How long does it take from the auction to the eviction?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

There is no fixed timescale, but it usually takes several months. Once the auction has closed, the sale has to be approved and the buyer has to pay the balance of the price, within twenty days if the enforcement began on or after 3 April 2025 or, generally, within forty if it began earlier. Then the award decree (“decreto de adjudicación”) is issued, on the strength of which the new owner can ask for the home to be handed over. If the debtor is still living there, the court sets a date for the “lanzamiento”, the eviction itself, according to its schedule. In mortgage enforcement proceedings, the law suspends until May 2028 the eviction of especially vulnerable families from their principal residence. The steps From the close of the auction, the steps are these: Approval of the sale, which is called the “aprobación del remate”. If the highest bid reaches 70 % of the auction value, the sale is approved straight away, at the latest on the day after the close. If it does not, the debtor has ten days to put forward someone who will improve on it. In enforcement proceedings begun before 3 April 2025, the creditor then has five days to ask for the property to be awarded to it or, if nobody bid, twenty days to apply for the award. In those begun on or after that date it can no longer do so. Whether the sale is approved depends on minimum amounts set by law, which in the latter proceedings are higher if the property is the debtor's principal residence. Payment. The winning bidder has to pay in the difference between their deposit and the price. If they do not pay, they lose the deposit and the sale can be approved in favour of the next bidder who has kept their deposit in place. The award decree. Once the price has been paid, it is issued by the court clerk (“letrado de la Administración de Justicia”). A certified copy of the decree is used to register the purchase at the “Registro de la Propiedad”, the Land Registry. The charges registered after the one being enforced are also ordered to be discharged. Handover of the home. The new owner asks to be given possession. If the home is occupied by the debtor, the court orders the eviction and sets a day for it. Until the sale is approved, the debtor can still release the home by paying everything they owe. What can make it take longer It takes longer above all for these reasons: Appeals against the approval of the sale or against other decisions of the court. Occupants who are entitled to stay, such as a tenant with a tenancy agreement that must be respected. The court does not evict them and the buyer will have to respect that right or challenge it in separate proceedings. The family's situation, in the case of mortgage enforcement proceedings, as explained below. The suspension in mortgage enforcement proceedings The law protecting mortgage debtors suspends the eviction until May 2028 where, in mortgage enforcement proceedings, the principal residence of especially vulnerable people has been awarded, whether to the creditor or to anyone else. Two conditions must be met: Falling within one of the cases set out in the law, such as a large family, a single-parent family with dependent children, a family with a minor or with someone with a disability or dependency, an unemployed debtor, a victim of gender-based violence or a debtor over 60. Meeting certain financial conditions. These include the family's income generally not exceeding three times the IPREM, the public income indicator used as a benchmark for aid, the family's financial situation having deteriorated considerably in the previous four years, the mortgage instalment exceeding 50 % of its net income and the home being the only one it owns. The circumstances are proved with documents before the court ahead of the eviction. If the home is auctioned for a debt other than the mortgage, this suspension does not apply. In Barcelona, it is a criterion agreed by the judges of the civil section of the first-instance court (“tribunal de instancia”) that the regime for suspending evictions of vulnerable people in force since 8 October 2026 does not apply to mortgage enforcement proceedings, which have this rule of their own.