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Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

theguardian.com

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Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#91

Post by matt-p »

CommanderData wrote: post #70
rolothrow wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally anecdotal, but I live in the largest city in Spain, and even in my residential area (as opposed to the touristy spots) every week I can see ads for "we buy your house, paid upfront over market value, Chinese investors". Posters in walls, flyers in windshields and so on.

This is excellent, assets like property don't grow on trees and needs to be protected from foreign investors. Absolutely need something like this in the UK.

I think the ship has sailed, but regardless isn't it all meaningless? Surely they can setup a company to get around it, or will be ban all foreign ownership of shares too?

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#92

Post by jedberg »

gruez wrote: post #66
jedberg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vacancy rates are deceiving though. If you have a place that is owned by someone and they are paying taxes on it, and it's not listed as a rental, it's not considered vacant. In big cities there are definitely homes that are empty and not listed being used as a store of wealth. In fact just within view of my own home are two houses like that. Both owned by foreign families who wanted a safer place to keep their w…

>The vacancy rates are deceiving though. If you have a place that is owned by someone and they are paying taxes on it, and it's not listed as a rental, it's not considered vacant. Why would you lie like that? https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/definitions.pdf Occupied Housing Units. A housing unit is occupied if a person or group of persons is living in it at the time of the interview or if the occupants are only tem…

That happens once every 10 years. They use tax records and other records to estimate it otherwise.

Also people will just not return the form, and once again they have to estimate.

And in places that impose a vacancy tax, they have incentive to lie or deceive the housing authority to avoid the tax.

And in my neighbors case for example they come by once every few months to pick up mail and probably fill out those types of forms.

In reality there are a lot of vacant homes that aren't counted as vacant.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#93

Post by giantg2 »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #60
MattGaiser wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> preferences for larger/fancier houses And more space per person, so older houses now house far fewer than they used to. US has more bedrooms without an occupant than ever. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/realestate/empty-bedrooms...

I wonder how empty-nesting attributes to this. My parents have 3 empty (really, repurposed) bedrooms in their house now. But downsizing in their area wouldn’t actually help financially, so they don’t.

Empty-nesting has been a thing for about 2-3 generations. Before that there were often multi-generation homes. But it seems like people didn't really up-size 2-3 generations ago. Many of the great generation were happy to build their 1000sqft Sears house and live there the rest of their lives. The last 1-2 generations seems to be more of a drive for trading up to bigger and better everything. Now we see empty-nesters in 2500sqft houses. I think it's natural to not not want to leave a long-time home, even if it is oversized and only filled on holidays for company or parties. But why do we really need that much space in the first place, seems to be more of the question.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#94

Post by cscurmudgeon »

jedberg wrote: post #36
gruez wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many % of flats are empty? At least in the US the hottest housing markets usually have the lowest vacancy rates. This makes sense, because the opportunity costs for leaving a property empty is higher, so owners are more tempted to rent them out.

The vacancy rates are deceiving though. If you have a place that is owned by someone and they are paying taxes on it, and it's not listed as a rental, it's not considered vacant. In big cities there are definitely homes that are empty and not listed being used as a store of wealth. In fact just within view of my own home are two houses like that. Both owned by foreign families who wanted a safer place to keep their w…

So let the people build enough to make houses being stores of wealth useless rather than engage in more govt control.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#95

Post by draw_down »

scotty79 wrote: post #73
affinepplan wrote: post #3

so is there any actual evidence that foreign home ownership is causing meaningful housing price inflation in Spain? or is this just uninformed pandering like it is in the US

Do you need specific evidence that additional demand causes price increase when the supply is pretty much fixed?

[dead]

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#96

Post by gruez »

Terr_ wrote: post #71
nayuki wrote: post #69

That's essentially an export tariff.

Perhaps if they were mobile homes. :p The comparison breaks down a little further with cases where the foreign owners just rent the home out.

>Perhaps if they were mobile homes. :p

Tourism counts as an "export" even though everything stays within the country's borders.

>The comparison breaks down a little further with cases where the foreign owners just rent the home out.

So... an investment tax?

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#97

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #44
nozzlegear wrote: post #7

Just tax land value.

How do you calculate the unimproved land value? This is an interesting question with the fires in LA right now. Is the land still as valuable as it was before the house burned down, minus the rebuild cost of the house? Or is the value intrinsically tied to the community that was there but no longer is? Or is the value actually higher now that a developer can come in and remake an entire neighborhood?

[deleted]

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#98

Post by matt-p »

V__ wrote: post #84
mhandley wrote: post #40

Anything to stop a non-EU resident owning an EU company that owns a Spanish home?

It's not trivial to set up a business as a non-eu citizien. As far as I know every EU business has to have an eu citizen representative. Additionally, a company owned property can't just be used privately.

I'm British and it's very easy to setup EU companies, many UK companies have HAD to due to Brexit.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#99

Post by switchbak »

throaway2501 wrote: post #87

Canada should follow suit

BC has already implemented actions to limit foreign ownership without them actively living in the residence. Probably more to be done though, but one needs to be careful about unintended consequences.

Re: Spain proposes 100% tax on homes bought by non-EU residents

#100

Post by ajb »

gruez wrote: post #88
V__ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not trivial to set up a business as a non-eu citizien. As far as I know every EU business has to have an eu citizen representative. Additionally, a company owned property can't just be used privately.

>As far as I know every EU business has to have an eu citizen representative You can't hire a nominee director? >Additionally, a company owned property can't just be used privately. They can't "rent" it back to the owner?

That sort of thing is a bit risky. One company I followed was bought out by a US vehicle owned by a Chinese investor, and then everything ground to a halt because (it appears[1]) the local agent fraudulently changed the bank accounts into their own name and locked out the owner. Operating stuff in a foreign legal jurisdiction is hard.

[1] this seems to have been the judgement of the court, but not all the fillings are free to access.

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