buying an apartment in spain

[Chris Stott]

GT03ROB said:

Actually this place is worse than a new build….. its a new old build!!

Finally moved in Thursday. Bit of messing around with the furniture but it all turned up either Tuesday or Thursday. internet provider turned up 10mins early on Thursday. Fridge, TV & washing machine ordered Tuesday & was here yesterday. Alarm system installed on Thursday. Spent 3 days building furniture clearing st away. Only issue has been plumbing in the washing machine as the waste hose & waste are not compatible, Found a DIY place & bought wrong sized bit…....Doh!

Will need to sort out someone to come & do a few things. Lighting all needs doing, its seems light bulbs are left hanging from wires, not a rose. Exterior lights need doing & a/c needs fitting. But that won;t be done this time round.

I have a mate who’s a heating/AC guy… did my system and 3 of my friends. Nice chap, German, speaks really good English and won’t take the piss on price. Not sure if he normally covers Duqesa, but it’s only 30 mins from here so should be ok.

DM me if interested and I’ll speak to him and make the introduction.

I can do your lights if you don’t find anyone local.

[pincher]

Nice touch. PH at its finest

[GT03ROB]

Chris Stott said:

I have a mate who’s a heating/AC guy… did my system and 3 of my friends. Nice chap, German, speaks really good English and won’t take the piss on price. Not sure if he normally covers Duqesa, but it’s only 30 mins from here so should be ok.

DM me if interested and I’ll speak to him and make the introduction.

I can do your lights if you don’t find anyone local.

Cheers. I'll drop you a note,

[Riff Raff]

I wouldn't get hung up on the bulbs hanging from wires thing. At least inside. Ceiling roses as we know them in the UK are not generally used in Spain - there's no need to use them as a loop in/out junction box, because ceiling / wall lights are pretty much always wired as radial circuits, so there will only ever be two wires (three if there is an earth) coming out of the ceiling. The expectation is that you will buy a light fitting which when fitted will cover up the hole and the wires. If you don't want a fitting where the wires come out, normal practice is to leave the wires in the ceiling void (possibly in a box, possibly not) and plaster up the hole.

Anyway. Here's a photo of my kitchen prior to fitting the units. The kitchen is now fitted, but the light still looks like the photo. It's been like that for 9 months. I need to get up to Leroy Merlin to find something that the Mrs. approves of!

[Phil.]

I still have one of those in a storage cupboard, I must get around to replacing it

[arfur]

Not sure is you folks have seen this ..

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/01/30/always-...

Very useful for me ! Will start to look into it further

[Phil.]

arfur said:

Not sure is you folks have seen this ..

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/01/30/always-...

Very useful for me ! Will start to look into it further

It seems ok if you are a high earner as the 24% income tax is a flat rate from zero earnings up to £600k pa. It’s not so attractive if you earn say £50k pa and end up paying more tax than in the UK plus have the additional medical insurance costs. I’m also unsure if the wealth tax applies to this visa? And you have to spend more than 6 months a year in Spain to remain eligible. It will work for some people though.

[eyebeebe]

Phil. said:

arfur said:

Not sure is you folks have seen this ..

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/01/30/always-...

Very useful for me ! Will start to look into it further

It seems ok if you are a high earner as the 24% income tax is a flat rate from zero earnings up to £600k pa. It’s not so attractive if you earn say £50k pa and end up paying more tax than in the UK plus have the additional medical insurance costs. I’m also unsure if the wealth tax applies to this visa? And you have to spend more than 6 months a year in Spain to remain eligible. It will work for some people though.

It's 15% flat for the first 4 years up to €600k. No mention of whether you need to pay social security costs. That may or may not be a good thing. If there are no social security costs to pay the break even vs. UK is around £45k pa. Beyond that, your quids in, assuming you can work remotely of course.

The whole point of it would be to deregister from the UK (or wherever) for tax and live in Spain. Even if you aren't able to get out of the clutches of HMRC, dual tax treaties should ensure you don't pay excessive tax.

