Sounds reasonable enough actually:
Spain is to offer automatic residency to wealthy foreign property buyers in an attempt to lure Chinese and Russians to reduce its huge stockpile of 750,000 unsold properties.
Buyers who acquire a home worth €160,000 or more will get a residency permit in a move designed to attract more purchasers from the two markets. British buyers have all but deserted Spain in the wake of the 2008 crash, but the Russians and Chinese are still buying up properties for cash.
Well, yes. My only question is, is there still a property that sells for as much as €160k in the country?
7 responses so far ↓
1 So Much For Subtlety // Nov 20, 2012 at 9:46 am
Residency? So they can move to London then?
Seems a good plan. For the Spanish.
2 MattyJ // Nov 20, 2012 at 10:13 am
@SMFS: Movement within the EU depends on your citizenship, not residency. So they’ll have to live in Spain for a while before they can move to London.
3 bilbaoboy // Nov 20, 2012 at 10:28 am
Can’t say we aren’t innovative, eh?
So far it is only a ‘globo sonda’ (weather balloon) and expression we use for to see if the idea ‘has a chance of flying’.
4 David // Nov 20, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Can you buy several flats/houses to get to 160K euros
if you can’t find one worth 160K?
5 Tim Newman // Nov 20, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Ah, they did this in the UAE. Permanent residency for anyone buying an overpriced condo. The law changed pretty fast when they realised David Beckham and his mates were not going to be buying, but half of India was.
Although I do wonder what the rest of the Shenghen area thinks of this.
6 Before the Deluge // Nov 20, 2012 at 11:07 pm
MattyJ…
It takes 5 years of residency for a South American (already fluent in Spanish and born into Hispanic culture, so very easy assimilation) to gain citizenship in Spain and 10 years for everyone else. So not really practical.
7 Before the Deluge // Nov 20, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Plus you have to renounce your previous citizenship. Which is why I have’nt done it despite being here 13 years now.
Was reading about this in the local paper this morning and it seems like a good idea. It won’t solve the problem of course, but every little bit helps.
And yes Tim, there are plenty of proberties round my neck of the woods at well over that price, being quietly snapped up by Russians.
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