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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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Living in a tourist complex in the south of Tenerife: the single-operator rule, what an owner can and cannot do, and the window to 2028
A unit in a tourist complex is an accommodation unit, not a home: the Canary tourism Act binds every unit to one operator, the renovation Act forbids turning it into a dwelling, and fines run to 300,000 euros. What the courts decided in Arona and Gran Canaria, the question now before the Supreme Court, the decree-law that lets owners ask for a change of use until March 2028, the bill the Parliament rejected on 14 October 2026, the decree the Government announced, and ten papers to read first.
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Giving a home or money to your children in the Canaries: the 99.9 % gift-tax rebate, the income tax it does not cancel, and when waiting to inherit costs less
A couple in Adeje, a flat in Los Cristianos worth €320,000, a daughter in Manchester: give it now or let her inherit? Read in the Canary tax code and the state laws: the 99.9 % rebate for groups I and II only and only by public deed, the parents' income tax on the gain (€34,100 in the example) that death would erase, the municipal plusvalía, which office and deadline for a non-resident child, the usufruct route, the nephew who should always wait, and the Civil Code's clawback.
Buying off-plan in the south of Tenerife: the bank guarantee the law gives you, what to demand before paying, and what happens when the developer is late
A reservation paid, 20 % due over fourteen months, delivery «estimated» for 2028: what protects that money is the Building Act's first additional provision, rewritten in 2015. Read in the text: the guarantee from the licence on, insurance or bank guarantee covering every euro plus tax and interest, the special account and the bank's own duty, the certificate to hold on signing day, rescission for any delay, the two-year lapse of a bank guarantee, and a worked example from Adeje.
Recovering an unpaid debt in Spain from South Tenerife: the monitorio in 2026 — the letter first, twenty days, what it costs and the European shortcut
An unpaid invoice, a loan between friends, a community's fees: the Spanish monitorio turns paper into an enforceable order without a trial if the debtor stays silent for twenty days. Read in the Civil Procedure Act after the 2025 reform: the settlement letter first, no lawyer needed to file, the €15,000 line between a verbal and an ordinary trial, the one-month trap, court fees and the 10.40 % late-payment rate, the Canary courts' durations and the European order that skips the letter.
The digital nomad visa in 2026, from South Tenerife: the real requirements, the Social Security trap and the two doors in
The international teleworker visa read from Law 14/2013 and the immigration unit's own criteria, not from the forums: who qualifies and the 20 % rule, the one-year company and the three-month relationship, 200 % of the 2026 minimum wage the Social Security registration that ends more files than any other requirement, the consulate visa versus the three-year authorisation filed from Tenerife, the family's right to work, and the steps at the police station in Costa Adeje.
Renouncing an inheritance in Spain: why fifty-five thousand people a year say no, and how to do it right
More than 55,000 inheritances a year are refused in Spain, and the reason is rarely the tax. What the Civil Code lets you do — accept, accept with the benefit of inventory, or renounce — what the notarial deed must be, the clocks that run (nine days, thirty days, six months, four years), the acts that already count as an acceptance, who inherits when you say no, and what a renunciation never takes from you: the life insurance, the survivor's pension, your own half of the home.
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.