Inheriting a protected home: what happens to the protection

The protection is tied to the property, not to the person. When you inherit, you receive the home with whatever qualification it had: if it has twelve years of protection left, those twelve years keep running with you as the owner.

So the first step, once again, is the same document: the final qualification certificate (calificación definitiva). It tells you how much of the period is left, which rules the home was built under and whether any public grants are still to be repaid. If the protection has already expired, the flat is an ordinary one and there is nothing special to do.

A transfer on death (mortis causa) is not the same as a sale. As a general rule, inheriting does not require you to be under the income limits or to be on the applicant register (registro de demandantes): you are not being allocated a home, you are succeeding an owner.

What your region's rules may require is that you report the transfer and, if you are going to live in the home, that it is your main residence (residencia habitual). And if you decide to sell it or rent it out, that is where all the rules of the protected regime apply again.

This is the most common case and the most tangled: three siblings inherit a protected flat that none of them is going to live in. There are three usual ways out, and all of them go through the regime:

• One of you keeps the home and compensates the others. If the protection is still running, the reference value for that compensation is not the open-market price but the maximum legal price.
• Sell within the regime at the maximum price, with the authorisation and right of first refusal (tanteo) procedure your region requires, and to a buyer who meets the requirements.
• Look into de-qualification (descalificación), if the rules allow it and repaying the grants is worth it.

That first point surprises many families: sharing out at open-market value a home that legally cannot be sold at that price leads to unfair compensation and, sometimes, to lawsuits. Work out the maximum price before you share anything out.

The inheritance is taxed through inheritance tax (Impuesto de Sucesiones), which the regions manage with very different allowances, and through the municipal capital gains tax (plusvalía municipal) where it applies. Being a protected home does not exempt it from either; what changes is the valuation, because the maximum legal price limits what the property is really worth.