Moving in
By Linus Palmqvist, Head of Operations Reviewed by Simon Nilsson Last reviewed When you move into a Spanish home the water is usually already connected, so the job is moving the contract into your name. Here is what your water company will ask for, what to do on handover day, and the mistakes that cost people money later.
These two look similar and are not. Getting it wrong is why people turn up at a water company office with the wrong paperwork.
Water still running
An ordinary resale or rental where the previous occupant had working water. Turn a tap and something comes out. This is a name change on the existing contract: paperwork rather than plumbing, usually free, and it takes days. Most people are here.
Nothing comes out of the tap
A new build, or a property empty long enough for the supply to be shut off. This is an alta: a new or reactivated connection. It takes longer, asks for more documents, and can carry connection charges. We handle this one too.
Do not let the seller, landlord or outgoing tenant cancel a working water contract. Moving the name across is far easier than getting the supply switched back on.
If you take nothing else from this page, take these. They cost you five minutes and they prevent most of the disputes that come later.
One
From the seller, the landlord or the agent. It names your water company, your contract reference and your supply zone, and without it you will spend an afternoon working out who to even call.
Two
With the reading clearly legible, on the day you take over. This is the line between what the previous occupant used and what you used, and it is the only evidence you will have if that is ever questioned.
Every water company runs its own process, so the detail differs. The shape is the same everywhere.
Find your water companyIt is on the last bill. If you cannot get hold of one, our table lists who serves each major city.
Most now take it online. Phone and in-person appointments exist everywhere, and in some towns they are still the realistic route.
They will want to know who you are, the address, evidence that you own or rent the place, and bank details. Exactly what yours asks for differs, so check its own page rather than trusting a checklist written for a different city.
Yours from handover day. Some companies ask for a photograph of the meter showing the serial number.
Along with your handover photograph. Store them somewhere you will find them in two years.
A water bill here often collects several separate charges into one document, which is why it rarely matches what you expected. These are the Spanish words you will see on it.
The standing charge
Charged for having the connection available, often whether you use any water or not. An empty second home still generates a bill.
What you actually used
Measured in cubic metres. Many tariffs charge more per unit as you use more, so consumption and cost do not rise in step.
The meter charge
Renting, maintaining or reading the water meter itself.
Sewerage and treatment
Taking the water away and cleaning it, usually calculated from how much clean water you took in.
The regional water charge
Set by your region rather than your water company. In some places other council charges appear on the same bill too.
Billing runs monthly in some towns, every two months in others and quarterly elsewhere. A bill that looks alarming next to your last country's monthly one may be covering three times the period. Direct debit is the normal way to pay, and a euro account elsewhere in the EU is allowed even though some forms are clearly not designed for one.
Before you sign anything, ask one plain question: does this property have its own water contract and meter, or is the water billed through the community? The answer changes who you deal with, what you can see, and what happens when something leaks.
You deal with the water company directly and pay for what you use. If you rent, anything measured by its own meter is yours to pay, and that applies whether or not the contract mentions it.
The community gets one bill and divides it using the sub-meter readings. You are relying on somebody actually reading them.
Water comes through community fees or your rent. There is no account in your name, and you usually cannot see the underlying bill.
Get it to say what happens above a fair use limit, who is responsible for reporting leaks, and whether you can see the actual bill. General building and community costs can only be charged to a tenant when that is agreed in writing with the yearly amount stated in the contract, so vague wording here is worth fixing before you sign rather than after.
None of these are exotic. They are the same four, over and over, and all of them are cheaper to avoid than to unpick.
It keeps going to the previous holder, whose direct debit fails the moment they cancel it. Notices go to an address you have never lived at, and by the time anyone notices there are arrears.
A leak after your meter counts as your consumption. Because many tariffs get more expensive as you use more, a slow leak across two billing periods produces a genuinely shocking bill. Turn on unusual-consumption alerts if your company offers them.
Where the meter cannot be reached, the company estimates. Several comfortable bills can be followed by one very large real one, and working out which period the water was actually used in is hard after the fact.
Standing charges, meter charges and community allocations carry on when nobody is there. The bigger risk is a leak running for months in a house nobody visits and whose bills nobody reads.
Do not let the seller, landlord or outgoing tenant cancel a working water contract. Moving the name across is far easier than getting the supply switched back on.
Still have questions?
We deal with your water company in English and put the account in your name, free. While we are helping, we will offer to look at your electricity and internet, which is where the money is.
Written by
Head of Operations at Settlewell
Linus moved from Sweden to Málaga in 2021 and set his own home up here, so most of this he has already done the hard way once. Before Settlewell he spent years at Workwide, the cross-border recruiter that has helped over 10,000 people into jobs abroad, latterly as its Head of Recruitment and Operations. He speaks Spanish, lives in Málaga with his partner, and spends his days on the phone to Spanish providers.
Written from Spanish tenancy law, EU payment rules and each water company's own published procedures. What your own company asks for differs, so its page will always be more exact than ours.
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