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unless of course they are resident in spain
sounds like an excellent idea to me. too many properties are bought up as assets by outside interests when families require them to live in.
what are your thoughts?
No best answer has yet been selected by Untitled. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.The last I heard they were proposing a 100% tax on house purchases by people from non-EU countries.
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Coming from a country that depends heavily upon the tourist industry, this new proposal is even barmier!
Seems a bit harsh to me in respect of people who want to buy to live or have a permanent holiday home without an intention of letting it out...
But...
I believe it's the AirBnB industry that is causing a problem for locals. I read something last year about Barcelona where there's so many flats been bought (not just Brits - the Spanish and other nationalities as well) and used as AirBnBs meaning there's not enough for the locals. The effect of which is the rent on the limited number of flats is often more than the average monthly income - this, it seems to, cannot be fair.
If it was genuinely for providing more properties for Spanish families then it needs to be a ban non-Spanish not non-EU. A vast number of Spanish holiday and second homes are bought by EU members such as German, French, Italian, Dutch..you name it (along with UK, Russian etc). I'm not sure what their real reason is (accepting they can't stop EU citizens doing it under the current rules).
I thought that after Brexit it was pretty difficult for UK residents to buy property & live in Spain. Limiting purchases to EU only probably won't have much effect.
A friend sold his holiday home in Spain (at a big loss) due to the restricted time he is now allowed to spend there.
PS. - TV property shows like "A Place in the Sun". Are they purely historical as they never seem to address the current legalities of buying homes in Spain etc.?
I am still unsure what exactly they are proposing.
As I have said before, if it is restricting holiday homes then I agree entirely but if they are looking at stopping non eu from buying even to live in permenantly then that seems to be biting off ones nose to spite ones face since people doing that generally bring in a lot of money that they spend locally keeping locals going. Also those sort of people in Spain generally (not always) tend to buy near holiday/resorts exactly the places the locals dont want or need houses.
The other problem is it seems only about 3% of the houses are sold to non Eu so wont really make a jot of difference especailly given the above.
The real issue, as I have said before: air BnB. It's a proble worldwide and it needs regulating. Residential property is just that residential. Using for air BnB often bring social issues such as noise and undesirables plus they often avoid proper taxation (business rates etc).
It is a problem, they need to do something, I would start with the air BnB but I cant fault them trying something different.
Nice to hear a Government listening to its people.
davebro, re A Place in the Sun, all the legalities and visa requirements are discussed at length during the selection process.
It's primarily a light entertainment show and would be boring if it was discussed during the programme, and of course could be out of date by the time the programme is first broadcast.
“…then that would suggest that the economy needs to be reoriented.”
That’s strange. When I suggest that the UK economy needs to be reoriented away from one which requires an ever growing population, mainly fuelled by immigration – upon which it has been heavily dependent for four or five decades - I’m often told that it’s impossible and I should not be so silly.
But here we have a suggestion that a major European economy must be reoriented away from its dependence on tourism - upon which it has been heavily dependent for four or five decades.
“I dont think they are allowed to do that.”
No they are not. So perhaps they should consider a more drastic reorientation of their economy – one which allows them to act in their own best interests and not in the interests of 26 other countries.
In 2023, 15% of all property sales in Spain were to foreign buyers. Buyers from the other 26 EU countries accounted for almost 48% of those sales (with sales to UK buyers accounting for 9%).
So this measure will only resolve about half the problem that Spain believes is contributory to its housing problem (affecting about 7% of all sales). If it wants to tackle the other half, more drastic measures must be taken.
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