Tracing · Spanish records explained in English
What you can do yourself, which Spanish records actually hold the answer, why searching from abroad usually fails, and the legal condition that has to be met before anyone can trace on your behalf.
Short answer Yes, where there is a legitimate interest in locating the person and the work is done by a detective holding a TIP licence. Tracing out of curiosity, or to reach someone who has lawfully cut contact, is not a legitimate interest — and where a protection order exists, it is refused outright.
This is the first question, and it is settled before anything else. Interests that qualify are straightforward in practice: a family trying to reach a relative, an executor obliged to locate an heir, a creditor with a judgment, a solicitor who must serve a party, a business with a counterparty who has vanished.
What does not qualify is equally clear. An ex-partner who moved away to get away from you. Someone who has told you they do not wish to be contacted. Anyone protected by a court order. We decline those, including when the client is willing to pay, and the reason is not squeamishness: evidence gathered without a lawful basis can expose the person who commissioned it.
Short answer A person settled in Spain leaves a documentary trail: municipal residence registration, property and company registers, and identification records. Working through them in the right order, then confirming on the ground what the records suggest, is how tracing actually works — slowly, and by elimination.
The complication for a family abroad is not that this information is hidden. It is that these are Spanish systems, in Spanish, with rules about who may consult what — and several of them are searched by property or company rather than by person, which is precisely the wrong way round for tracing.
Before instructing anyone, exhaust the free routes. They work more often than people expect, particularly for someone who was never trying to disappear.
The more of this you have, the faster and cheaper the work. Missing pieces are normal — we work with what exists.
Full name as used in Spain, including both surnames if known. Date of birth. Nationality. Any identification number.
The last address you had, however old. The town or region mentioned. Employer, business or profession.
When contact stopped and how. Who else might know. Why you need to find them — this determines the lawful basis.
Tell us what you know and we'll tell you honestly whether it's enough to work from — including when it isn't. The first conversation costs nothing.
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How long does it take?
It depends almost entirely on your starting point. A recent address and a full name can conclude within days; a name last heard fifteen years ago may take weeks and may not conclude at all. We tell you which of those your case looks like before you commit.
Will I get their address?
Where there is a legitimate interest and no safeguarding concern, yes, in the signed report. Where handing over an address could put someone at risk, we confirm the person is located and well but withhold it, and explain why. That judgement is not negotiable.
Will you tell them who is looking?
Not without agreeing it with you first. In family cases the usual approach is that we confirm the person is well, then ask whether they are willing to be contacted — leaving that choice with them.
Can you find someone from a phone number or an email alone?
Sometimes, but not by the routes people imagine. Telephone and communications data are protected and cannot lawfully be obtained. What a number or an email can do is corroborate an identity established by other means.
What if they've died?
That is sometimes the finding, and it comes with the documentation you would need — a death certificate is the first document required before anything in an estate can proceed. Spanish inheritance law for non-residents
The service
Locating people lawfully and confirming they are well, documented in a signed report by a licensed detective. Cases start from €1,200 plus VAT, quoted per case.
General information for an English-speaking reader, not legal advice.