Spain Property Guide

If you are a non-Spanish owner of property in Spain, then except in unusual circumstances, you should make a will nominating the chosen beneficiaries of your Spanish property.  As Andrew Eastwood, Managing Director of Legal4spain writes, if you do not make a will dealing with your Spanish property, you risk the following issues occurring following your death: -

Someone other than your chosen beneficiaries could inherit your Spanish property.  Your beneficiaries could end up with an unnecessarily lengthy and stressful legal process to claim their Spanish inheritance.  Your beneficiaries could also be burdened with very substantial legal fees in securing their Spanish inheritance.  Your beneficiaries could be faced with high Succession Tax charges, which can significantly erode the value of their Spanish inheritance.

So, could you feel comfortable knowing you were leaving your loved ones with the problems outlined above?  Are you happy to think of someone other than your chosen beneficiaries claiming your Spanish property?  Are you relaxed about the prospect of the Tax Authorities unnecessarily having a claim to a large proportion of your hard-earned wealth?  If not, then please read on!  We are going to explain clearly why you need a Spanish will if you own a property or any other assets in Spain…

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After a miserable year for overseas property owners on Lanzarote there are some signs that a corner may just have been turned in terms of the popularity of the island as a holiday destination.  And as we all know, where the tourists lead, the property market eventually follows!

The rate of decline in terms of visitor numbers to the island fell dramatically last month according to the latest arrival figures just released by the Spanish airport operators AENA.  This is a small sign of positivity, but could it herald brighter skies for Lanzarote property and tourism economies?

The Spanish Canary Island has year round sunshine and a very long history as a popular destination, particularly with European travellers, so if it can just reach a point of stability in terms of visitor numbers, perhaps this could bode well over the short to medium term for the property market as well.  Owners of homes on the island certainly hope so because property prices in Lanzarote are just so low at the moment – of course this means that there are rich pickings for bargain hunters!

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The property market in Spain has many parallels and similarities to that in the UK in that if a property is competitively priced it will sell, where there are still pockets of demand there is buoyancy in the market, agents have talked the market up to an unsustainable level, prices have fallen below what the media and government are promoting and people still hanker after owning a home in Spain, just as there is a desire for homeownership in the UK.

The only trouble is, not everyone can afford to take advantage of some of the bargains that are genuinely coming to the market in Spain because they don’t have the cash in hand to pay full asking price in cash for a Spanish property…

We’re aware that properties in the UK are not selling in part because people cannot secure mortgage financing – but is the situation the same in Spain?  Can you still get mortgages to buy Spanish property or not?  In this report we’re going to look at what property financing products are available to British buyers interested in buying a home in Spain.

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