Personal injury lawyers in Spain, in English

This is the area we run from a site of its own, Indemnizaciones Clavería, where every head of loss is explained in detail. This page tells you how we work the matter and how to reach us. It is the same firm: same lawyers, same office in Villanueva de la Cañada, same telephone number.

When to call

As early as you can, and above all at these three moments:

• Before you sign anything. The insurer’s offer arrives with a discharge document attached. Once that is signed, reopening the matter is difficult.
• Before you are medically discharged. Permanent consequences are valued once the injury has stabilised. Whatever is not documented by then cannot be claimed afterwards.
• When the offer does not match what happened to you. If the consequences are significant, the bulk of the compensation is not in the days of recovery but in the future heads of loss, and those are the ones offers tend to fall short on.

What not to do before you speak to a lawyer

• Do not sign the discharge document or accept the reasoned offer without someone reviewing it.
• Do not stop going to the doctor because you feel better. An early discharge is paid for in the valuation.
• Do not throw anything away: medical reports, invoices, the police report, the A&E notes, and the receipts for your journeys and for the days you could not work.
• Do not write the matter off because time has passed. The first thing we look at is the deadline.

How we run a claim

1. We gather the evidence. Police report, medical notes, clinical history and everything that shows what the accident has cost you, inside and outside hospital.

2. We follow the treatment through to stabilisation. Nothing is valued before that. What matters during that phase is that each permanent consequence is documented by the right person.

3. We value the case. This is where the figure is decided. It is set out in detail in our guide to how compensation for a road traffic accident is calculated.

4. We negotiate, or we sue. If the offer comes close to what is due, it is settled. If not, it is claimed. The other site has real decided cases, showing what the insurer offered and what the judgment awarded.

What the law gives you: the deadlines that matter

Compensation for personal injury in Spain is not negotiated against a tariff the insurers wrote. It is set out in Title IV and the Annex of the consolidated text approved by Royal Legislative Decree 8/2004, in the wording given to it by Ley 35/2015 and amended by Ley 5/2025, in force since 26 July 2025. The law says what each injury, each day of recovery and each permanent consequence is worth. The argument is rarely about the table; it is about which consequences are recognised, and for how many days.

Four things in article 7 of that same text are worth knowing before you sign anything:

• You have a year. The injured person’s direct action against the insurer is time-barred after one year. An out-of-court claim interrupts that period, and a fresh year starts running once the insurer formally notifies its offer or its reasoned reply.
• You must claim before you sue. Before issuing proceedings you have to notify the insurer of the accident and ask it for compensation. You do not have to put a figure on it. Without evidence of that prior claim — or of the offer or reasoned reply, if there was one — the claim form is not admitted.
• The insurer has three months. From receiving your claim it must make a reasoned offer, if it accepts liability and the loss has been quantified, or a reasoned reply explaining why it is not making one. If it lets the three months pass without a justified reason, default interest runs.
• Taking the money is not giving anything up. A reasoned offer must state expressly that payment is not conditional on your waiving future actions, should the compensation properly due turn out to be higher.

And a fifth that few people know: if you disagree with the insurer’s medical assessment, you can ask the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences for a further expert report at the insurer’s expense, even without its agreement. Once that report is delivered, the insurer must make a fresh offer within one month.

Serious injuries: that is where most of it is decided

Where an accident leaves permanent consequences, most of the compensation is not the injuries themselves: it is the years that follow. Prostheses and replacing them for life, hours of care from another person, adapting the house and the car, and the money no longer earned.

Each of those heads has its own rules and its own way of being proved, and we have them set out one by one:

• Compensation for amputation
• Spinal cord injury: paraplegia and tetraplegia
• Brain damage and head injury
• Care from a third person
• Catastrophic injuries: every head of loss

Other accidents we handle

• Motorcycle accidents. A motorcyclist’s claim has features of its own, starting with the damage to helmet and clothing. Motorcycle accidents
• Falls in the street and on business premises. Liability of the council or of the occupier. Falls in the street
• Accidents at work. Compatible with Social Security benefits. Accident at work
• Medical negligence. Medical negligence

Where we are

The office is in Villanueva de la Cañada, at Calle Olivar 1, 2.º D. We regularly act for clients across western Madrid — Villanueva del Pardillo, Brunete, Boadilla del Monte, Majadahonda, Las Rozas and nearby — as well as the rest of the Madrid region.

The first assessment of your case is free of charge. You can call us on 91 811 75 75 or write to us from the contact page.

Common questions

This page is general information about Spanish law and does not replace advice on a particular matter. We study each case before taking it on and tell you frankly whether it has a prospect of success. Fees are agreed in writing in the engagement letter before we start.