Overview
- The Col·legi Notarial de Catalunya reported on Wednesday that donations rose 22% in 2025 to 22,980 operations and continued to grow about 20% in the first quarter of 2026, reflecting an ongoing shift toward inter vivos transfers.
- Property prices kept rising in 2025, with the average reaching €2,289 per square meter while transactions peaked in 2025 and then slowed about 4% to roughly 37,000 sales through March 2026.
- Notaries say nearly 46% of purchases in Catalonia are completed without a mortgage, a pattern driven partly by family donations, inheritances and personal loans despite a 16% rise in mortgage lending in 2025.
- The V Observatori Notarial also recorded rises in testaments and in marriages and divorces before notaries plus growing use of powers of attorney and digital notarial records after the 2023 electronic protocol rollout.
- Practical effects include parents using saved or inherited housing assets to help younger generations access housing, tax and policy consequences such as surtaxes on whole-building purchases, and possible changes in how people fund homebuying.