Selling a protected home: maximum price, authorisation and time limits

Everything depends on two facts in your final qualification certificate (calificación definitiva): which rules the protected home (vivienda protegida, or VPO) was built under and how many years its protection lasts. Without them there is no possible answer, because the regimes exist side by side: in the same building there may be one flat whose protection has ended and another with fifteen years left.

• If the protection period has ended, the home is an ordinary one: you sell at whatever price you like, like any other. Check that the Land Registry records it that way.
• If the period is still running, the sale is called a resale (segunda transmisión) and is controlled: maximum price, a buyer who meets the requirements and, often, prior authorisation.

The general mechanism is the same almost everywhere, even if the numbers change: you start from the maximum price per square metre in force for your home's area and regime, multiply it by the usable floor area, and add the extras (garage and storage room), each with its own limits on how much area counts.

Some regions (comunidades autónomas) update that price module (módulo) with the change in the consumer price index (IPC) since the qualification; others publish yearly orders with the price per area. Catalunya, for example, indexes the first-sale price to the change in the official IPC; Andalucía publishes an indicative calculator; Madrid spreads the figures across a price order and later resolutions.

In the resale calculator we apply your region's model when we have been able to verify it against its official text, tell you which rule was used and link to the source. When it is not verified, we do not make up a number: we send you to the authority in charge.

Many regions require a minimum number of years since the purchase before you can sell, and administrative authorisation before the sale. The idea is to stop protected housing being used for speculation: it was allocated for you to live in.

The time limits and the need for authorisation vary a lot, and also depending on whether the development was public or private. In the Comunidad de Madrid, for example, protected housing from a public development requires authorisation and a minimum period of ownership before it can be sold. Always check your specific case on your region's portal before signing anything, including a reservation with a deposit (arras).

During the protection, the region usually keeps the right of first refusal (derecho de tanteo), to buy the home itself at the maximum price before your buyer, and the right of repurchase (retracto), to step in afterwards if the sale was made without telling it. That is why the normal procedure is to give notice that you intend to sell, wait for the time limit and then sign.

It is not an obstacle if you sell within the rules: in practice the authorities rarely use the right of first refusal. It is a problem if you try to skip the procedure, because it can undo the sale months later.

A protected home still within its period can only be sold to someone who meets the access requirements: income limits, not owning another home and, in many regions, being on the applicant register (registro de demandantes). Your market is not "anyone who can pay" but "anyone who qualifies".

In practice that means advertising it for what it is and explaining the maximum price from the start. Buyers looking for protected housing know what it is; the others will drop out at the notary.

Many people plan an open-market sale from the day the protection expires. In 2026 that day stopped existing for part of the housing stock: the State Plan 2026-2030 ties protection permanently to the homes it finances, Catalunya extended it with no end date in high-pressure municipalities and other regions have announced indefinite regimes. De-qualifying a protected home explains it; what decides is your home's file, not the latest law.