Spain may have opened the floodgates and now other European nations are considering Spanish-style enormous tax increases on property sales to non-resident Britons and Americans (or anybody else from outside the European Union).
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced plans last month to slap a 100 percent tax on sales of properties to non-resident/non-European Union citizens in an effort to try and cool the housing market. Experts consulted by the Bulletin have said that they doubt that the law will ever be ratified.
However, other European countries, including Greece, France and Portugal are planning similar measures. This will come as another blow to British house hunters because these countries would have benefited from the Spanish tax because they are also popular destinations for British home buyers.
According to Euronews: "with popular European destinations for second homes now seeing increased tax and cost uncertainty, several British buyers are looking further abroad to relocate. According to 1st Move International, between 2022 and 2024, the US, Australia, UAE, Canada and New Zealand were the top destinations for Brits to move to. Others included Cyprus, South Africa, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the Cayman Islands."
The British are the biggest buyers of Spanish property at the moment although if the new tax law does come into force it will have a major impact. Already there is concern amongst British buyers who think that their dream of a holiday home in Spain may have become a nightmare.
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David HollandGracias
Morgan WilliamsMy, my not a bad analysis Morgan.
*if* this actually ends up seeing the light of day, other than making it damned impractical for a non-EU non resident to buy property, there's little evidence it will have much impact on house prices for the working class, which is supposed to be the objective. Brits typically buy apartments (but overwhelmingly in British enclaves where there's few "natives" anyway), and the Europeans and Americans typically buy mil+ homes. These aren't "working class" housing, and wouldn't otherwise be bought by the local "working class". So eliminating American buyers won't have any impact on the objective. It might sting a bit in tax revenues though. So if this ever happens, it's not as if "working class" housing will suddenly become affordable to the "working class". Unless of course, the "working class" manage to somehow achieve salaries equivalent to urban dwelling "working class" Europeans and Americans. But it doesn't apply to Europeans anyway, so I guess there will just be more European buyers. Unless of course, Trump manages to crash the global economy, in that case, this will be the least of our worries.
David HollandSorry should be pasta eating surrender monkeys.
Maybe your geography is a bit off , ? that was France.! Not Italy And defo not Northumberland.
David HollandAh but it's full of cheese eating surrender monkeys.
“Already there is concern amongst British buyers who think that their dream of a holiday home in Spain may have become a nightmare.” You can thank Brexit for that. Boris Johnson insisted that the UK become a third-country - something even Theresa May was anxious to avoid.
ChrisNah just stay in Northumberland. And visit every where.
David HollandBetter move quick then in case the Italians impose a similar property tax for non EU, non-residents to the one planned in Spain!
After many decades of traveling to Majorca at least twice a year , this year’s early break will be in Tuscany. My wife out of interest looked at some of the properties out there. Equivalence of some Majorca buildings. Half the price.