouses in Tuscany have one. For a lakefront villa the dock and mooring licences are separate documents; for a listed villa the Soprintendenza's file governs every future change. The notary then does title. The agent, remember, works for whoever pays them, and each side pays its own.

England: the lease and the searches

Nothing binds until exchange, which is the buyer's protection and the seller's risk. The solicitor does the searches: local authority, planning, drainage, environmental, and reads the title. For an apartment the lease is the purchase: years remaining, ground rent, service charge history, the freeholder's consent regime. A structural survey is the norm and is the buyer's to commission. Above ten million a buying agent will also know what the building is like to live in, which no document records.

Germany: the notary and the Grundbuch

The notary drafts the contract, reads it aloud in full, and registers the deed; the land register is conclusive on title and charges. The diligence the notary does not do is the building: a survey is unusual and should not be, and the development plan of the plot decides what can be rebuilt in the villa districts of Munich and Hamburg and under the thatch code on Sylt. Heritage protection is checked with the authority, not assumed from the age of the house.

New York: the building

The attorney reads the building before the apartment: the offering plan, the financial statements, the minutes of the board, the reserve fund, pending litigation and assessments. A condominium with a bad balance sheet is a bad apartment at any price. For a co-operative the board package is a second diligence in reverse, on you. Title insurance replaces the register. Closing follows in weeks.