5 Risks and Opportunities when buying a Spanish home in 2011.
Posted by admin on Apr 5, 2011 in Blog, Buying Spanish Property, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages, Spanish Property Market | Comments Off
Risks and opportunities when buying a Spanish home this year. 2011 is set to be a challenging year for the real estate market. There are a number of risks in the market, such as house prices and mortgage requirements, but for some people the crisis has created opportunities which can be exploited. As the mortgage portal...
Banking News
Posted by admin on Mar 17, 2011 in Blog, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages | Comments Off
Mortgage rates for all ages. Age is a key factor when applying for a mortgage, as it determines not only the mortgage loan conditions the bank offers you, but also the factors to be taken into account when deciding which offer to accept. According to helpmycash.com, a mortgage specialist portal, each age group has its own...
Spanish Bank Repossession-Navarra Provincial Court overturns previous ruling, and states that giving your home back to the bank does not cancel the mortgage.
Posted by admin on Mar 1, 2011 in Blog, Spanish Banks, Spanish Legal System, Spanish Mortgages | Comments Off
The now famous ruling by the Provincial Court of Navarra, which allowed a homeowner in financial difficulties to cancel his mortgage debt by giving his home back to the bank, has not lasted very long. A new ruling handed down by the Third Division of Navarra Provincial Court has overturned the ruling issued by the Second...
Spanish bank repossessions – Court stops bank from pursuing couple for negative equity.
Posted by admin on Feb 16, 2011 in Blog, Selling Spanish Property, Spanish Banks, Spanish Legal System, Spanish Mortgages | Comments Off
A court in Navarre (North Spain) has thrown out a bank’s claim to pursue a couple for negative equity, creating a precedent that could turn the Spanish mortgage market on its head. The judge ruled that by taking the property the bank had enough to cancel the loan of 72,000 Euros, even though there were no bidders when the...
Spanish Banks Property Portfolios – Banks Keeping the Price of Property Artificially High
Posted by admin on Oct 4, 2010 in Blog, Buying Spanish Property, Estate Agents Spain, Invest in Spain, Selling Spanish Property, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages, Spanish Property Market | Comments Off
A recent article in one of Spain’s leading papers points the finger at banks for keeping the price of property artificially high. Why have property prices fallen less in Spain than other countries that had property bubbles like the US and the UK? One reason is because the official housing price data in Spain is completely...
Spanish Tax Planning-Offshore Banking Moves Further Towards Tax Transparency
Posted by admin on Aug 11, 2010 in Blog, Invest in Spain, Offshore Banking, Spanish Banks, Spanish Taxes, Tax Planning Spain | Comments Off
When Tax planning in Spain few expatriates used to think twice about opening an offshore account. They provide a means of keeping Sterling outside the UK (useful to help prove your UK-non residency status); you can usually open and use them from anywhere in the world; interest rates were often higher than their onshore...
Spanish Economy-Were The EU Bank Tests Stressful Enough?
Posted by admin on Aug 11, 2010 in Blog, Invest in Spain, Spanish Banks, Spanish Taxes, Tax Planning Spain | Comments Off
On 23rd July the results of the much anticipated stress tests on European banks were published. There were no surprises, with just seven out of the 91 banks tested across the 27 EU Member States failing. But does this mean that European banks are safely out of the woods? While the results will hopefully give the markets...
Spanish Tax Rise to Target the Wealthy
Posted by admin on Jun 14, 2010 in Blog, Spanish Banks, Spanish Property Market, Spanish Taxes, Tax Planning Spain | Comments Off
Wealthy individuals living in Spain need to brace themselves for an unexpected tax shock. Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has announced an imminent tax increase for “those who actually have more”. Whether this is the last of the tax rises or there are more to follow remains to be seen. It raises...
Spanish Economy-Bank Debt Back In the Spotlight
Posted by admin on Jun 14, 2010 in Blog, Invest in Spain, Spanish Banks, Spanish Property Market | Comments Off
The scenes of long queues of people outside Northern Rock have faded somewhat from memory. While not completely forgotten, they seem a long time ago now – it was in September 2007 after all. The following autumn then saw the collapse of Lehman Brothers and less than a month later Icelandic banks Kaupthing and Landsbanki...
Spanish Banks The Bank de España wants to reduce banks’ property portfolios
Posted by admin on Jun 7, 2010 in Blog, Buying Spanish Property, Invest in Spain, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages, Spanish Property Market | Comments Off
The Banco de España (bde) has asked a large number of banks to undertake an impact test for their residential Spanish properties and other real estate assets in order to draw up a new strategy, based on provisions whose purpose is to ensure banks and savings banks sell their residential real estate as soon as possible. The...
The Spanish Property Market
Posted by admin on May 27, 2010 in Blog, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages, Spanish Property Market | Comments Off
Mortgage floor: 29% of mortgages have a minimum interest rate. 29% of mortgages taken out by Spanish families to finance the purchase of their home are subject to a mortgage “floor”, which means that when interest rates fall to a certain level, usually to below 3.1%, they do not benefit, according to a study drawn...
Spanish Mortgages – Euribor up, new mortgage lending up, foreclosures up.
Posted by admin on May 3, 2010 in Blog, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages | Comments Off
Euribor, the interest rate normally used to calculate mortgage payments in Spain, rose 0.8% in April compared to the previous month, taking it back to 1.225% where it was in February. This is only the second time Euribor has risen on a monthly basis since September 2008. Despite the rise in April, the Euribor is still just a...
Spanish Banking News
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2010 in Blog, Spanish Banks, Spanish Mortgages | Comments Off
Cancellation Of The Loan, In Whole Or In Part, Is Penalized By A High Charge A new ‘anti-switching’ clause ties mortgagees to their banks. § It’s called ‘Compensation for Interest Rate Risk’, and it’s been law since 2007 § It penalizes those who wish to change banks by up to 5%,...
Spanish Properties -Tax authorities to scrutinise methods of payment in house sales.
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2010 in Blog, Buying Spanish Property, Estate Agents Spain, Selling Spanish Property, Spanish Taxes | Comments Off
Banks obliged to report all transactions over 3,000 euros to the taxman. The Government has decided to tighten fiscal control over the real estate sector, a sector that is under suspicion, and which the tax authorities are scrutinising closely as they believe it is more conducive to tax evasion than other sectors. From now on...
