Can the property description forms (the Spanish DIA forms, Fichas Informativas) be written in English?
The simple answer is NO, at least not the official documents required to have for each property you have for sale or rent. The reason is that according to the Decree (and actually taken from a law passed in December 2003) the information must be presented ‘truthfully, adequately and in an understandable format’. (Direct Quote from page 1 of the Decree 218: “El derecho del consumidor a una información veraz, suficiente y comprensible se corresponde con el artículo 17 de la Ley 13/2003, de 17 de diciembre”). Given that the National language of Spain is Spanish, this means that the DIA forms MUST be written in Spanish. Try to think of the situation being reversed. If you were in the UK and an inspector came along to your Spanish Estate Agency and asked for the equivalent DIA form and you presented it to him in Spanish… what kind of reaction would you get?!
However, this does not mean that you can’t have these forms written in English AS WELL (or any other language for that matter), but these would only be optional as they are not required by law (as yet) in any other language but Spanish.
If you’re looking for the DECREE 218 itself in English, please read this post where a free copy to download is also available: DECREE 218 IN ENGLISH