Wealth tax isn't great, but you need a decent pot before it becomes meaningful after the deductions. Probably works out favourably vs. the UK overall for most as any wealth tax would be more than offset by lower income tax.

To me it seems to be a very reasonable deal. If the usual 90/180 Schengen rules don't work for you, but you don't want to spend more than six months a year in Spain, what do you want? Bearing in mind that pre-Brexit if you were spending more than six months a year in Spain you should have been registered for tax.

[Chris Stott]

It’s great news for us.

My wife is still working and earning decent money. This would allow her to live and work here without the issue of CGT, which would be a problem if she took residency.

Andalucia has abolished wealth tax, so no issues there.

[eyebeebe]

Chris Stott said:

It’s great news for us.

My wife is still working and earning decent money. This would allow her to live and work here without the issue of CGT, which would be a problem if she took residency.

Andalucia has abolished wealth tax, so no issues there.

Is that confirmed on CGT? The only link I could find suggests that you would still be liable, but I think it's an old article as it mentions 24% rather than 15% (unless the article linked from today is wrong).

[Phil.]

eyebeebe said:

It's 15% flat for the first 4 years up to €600k. No mention of whether you need to pay social security costs. That may or may not be a good thing. If there are no social security costs to pay the break even vs. UK is around £45k pa. Beyond that, your quids in, assuming you can work remotely of course.

The whole point of it would be to deregister from the UK (or wherever) for tax and live in Spain. Even if you aren't able to get out of the clutches of HMRC, dual tax treaties should ensure you don't pay excessive tax.

Wealth tax isn't great, but you need a decent pot before it becomes meaningful after the deductions. Probably works out favourably vs. the UK overall for most as any wealth tax would be more than offset by lower income tax.

To me it seems to be a very reasonable deal. If the usual 90/180 Schengen rules don't work for you, but you don't want to spend more than six months a year in Spain, what do you want? Bearing in mind that pre-Brexit if you were spending more than six months a year in Spain you should have been registered for tax.

I looked at a few articles which said 24%, 15% tax would be great. Do you have any references to the 15% tax rate?

As we’ve mentioned before it’s possible to avoid getting caught out by the wealth tax with some planning.

Edited to add a couple of articles I read:

https://www.immigrationspain.es/en/visa-for-digita...

https://spainguru.es/2023/01/06/spanish-digital-no...

This refers to CGT too:

https://www.immigrationspain.es/en/nomad-visa-spai...

I’d welcome sight of anything official though.

Edited by Phil. on Tuesday 21st February 22:35

[Phil.]

Chris Stott said:

It’s great news for us.

My wife is still working and earning decent money. This would allow her to live and work here without the issue of CGT, which would be a problem if she took residency.

Andalucia has abolished wealth tax, so no issues there.

Until Madrid introduces a new national wealth tax which has been reported in the press in recent months because some of the regions are abolishing the current tax.

[eyebeebe]

Phil. said:

I looked at a few articles which said 24%, 15% tax would be great. Do you have any references to the 15% tax rate?

As we’ve mentioned before it’s possible to avoid getting caught out by the wealth tax with some planning.

Edited to add a couple of articles I read:

https://www.immigrationspain.es/en/visa-for-digita...

https://spainguru.es/2023/01/06/spanish-digital-no...

This refers to CGT too:

https://www.immigrationspain.es/en/nomad-visa-spai...

I’d welcome sight of anything official though.

Edited by Phil. on Tuesday 21st February 22:35

This one that Arfur linked yesterday from the 20th Feb. Agreed something official would be good. Sadly, our current jobs wouldn’t allow us to take advantage of this at the moment, but who knows what the future will bring.
https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/01/30/always-...

The link address suggests end of Jan, but the article is dated Monday.

I guess you mean the offshore bonds for avoiding the wealth tax? I’ve looked at them before and couldn’t convince myself that the setup costs, ongoing fees and poor choice of funds offset paying the wealth tax. It’s something I need to dig deeper into before we decide to move.

