In February 2024 Elena sold a flat in Seville for €195,000. She had bought it in 2007 for €240,000. The gestoría (the administrative and tax agency) recommended by the estate agent filed the plusvalía municipal (the municipal tax on the increase in value of urban land) using the objective method and paid €3,050 from her account. Two years later, while preparing the income tax return for another sale, someone asked her why she had paid plusvalía on a transaction in which she lost €45,000. She should not have paid anything: the transaction was outside the scope of the tax, but nobody declared it.
As far as the town hall is concerned, the person answerable for that self-assessment is Elena, not the gestoría. The good news is that the mistake can be corrected and the money recovered, because she is still in time. What follows is how, how much, and what paperwork is needed to then hold whoever made the mistake to account. If the tax sounds confusing, the basics are on the plusvalía municipal page.
The plusvalía mistakes we see most often
| Mistake | Effect | How it is corrected | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not declaring the absence of any increase on a sale at a loss | A tax that was not owed is paid | Request to rectify the self-assessment, with the deeds | 4 years |
| Applying the objective method when the actual-gain method gave less | Too much is paid | Rectification asking for the actual-gain method | 4 years |
| Miscounting the period of ownership | Too much or too little, depending on the direction | Rectification if too much was paid; a supplementary self-assessment if too little | 4 years; the supplementary one, as soon as possible |
| Filing in the name of someone who is not the taxpayer | The payment does not cover the person obliged | Letter to the town hall asking for the payment to be reallocated | Before it issues an assessment |
| Filing late through carelessness | Surcharge under article 27 | It cannot be corrected: it is paid and claimed from the professional | — |
| Not appealing a municipal assessment in time | The assessment becomes final | Only extraordinary review procedures | Request for reconsideration: 1 month |
Elena's case, corrected step by step
The tool: rectifying the self-assessment
When the mistake is in a self-assessment you filed (even if the gestoría filed it in your name), the route is the request for rectification under article 120.3 of the Ley General Tributaria, the General Tax Act, developed by articles 126 and following of the General Regulation on Tax Management and Inspection. You ask the town hall to correct it and refund what was wrongly paid. The time limit is four years: it runs from the day after the payment if you paid late, or from the end of the filing period if you paid on time, under article 67.1 of the Act.
What has to be provided
- The 2007 purchase deed and the 2024 sale deed, which are what prove there was no increase, as article 104.5 of the consolidated Local Government Finance Act requires.
- The receipt for the self-assessment and for the payment.
- If the acquisition value is disputed, the costs and taxes of the purchase that are added to it, under the rule the law allows to be applied.
The sums
- Tax paid by mistake: €3,050.
- Late-payment interest in Elena's favour from the date of payment (article 32 of the General Tax Act). If it were two years at 4 % a year, which is an assumption because the rate is set each year by the budget act: €3,050 × 4 % × 2 = €244.
- Amount to recover from the town hall: about €3,294, if the request succeeds.
None of this is claimed from the gestoría: what was overpaid is refunded by the town hall. From the professional you could only claim what is not recovered because of their fault, and the cost of putting it right. If you have a similar case, tell us about it in the plusvalía municipal form and we will tell you which route applies to you and which deadline you are within. The detail on refunds is in reclaiming an overpaid plusvalía.
When what you have is an assessment, not a self-assessment
In municipalities where the taxpayer declares and the town hall calculates the tax, the adviser's mistake is usually failing to appeal. Against assessments of local taxes a request for reconsideration (recurso de reposición) can be filed within one month of notification (article 14.2 of the consolidated Act), followed by an appeal to the administrative courts. If that month went by without an appeal, the assessment is final and only extraordinary routes remain, far narrower ones. It is the difference between asking for a refund with good reasons and having to prove a serious defect.
One more point: Constitutional Court judgment 182/2021 left situations that were settled before it was handed down outside any review. If your adviser's mistake relates to a plusvalía from before that judgment and it was not appealed at the time, the chances shrink considerably.
When the mistake was in your favour
The opposite also happens: the adviser took as the acquisition date that of an allocation in a divorce instead of the original purchase, counted fewer years and you paid less than you owed. Here there is no refund to ask for, but a difference to pay in. The wise course is to file the supplementary self-assessment yourself before the town hall spots it: if you get there before its formal request, you will pay the difference with the surcharge under article 27; if the town hall gets there first, with a penalty. That difference is not damage you can charge to the adviser, because you owed it anyway; the surcharge, on the other hand, can form part of what is claimed from them.
Who answers for what
The rule admits no nuance: as far as the town hall is concerned, the person obliged is the taxpayer. What your adviser filed, you filed, and if a difference, a surcharge or a penalty has to be paid, it will be claimed from you. The professional does not appear in the tax file.
Their liability is something else and runs along a different track: civil liability, arising from the engagement you gave them. If they failed to do what they undertook to do, article 1101 of the Código Civil, the Civil Code, allows you to claim from them the damage they caused. Because that claim is contractual, it has a general time limit of five years (article 1964.2 of the same code). Many professionals carry professional liability insurance, and the insurer is who ends up dealing with the claim if the policy covers the case.
What counts as damage when claiming over a botched plusvalía
Not everything is damage. The tax that was owed is not a loss: you would have had to pay it anyway. Late-payment interest is not entirely a loss either, because it compensates for the time you had the money. What usually is claimable damage is the surcharge or penalty that would not have existed without the mistake, the refund that is lost because the time limit ran out while the adviser did nothing, and the cost of hiring someone else to put it right.
Almost everything in your inbox helps to document it:
- The engagement letter or the quote, which says what they undertook to do.
- The emails in which you sent them the deeds and the date you did so: they show they had the information in time.
- The filing receipt, with the tax number of whoever filed.
- The town hall's decision quantifying the loss, if there is one.
Professional liability policies usually require the insured to report a claim within a set period. Write to the adviser, describe the mistake and the amount, and ask them to notify their insurer. That does not guarantee you will be paid, but without it it is much harder.
Elena filed the request for rectification with her two deeds and, while the town hall decides, she has the engagement documented. If the refund arrives, the loss is limited to the cost of putting it right. If not, the claim against the gestoría has a basis. In neither scenario can we predict what each town hall will decide, but we can put things in order so that the deadline is not lost.