How to bid online at a court property auction in Spain (2026 guide)

Until 2015, taking part in a court auction meant turning up in person at the court, cheque in hand, and sitting in a room with the other bidders. Today you can do exactly the same from the sofa at home, with a coffee and your computer. The electronic system of the BOE (Spain's Official State Gazette) democratised the process, although at the cost of an initial learning curve that puts many buyers off before they even start. This guide is here to make sure that doesn't happen to you.

What you need before you bid online

Before you go into the portal, you need to have these three things sorted:

• Digital identification: An electronic certificate (from the FNMT, the Spanish Royal Mint, which issues digital certificates, or a similar issuer) or an active Cl@ve PIN (the Spanish government's online ID system). Without one of the two, you can't register.
• The deposit (consignación) set aside: 20% of the auction value, with a minimum of 1,000 euros, ready to lodge. If the auction value is 80,000 euros, that's 16,000 you need to be able to tie up throughout the whole process.
• Having analysed the asset: The portal lets you bid within minutes. But bidding without having analysed the property is the most dangerous thing you can do. Before you touch anything, do your homework.

Step 1: Register on the auction portal

If you're not yet familiar with the platform, first go over how the BOE auction portal (Portal de Subastas) works so you know what you'll find there. Once that's done, go to subastas.boe.es and create your account. You'll need your digital certificate or Cl@ve PIN to verify your identity. The process takes about 10 minutes if you have everything ready. Once registered, you have full access to the search tool and the bidding function.

Step 2: Find the auction you're interested in

Use the search tool with the filters for type of asset (property), province and value range. Open the details of each auction that looks interesting and download the full edicto (the official auction notice). That's where all the legal information is: the registry reference, the charges, the possession status and the specific conditions of that auction. Read all of it, not just the price.

Step 3: Lodge the deposit

The deposit is paid within the BOE portal itself, not by transfer to the court. When you choose to bid, the portal asks you for 20% of the auction value (or the percentage set in the notice) and takes it from an account of yours at one of the banks that collaborate with the Agencia Tributaria (the Spanish tax agency). The basics: check beforehand that your bank is one of them and that your online banking lets you make these payments; finding out on the last day is the silliest way to miss out.

Once the deposit has been lodged, the portal lets you bid in that specific auction.

Step 4: Bidding blind

The auction accepts bids for twenty calendar days from when it opens, with no extensions. And since April 2025 the system has used sealed bids: the portal doesn't show whether there are any bids or how much they are. You enter the maximum amount you're willing to pay and, when the auction closes, the highest bid wins; if two match, the one submitted first wins.

That means there's no longer any "waiting until the last minute to see the competition". The decision is made before you bid, with the property's market value, the charges and the occupancy status in front of you. When you submit your bid you can consent to the reserva de postura: your deposit is held so that you're next in line if the winner doesn't pay.

Step 5: If you win the auction

When the bidding period closes and your bid is the highest, the remate (the award of the property to the highest bidder) is approved if it reaches 70% of the auction value; if it doesn't, the debtor has ten days to present someone who improves on it. Once the remate has been approved, you have twenty days from the close of the auction to pay the rest of the price. Your deposit is deducted from the total.

If you don't pay in time, you lose the deposit with no possibility of getting it back. So have your financing ready before you bid, not afterwards.

The most common mistake beginners make

Registering, finding an auction with a good starting price and bidding the same day, without having checked the Registro de la Propiedad (the Land Registry), without having verified whether there are prior charges and without being clear whether the property is vacant or occupied. The starting price is only the starting point of the analysis, not the end result.

Start off on the right foot: Before bidding in your first auction, understand how the deposit works and what each line of the notice means. To see live auctions in your area, go to RadarPro's court auction search.