Court auction deposit in Spain: the 20% you need to bid

The consignación is the deposit you have to lodge in advance to be able to bid at a court auction. It sounds bureaucratic, and in part it is. But behind that deposit there are specific rules that many novice buyers don't know about, and that can shut you out of an auction you've spent weeks preparing for. Here's everything you need to know, without beating about the bush.

How much the deposit is

Since 3 April 2025, the law has set the deposit for bidding on a property at 20% of the auction value, with a minimum of 1,000 euros (article 669 of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, the Civil Procedure Act). Until then it was 5%, and that's the figure that still appears in most guides. If an auction is listed with a value of 120,000 euros, the deposit is 24,000; if it's listed at 300,000, it's 60,000. For movable goods it's 10%.

Two points to note: the percentage is calculated on the auction value, not on what you're going to offer, and the letrado de la Administración de Justicia (the court official who runs the auction) can raise or lower it depending on the circumstances of the case, so the notice for each auction is what counts. The creditor enforcing the debt bids without a deposit; everyone else needs one.

How the deposit is lodged

Now that court auctions are held on the BOE portal (the auction portal of the BOE, Spain's Official State Gazette), the deposit is made within the portal itself: there's no transfer to the court's account and no case number to put in the payment reference. The portal takes it from an account you hold or are an authorised signatory on at one of the banks that collaborate with the Agencia Tributaria (the Spanish tax agency), through its payment gateway. The process step by step:

1. Register on subastas.boe.es with a digital certificate or Cl@ve PIN (the Spanish government's online ID system).
2. Go into the auction you're interested in and choose to bid: the portal asks you to lodge the deposit first.
3. Pay the exact amount (20% of the auction value, or whatever the notice sets) from your account at a collaborating bank.
4. With the deposit lodged you can now bid at that auction, and when you do, you decide whether you accept the reserva de postura (your deposit being held so that you're next in line if the winner doesn't pay).

Don't leave the deposit until the last day. Check beforehand that your bank is a collaborating bank and that your online banking allows these payments: an expired certificate or a limit on your security code card (tarjeta de coordenadas) is enough to shut you out if you've left no time to spare.

What happens to the money if you don't win the auction

If another bidder wins, your deposit is returned to you. The timescale varies from court to court, but legally they must return the amount within a reasonable period. In practice it can take anything from a few days to 3-4 weeks, depending on how quick the court is. You're not paid interest for that period, so bear in mind that the capital will be tied up throughout the process.

What happens to the money if you win

If you're the winning bidder, your deposit is put towards the price of the property. It's not an extra cost: it's an advance payment. You have twenty days from the close of the auction to pay the rest of the amount.

If you win and then don't pay the rest on time, you lose the deposit. You don't get it back. It's the mechanism the law uses to make sure bids are serious. That's why it's so important to have your financing sorted before bidding, not after. A conventional mortgage can't be arranged in twenty days; you need your own capital or financing that's already approved.

Can it be different from 20%?

Yes. The law gives the letrado de la Administración de Justicia the power to raise or lower the percentage depending on the circumstances of the auction, and in administrative auctions by Hacienda (the Spanish tax authority) or Social Security the deposit is set by their own regulations (at Hacienda it's still 5% of the starting price). Before taking 20% for granted, read the specific notice.

The question nobody asks: can it be used strategically?

Yes, to some extent. If you're monitoring several auctions at the same time to find the best opportunity, you can lodge deposits in several at once. They're all independent. The limit is the cash you have available: you need to keep that capital tied up until each auction ends and the funds from the ones you didn't win are returned.

With the deposit at 20%, this needs far more liquidity than before: four auctions with a value of 150,000 euros each mean 120,000 euros tied up. An investor with that cushion can take part in several at once and maximise the chances of winning at least one. It's a tactic professional investors use routinely and that's rarely explained in generic beginners' guides.

Related articles: Get to grips with the full process before committing capital with our guide to court auctions, and learn your way around the portal where they're published in how the BOE auctions portal works. For assets available right now, browse the listings for Madrid and Barcelona.