Information

How to rent a long-term home?

The process of long-term rental housing for the tenant's permanent residence

By the time a person has made the decision to properly rent and formalize a long-term lease, many questions can arise.

The process of renting a home can seem quite complex and there are many uncertainties about the new regulations that have changed this process.

Here we have prepared a small guide to follow, to avoid errors, unnecessary steps or steps that are not linked to current regulations.

1. First of all, you should think about the specific characteristics of the home you want to find for your permanent residence. For example such as:

• How many people will be living in the property
• The location of the property
• If you need the house to have a parking space, keep in mind that this point will increase the rental price
• The property you are looking for must be furnished or not.

A real estate agent specialized in rental will collect the data and characteristics of your search to obtain a more appropriate profile of the home. After receiving all the data, the real estate agent will inform you about the current market prices, due to which the additional characteristics you requested can be changed.

2. In the second place, the associate salesperson will show you the available properties. In case of availability, the necessary visits to the properties will be made.
3. In case you like the property and you definitely decide to proceed to formalize the lease, the first thing we should do, would be the following:

Fill in a document with the previous information about the property and pay a reservation for the lease. This document contains the information provided by the real estate agency with all the basic characteristics of the property, price and long-term rental conditions. By signing this document, the real estate agency will request your personal data and the necessary documents in order to be able to demonstrate to the landlord your solvency.

4. How to prove your solvency? By submitting the following documents:

• Income declaration
• Employment contract
• Payroll
• Or any other type of document that proves that your income is stable and sufficient to assume the payment of the rent.

After studying and verifying all the information provided and in case the landlord decides that you are a solvent tenant, the start date of the lease will be agreed. The real estate agency will begin to prepare all the necessary documentation for the signing of the contract. If the landlord refuses the provided conditions and registration of the lease, the amount paid by the tenant as a booking will be refunded in full.

IMPORTANT! Future tenants must know that apart from the monthly rental cost of the house, they will have to assume the costs of electricity, water, heating, alarm, maintenance of the garden and swimming pool and other possible expenses that may be in the chosen house. In some cases, the landlord may also require the payment of property tax and a pro rata share of the community of owners. All these details are specified in the pre-rental information document and in the rental agreement.

5. When making a long-term lease, the tenant will face the following expenses:

• One quota of the current monthly rent as a deposit, this amount will later be credited to INCASOL. (Catalan Land Institute)
• One or two monthly installments of the current rent against a freely agreed upon additional guarantee, this amount will be paid to the landlord.
• Rent for the current month.
• One valid monthly rent quota which is the real estate agency's fee.

Once the contract is finished, if it has ended in a timely manner, there are no damages in the house and there is no amount to be owed, the landlord will have to return this amount to the tenant within 30 calendar days. At the same time, the lessee must request the relevant body to return the legal bond proving that the contract has been correctly terminated.

6. At the time of signing the lease, the tenant will be provided with various documents such as:

• The inventory of the house with photographs, where the state of the property will be reflected
• The certificate of habitability, mandatory
• The energy efficiency certificate
• The Simple Note of the house

At the same time the keys to the rented house will be handed over and the real estate agent will accompany the tenant to the property, to explain in more detail some of the characteristics of the property. Such as, for example, the operation of the electrical appliances or the automatic irrigation of the garden among others, the operation of all the keys will be checked, and possible doubts of the new tenants will be clarified.

7. From now on, the real estate agency will be in charge of making changes to the name and direct debit of the existing supplies in the property. This service is included in the agency fees paid by the tenant. Before making any change of ownership before the supply companies, the real estate agent advises you on the rates of the existing supplies in the market, in order to be able to contract the rate that best suits your needs and allows future savings.

This is the basic process to have a completely legal rental and avoid fraud and problems between the two parties to the contract. However, you must verify that everything that is included in the contract, its duration and the additional clauses are governed by the regulations established in the Urban Leasing Law.

If you want maximum security and guarantees when renting a home, it is recommended that you seek the advice of a professional in the rental real estate market. At Lighthouse Costa Brava, our experts will help you throughout the process and will give you the steps you need to take to legally rent an apartment.

Printable version