Spain is making plans to impose a tax of as much as 100% on houses purchased through non-residents from nations outdoor the EU, similar to the United Kingdom.
Pronouncing the transfer, Top Minister Pedro Sánchez stated the “exceptional” measure was once important to satisfy the rustic’s housing emergency.
“The West faces a decisive problem: Not to grow to be a society divided into two categories, the wealthy landlords and deficient tenants,” he stated.
Non-EU citizens purchased 27,000 houses in Spain in 2023, he informed an financial discussion board in Madrid, “to not are living in” however “to earn a living from them”.
“Which, within the context of scarcity that we’re in, [we] clearly can not permit,” he added.
The transfer was once due to this fact designed to “priorit[ise] that the to be had properties are for citizens”, he stated.
Sánchez didn’t supply main points on how the tax would paintings nor a timeline for presenting it to parliament for approval, the place he has ceaselessly struggled to assemble enough votes to go law.
However his executive stated the proposal could be finalised “after cautious find out about”.
It’s one in every of a dozen deliberate measures introduced through the high minister on Monday geared toward bettering housing affordability within the nation.
Different measures introduced come with a tax exemption for landlords who supply inexpensive housing, shifting greater than 3,000 properties to a brand new public housing frame, and tighter legislation and better taxes on vacationer residences.
“It is not honest that those that have 3, 4 or 5 flats as momentary leases pay much less tax than resorts,” he stated.
