Drafting and enforcement of foreign Court Divorce-Separation Orders in Spain and UK.

1.- You can ask for a formal recognition and if necessary execution of the English Court Order in Spain through the Spanish Courts. This is a possibility but if both parties are in agreement, there are other ways to do it, more convenient for them, which would be cheaper and faster.

2.-Other option: go to the notary, both parties ( directly or by means of a Power of Attorney) and agree the transfer of the share from one to the other.
This could be done as a sale of the share, in this case the expenses would be: 7% Transfer Tax on her share, notary fees and Land Registry fees, and Capital Gains Tax if any.
OR the share can be transferred to the other as division of the common ownership, where the taxes to be paid it would be just 1% Stamp Duty ( on the value of the whole property), notary fees and land Registry fees.
This second option it is better, and it is cheaper and faster.

3.- There is a third option, and if is authorised by the Land Registry where the property is registered (not all Land Registers apply the same criteria), we understand that the best option would be to try to register the English Court Order directly in the Land Registry.

Recently our firm, we have been able to register directly a Divorce by Consent Order, English Decree Absolute, without the need to go to the notary or to the Spanish Court, and without the need to pay any tax in Spain; by informing the Land Registry that the division of the assets of the marriage was done 50/50 in the divorce process.

We obtained a successful outcome, and the divorce order has been registered and the share of Spanish House of the spouse transferred to our client, without the need to pay any tax or notary fees. The client has only paid a small Land Registry fee for the change of the ownership on the Land Registry.

If you need to enforce an English or foreign divorce or separation court order in Spain, let us help you.