[Phil.]

eyebeebe said:

This one that Arfur linked yesterday from the 20th Feb. Agreed something official would be good. Sadly, our current jobs wouldn’t allow us to take advantage of this at the moment, but who knows what the future will bring.
https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/01/30/always-...

The link address suggests end of Jan, but the article is dated Monday.

I guess you mean the offshore bonds for avoiding the wealth tax? I’ve looked at them before and couldn’t convince myself that the setup costs, ongoing fees and poor choice of funds offset paying the wealth tax. It’s something I need to dig deeper into before we decide to move.

We’ll have to wait for something official to understand the tax implications.

I’m thinking of this for my son who is early 20’s, earning good money working remotely in tech and is fed up with UK culture. The wealth tax isn’t a consideration for him.

I’m semi-retired and have built up a decent pot, enough to retire, so wealth tax is a consideration. My income is much lower than it was when I was working so the tax advantages will be less. I think trusts are a way to manage the wealth tax issue and will take advice if I was seriously considering a move to Spain. In the meantime we’re happy with less than 6 months in Spain and the remainder in the UK.

[Chris Stott]

eyebeebe said:

Is that confirmed on CGT? The only link I could find suggests that you would still be liable, but I think it's an old article as it mentions 24% rather than 15% (unless the article linked from today is wrong).

We put our UK home in my wife’s name when I took residency here… so we could avoid the WT and then sell it in the future (beige my wife takes residency) without me being liable for Spanish CGT.

The plan would be for my wife to do, say, 5 years here as a digital, give that up, sell the Uk house and then apply for non-lucrative residency (or whatever visas are available at the time)… I’ll have been resident for c.10 years by then so shouldn’t be a problem for her.

I think that plan still works, but will need to have a proper look.

[eyebeebe]

Chris Stott said:

We put our UK home in my wife’s name when I took residency here… so we could avoid the WT and then sell it in the future (beige my wife takes residency) without me being liable for Spanish CGT.

The plan would be for my wife to do, say, 5 years here as a digital, give that up, sell the Uk house and then apply for non-lucrative residency (or whatever visas are available at the time)… I’ll have been resident for c.10 years by then so shouldn’t be a problem for her.

I think that plan still works, but will need to have a proper look.

Obviously need to wait to see the full details, but getting this visa would mean residency - you have to spend more than 6 months of the year in Spain as one of the conditions. The natural consequence of that would be that you would be liable for other taxes too i.e. WT and CGT, unless there is also a sweetheart deal on those too. If there was a deal, then how easy is it to swap tax residencies back and forth to arbitrage taxes? It feels like this is the kind of thing that spending a few quid with a specialist could save a fortune down the line.

It's strange that there are plenty of articles on the net about this (here is another one from this week with the 15% tax rate https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/19/spains-digital-nom... ), but I can't see anything official from the Spanish government.

[arfur]

Yetski said:

arfur said:

Yetski said:

Good luck with the search, I'm currently looking again, unfortunately my partner in boat ownership managed to hit some rocks near Soto severely damaging one of the engines and holing it, so I've pulled out, don't fancy putting my trust in a damaged repairable boat.
1K sounds about right, and your correct about moorings at Soto, but I still own the lease on my mooring in Duquesa, so that's where the new one will be going.

I did spend some time looking at Charlies Angel - P3 in Duquesa. It's UK owned on ES flag. The price just kept coming down - In the end they were willing to take 35kE for a 2001 Fairline 30. The list of issues however was initially looking minimum of 10k (trim tabs, services, GPS, AC etc etc) and there was pretty much zero history. It was suggested the engines were at 600 hours, then 700, then 800 (ish) - it's at this point I walked away

So if you are up for doing repairs then if it's still there it could still represent a bargain for someone with plenty of experience (not me - hence not risking it)

Shame about the Bavaria, they are a lovely boat !

