Spain’s prime minister has floated a ban to stop non-resident Britons from buying second homes in the country.
Pedro Sanchez said he would propose to ban purchasers from outside the European Union from buying properties, in an attempt to curb rising property prices in Spain.
His plans come as part of a series of measures to boost supply and reduce demand, after a lack of housing has seen rents rise around 60 per cent in areas such as Madrid.
“We will propose to ban these non-EU foreigners who are not residents, and their relatives, from buying houses in our country since they only do so to speculate,” Mr Sanchez said at a political rally in Plasencia, in western Spain, on Sunday.
The latest announcement comes just one week after he unveiled a proposal to tax non-EU citizens not living in Spain 100 per cent when buying property.
Housing has become a major issue in Spain as it struggles to balance promoting tourism, a key driver of its economy, with concerns over high rents due to gentrification and landlords shifting to more lucrative, short-term tourist rentals, especially in urban and coastal areas.
The country’s central bank recently estimated there could be a deficit of half a million houses in Spain by the end of this year.
According to Mr Sanchez, non-residents from outside of the EU represent about 23,000 of the almost 700,000 homes bought and sold each year in the country.
Britons were the main foreign property buyers in 2023, having made 9.5 per cent of all purchases made by non Spaniards, according to real estate registry data.
Official figures show that the number of Brits registered as living in Spain increased from 276,089 in 2017 to 284,037 in 2023, with 12,470 Spanish property sales involving a British buyer the same year.
Sue Wilson, the head of campaign group for Britons living in Spain, Bremain in Spain, told The Times: “Many British nationals on lower incomes, who had hopes of retirement on the Costas, have already had their dreams shattered [by Brexit],” she said.
“These new measures — assuming they are passed by parliament — will only add to the barriers we face in Europe as non-EU citizens.”
A source close to Sanchez played down the suggestion of a ban, saying the plan remained to discourage these acquisitions through increased tax rates.
It would also be difficult for Sanchez’s minority government to pass any bill such as this through the lower house of Spain’s parliament.
Even so, real estate companies have criticised the proposal, saying it has damaged Spain’s reputation. Paloma Relinque, CBRE’s executive corporate director for Spain said: “All factors related to regulatory and juridical changes are discouraging investors.”
Joan Carlos Amaro, a real estate analyst and professor of economics at the Esade Business School in Barcelona, told the paper: “Anything that puts up barriers and stops the market from functioning ends up hurting everyone. “These foreigners that come, they spend money, the houses they live in have to be built and that creates jobs.”
