How much do I pay?

That depends on the length of your rental contract.

For contracts of 11 months and more:

You will normally pay the first month's rent in advance, plus deposits to the owner. To Casamona you pay our agency fee (10% of 1 year's rental).

For contracts of under 11 months:

You will pay the first month's rent and deposits to the owner. To Casamona you pay our agency fee, which will vary depending on how long you are renting for.

Why do you do use 11 months as a boundary? Why not 1 year?

Because of Spanish property law. As a tenant, you acquire a series of legal rights and privileges, once you have been in residence at a property for more than 11 months. This in turn requires a different type of rental contract to take account of the different legal situation. So you can either rent a property up to 11 months or longer than 11 months.

What rights do I acquire?

The most important is that it becomes impossible for the landlord to appeal to the law and end the rental contract. You are entitled to remain in the property for up to 5 years, even if the duration you originally agreed was for, say, 2 years. In other words, the contract can expire, and you can still stay at the property, up to a total of 5 years. On the other hand, you may also leave at any time by giving written notice in advance. The power, under law, is yours to decide how long you will stay for.

So it's either 11 months, or 5 years?

In theory, yes. However, we do deal with 2 or 3 year long contracts, and we can insert various clauses in the rental contract to compel the tenant (yourself) to comply with the agreement at the end of the prearranged period, and not just stay put for 5 years. The most important of these is the aval bancario.

What is an aval bancario?

It translates as "bank guarantee", and for any rental of more than 11 months' duration you will probably be asked to pay one. Essentially, it's a second deposit, to guarantee and ensure the terms of the rental contract, particularly the terms governing how long you stay in the property. This acts as security for the landlord that you'll leave the property when you say you will, and will not appeal to Spanish property law and stay on the property longer than what was agreed upon. (see above, "What rights do I acquire").

How does it work?

You would pay it along with the first month's rent, the agency fees, and the regular deposit, before moving in to the apartment. It's normally a very large amount of money, equivalent to anywhere between 4-8 months' rent (although sometimes more). You go to a bank, and ask them to make an aval account. You do the paperwork, and the bank then freezes the specified amount of money in your account ? it does not actually leave your account, but you cannot access it. A document is given to the landlord and they will sign it, which means you cannot get your money back unless you follow the original agreement. This situation then remains throughout the rental period, and when the contract expires you would leave the property as agreed (or start a new contract), and the either landlord signs the paper for a new contract or releases the money again.

What if I don't want to pay that much money?

At Casamona, we realize that it seems an incredibly large sum to pay up front before moving into a property? The aval bancario is something particular to the Spanish property market, because of Spanish property law. What we normally try to do is encourage landlords to demand a smaller aval than they would normally do. It is often unavoidable that you will be asked to pay an aval, but at Casamona we try to keep it to within 3 or 4 months' rent, instead of 6 or 8. For a contract of 11 months or less, we do not do aval bancarios.