Loved the Bavaria, infact might even get another, but first I need to get back down and get a couple of road trips on, as I've aready pencilled in a couple of other options to look at, although they need to be the same size or smaller due to the berth.
Really don't want to spend any effort repairing one, there's plenty of unloved boats down there if you have the time on your hands to make a good un, or are willing to get ripped off by certain people around the port.
But until I can retire down there, our times precious, and we need to make the most of it, so it needs to be plug and play.

Currently in Duquesa staying in the port... did you get a new boat yet ? Most of what I can see on the P's are the usual suspects !

[Yetski]

arfur said:

Yetski said:

arfur said:

Yetski said:

Good luck with the search, I'm currently looking again, unfortunately my partner in boat ownership managed to hit some rocks near Soto severely damaging one of the engines and holing it, so I've pulled out, don't fancy putting my trust in a damaged repairable boat.
1K sounds about right, and your correct about moorings at Soto, but I still own the lease on my mooring in Duquesa, so that's where the new one will be going.

I did spend some time looking at Charlies Angel - P3 in Duquesa. It's UK owned on ES flag. The price just kept coming down - In the end they were willing to take 35kE for a 2001 Fairline 30. The list of issues however was initially looking minimum of 10k (trim tabs, services, GPS, AC etc etc) and there was pretty much zero history. It was suggested the engines were at 600 hours, then 700, then 800 (ish) - it's at this point I walked away

So if you are up for doing repairs then if it's still there it could still represent a bargain for someone with plenty of experience (not me - hence not risking it)

Shame about the Bavaria, they are a lovely boat !

Loved the Bavaria, infact might even get another, but first I need to get back down and get a couple of road trips on, as I've aready pencilled in a couple of other options to look at, although they need to be the same size or smaller due to the berth.
Really don't want to spend any effort repairing one, there's plenty of unloved boats down there if you have the time on your hands to make a good un, or are willing to get ripped off by certain people around the port.
But until I can retire down there, our times precious, and we need to make the most of it, so it needs to be plug and play.

Currently in Duquesa staying in the port... did you get a new boat yet ? Most of what I can see on the P's are the usual suspects !

I'm down again in just under 3 weeks, I'll get the MotoGP out of the way, then got a couple lined up to take a look at, but nothings really striking me in the Malaga region at the moment, there's a few further afield, so a road trip could be on the cards.

[swanseaboydan]

Love this thread. I’m in Gran Canaria for 2 weeks looking at apartments - nothing available that I like at the moment. I love it here as you get great winter sun all through winter but should I also look in southern Spain ? I’m looking to do 4 - 6 months winter in mainland Spain or the canaries but I worry that mainland Spain may not be warm enough jan - March - what’s it really like ?
Aiming to spend over 500k to get the golden visa - but I don’t want a villa - rather a penthouse / decent size flat with access to a pool that I don’t have to clean and worry about.
Any of you guys had similar misgivings about winter sun in the canaries vs winter sun in mainland Spain ?

[GT03ROB]

swanseaboydan said:

Love this thread. I’m in Gran Canaria for 2 weeks looking at apartments - nothing available that I like at the moment. I love it here as you get great winter sun all through winter but should I also look in southern Spain ? I’m looking to do 4 - 6 months winter in mainland Spain or the canaries but I worry that mainland Spain may not be warm enough jan - March - what’s it really like ?
Aiming to spend over 500k to get the golden visa - but I don’t want a villa - rather a penthouse / decent size flat with access to a pool that I don’t have to clean and worry about.
Any of you guys had similar misgivings about winter sun in the canaries vs winter sun in mainland Spain ?

We all have different ideas of what "warm" is.

Mainland Spain Jan-Feb is really not warm enough for me. Though it's certainly better than the UK. If you are sheltered & in the sun its pleasant. The best test for you personally is go there & see. Remember also that a lot more places are shut up. A lovely little bustling port town in the summer can be a very different place in winter, when the place is deserted & its too cold to sit outside.