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Legal notes in plain words — property, inheritance, residency and daily life in the Canary Islands, explained for international readers.
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The compensatory pension after divorce in Spain: who gets it, for how long and how it ends
One spouse built a career and the other left a job for the family: when they divorce, Spanish law may give the second a compensatory pension. It is not automatic and has no formula. This guide explains who is entitled, the nine circumstances a judge weighs, when the pension has an end date and when it does not, the separate compensation for work in the home under separation of property, and how the pension changes and ends, with three Supreme Court judgments of 2024, 2025 and 2026 read in full.
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Getting a foreign divorce recognised in Spain: EU decrees, British divorces after Brexit and the exequátur
Where is your divorce? A Spanish registrar, notary or judge will ask before you marry again, sell the home or change the orders. A decree from another EU country is recognised without any procedure, with the court's certificate. A British one follows the date the proceedings began: up to 31 December 2020, the European rules; later, Spain's own Act. For those and for every non-EU divorce there are two routes, the Civil Registry check and the exequátur, and this guide sets out both.
Who keeps the family home after a divorce in Spain: use, mortgage and what changes when a new partner moves in
A Spanish divorce judgment decides who lives in the family home; it does not move the ownership or the mortgage. With minor children the use follows them until the youngest comes of age; with shared custody or no children it is given for a fixed time; a new partner living in the home ends it. Who pays the loan, the community fees and the IBI, why the use belongs on the Land Registry, and how to sell or buy out, with the Supreme Court rulings up to June 2026.
Unmarried couples in the Canary Islands: what registering as a pareja de hecho gives you, and what it does not
Registration changes a great deal for some things and nothing for others. What the Ley 5/2003 asks of an unmarried couple in the Canaries — twelve months together, both on the padrón, legal residence — and what it gives under state and regional law: the survivor's pension and its two clocks, the residence permit for a non-EU partner, the 99.9 % Canary inheritance-tax rebate, fifteen days' leave; and what it never gives: intestate rights, joint taxation, the one-year route to nationality.
Moving abroad with your children after separation: what you cannot do
Every spring a separated parent in Tenerife or Fuerteventura asks whether custody lets them take the children home. It does not: since 2021 the Civil Code gives the decision on a child's residence to both parents. What a court weighs before authorising a move, the three doors that open when a parent leaves without consent — the Hague return, the crime of child abduction and a change of custody — and the smaller rules for holidays, passports and the police travel form.
Child maintenance in Spain in 2026: how it is set, updated and collected — even from abroad
How the figure is fixed and updated, what happens when it stops arriving — seizure without the usual floor, coercive fines, the criminal route, the State's advance — and how a Spanish order is enforced in the UK or the EU, and vice versa.
Prenups in Spain for International Couples: Choosing Your Property Regime
Every married couple in Spain already has a property regime — most never chose it. How the EU rules assign one, what the Spanish options are, and how capitulaciones let you decide for yourselves.