With housing moving up the list of concerns for Spaniards, Spain’s far-right party Vox has found a way to make it about foreigners.
The party headed by Santiago Abascal is looking for legal ways that allow “prioritising the Spanish buyer over the foreigner” when it comes to purchasing a home.
One of the measures being considered is to grant “tax deductions to developers who sell first homes to families,” which “is not usually the case for foreign buyers,” according to Vox’s Housing spokesperson in Congress Carlos Hernández.
"The idea is that if the developer sells to a national family it will be their first home and their habitual residence, so developers will get deductions that make the sale attractive; not so for the foreign buyer, who may buy their second or third home and they can use it for seasonal or tourist rental", argues the MP.
Another idea proposed during a recent plenary session was that Spaniards have VAT completely deducted when purchasing their first home, but not so for foreigners.
Foreign buyers currently represent around 15 percent of property purchasers in the country, a rate that’s gone up by 2 percent since the Covid-19 pandemic ended.
According to Spain’s Real Estate Credit Union (UCI) around 68 percent of international buyers bought properties in the country in 2023 to use as their main home, 21 percent as a second home and just 11 percent as an investment for rental, without specifying if this is long or short-term rental.
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Vox is currently exploring the legality of such measures with a group of advisors from within and outside the party, looking to countries such as Canada, Portugal, Australia and the Netherlands as examples of nations that have sought to “limit foreign demand”.
For Vox, "the ease with which foreign buyers are entering the market is hindering access to housing for the Spanish middle and working classes."
Hernández claims that the Spanish buyer is between a rock and a hard place, "sandwiched between two options", as they can neither afford to buy "because more and more people from outside are buying" and, according to him, Spanish citizens "do not have priority in social aid and programmes for access to public housing compared to immigrants without resources."
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Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration recently published a report in which it debunked fake news about migrants circulating online, including their so-called affinity for claiming more benefits.
The study found that only 26.1 percent of 350,000 people at risk of social exclusion, and who had therefore been able to receive financial aid, were foreign nationals.
Vox, which has had a nationalist anti-migration stance from its foundation, governs in coalition with the right-wing Popular Party in five of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions: Castilla y León, Valencia, Extremadura, Aragón and Murcia.
They differ considerably from the PP in terms of their approach to foreigners accessing housing and incentives, especially for wealthy outsiders.
In Madrid for example, where the Popular Party governs under Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Mbappé Law is currently working its way from the different legislative branches. This bill will give tax benefits to rich foreigners who move to Madrid, something Vox is staunchly against.
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For Vox, "guaranteeing that the Spanish national starts with equal conditions and is the one who has preferential access" compared to the foreigner is the priority, stresses Hernández.
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