Military certificate to purchase a house

We are currently selling a house in Playa Flamenca to a non EU couple. The sale contract has been written with a completion date of ‘‘on or before May 31st” Our lawyer has told us this is because by law the Spanish authorities have a maximum of five months to complete the military authorisation.

Lawyer also said this now applies to U.K. nationals as they are no longer EU Citizens.  I’d never heard of this either. 

This is the information we have been given regarding British citizens and military certificates:

If ACRO required:

The process to obtain the Certificate is the following:
- The client should obtain an ACRO Certificate in the UK and send it for an apostille-stamp (more info below). NOTE: If they are residents in Spain, they don´t need this Certificate, only a certified copy of their TIE/residencia.
- They need a Certified copy of the full passport, preferably done in Spain, so the Ministry of Defence doesn´t ask for an apostille stamp too.
- These two documents have to be translated by an official translator
- All of these, the originals and translations, have to be sent, along with the private sales contract and some other paperwork that the lawyer acting on the sale would obtain, to the Ministry of Defence in Barcelona, and they will grant the authorization in maximum 2 months.
- You can find more information and apply for your ACRO Certificate on the following website:https://www.acro.police.uk/police_certificates.aspx
- You can obtain an apostille stamp for the document to be valid in Spain, which you can obtain here:https://www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised

We are looking at buying our first property in Spain & have been told we need a ACRO certificate for the both of us, when I went to apply it asked me to tick a box to continue but it was strange as it said it was for a visa or emigration, but for us its neither so I closed it down :( 

It is a new requirement for Brits buying second homes in certain areas of Spain, so maybe the system hasn't been updated yet.

Thanks for this, we are new to all this & getting weighed down by how much paperwork (as well as the costs) there is & didn't want to spend £110 applying for something we didnt need.

Cheers

Mark