For many this topic may seem rather pointless or futile; but the fact of the matter is that if you fail to cancel a lease agreement properly in Spain, it may have serious legal (and financial) repercussions for the tenant.
In Spain, long-term contracts for rental properties which act as the permanent abode of a tenant need to be terminated formally subject to strict guidelines. Failure to comply may result in a contract’s automatic or silent renewal. This would result in the tenant owing the landlord several months of extra rental they had not planned for! It may also lead to the landlord pocketing the legal deposit and any additional guarantees as contractual penalty. This short post only focuses on long-term rentals as short-term ones hardly have any effects worth noting.
As a general rule, Spain’s Tenancy Act (or LAU, in Spanish) in its art. 11 rules you must give your landlord 30 days’ notice ahead of the agreed termination date. This notice period likewise applies to landlords. At least six months must have elapsed before a tenant is allowed to legally cancel a long-term contract (if cancellation is triggered under 6 months, penalties apply).
For example, a long-term contract that starts on 1st March 2019 and ends on 28th February 2020 (one year). If you do not fancy renewing for a further year and want to pull out of the contract, you must notify your landlord on or before the 28th January 2020. Meaning he must receive your notice no later than the 28th of January. This avoids an automatic contractual renewal for a further year.
You need to serve notice by means of a registered communication by recorded delivery which also certifies its content i.e. burofax. This requires a landlord having to sign for it upon receiving it with a record of the date and time. Faxes, e-mails, phone calls, text messages and WhatsApp messages are not acceptable methods of formally terminating a lease agreement.
It is strongly advisable that a lawyer drafts this legal letter to comply with Spain’s existing laws, otherwise it may be understood that the termination has not been done accordingly and will yield no legal effects, meaning your rental contract still holds effects. Some landlords are proficient at turning down undue termination requests so as to legally pocket tenants’ deposits and additional guarantees as a ‘penalty’.
Regarding ordinary annual extensions, the notice period for a tenant is 30 days ahead of the agreed termination date (for annual renewal periods).
Regarding silent renewals, we must distinguish between who serves the termination notice – whether it is the landlord or tenant.
