Jimena Real Estate

Jimena Real Estate

Jimena Real Estate

Jimena Real Estate

Energy Efficiency Certificate needed as from tomorrow: are you ready?

SPAIN Chaos is rampant at most of the Autonomous Regional authorities because they haven't yet got a registry together, in which to register their region's energy certificates, the need for which comes into effect tomorrow, June 1. The exceptions are Andalucía, Balearics and Castilla y León. If you want to sell or let your home, you will need one. If you're building a new home, energy efficiency must be in the upper region of certification (A, B or C). But what is it, and how do you get one? The answers are below in Q&A form.>>>

Jimena Real Estate

Jimena Real Estate

Housing sales drop by 12.6% in March after three months of upward trend

SPAIN March came in with a year-on-year drop of 12.6% compared to the same month in 2012. A total of 22,086 sales took place, the lowest number since April last year, according to the National Statistics Institute, which reported slightly more than 21,500 at the time. This year's drop comes after three consecutive months of annual figures heading upwards, and is probably due to the end of tax incentives that came into effect on January 1, and stopped in March. There is an inertia effect due to sales being started before January and closed after the beginning of the year, likewise towards the end of March.

Jimena Real Estate

Rosie Sutherland Villas

Jimena Real Estate

Rosie Sutherland Villas

Rosie Sutherland Villas

Sentence orders garage knocked down

(Photo: diariodecadiz.es)

VEJER The owners of a garage in El Palmar, in the municipality of Vejer, yesterday had it knocked down after a court decided it was illegal. Built over seven years ago, the family insists that it was on land that had belonged to it 'for three generations'. The spokesperson for the family, Javier Porras, said that the garage, of some 90m2, was used for keeping agricultural machinery such as a tractor and a fertilizer sprayer. They had asked for a pardon on the execution of the sentence but it was denied. They had it knocked down or it would have cost them €20,000 through the Council.

Can you just hand over a property to a bank because you can’t pay the mortgage?

SPAIN / ANDALUCÍA The short answer is: no, not quite, but things are getting better. One of the reasons for tightening the law is that banks have always benefited more from mortgages than the individual borrower have (with the obvious exception of the actual acquisition of a property, which may rise in value, or not). In the heady days of free-for-all mortgages (never free, and never for all), when hipotecas (mortgages) were given out to individuals at 110 or 120 per cent of the (over)estimated value of the property, it was in fact the developers, builders and sometimes private individuals who obtained vast benefits thanks to what the Organización Profesional de Inspectores de Hacienda del Estado (IHE, or State Tax Inspectors Professional Organization, a sort of union) called IVA (VAT) fraud. The fraud, or tax evasion, consisted not only of evading the payment of VAT required for transferring a property, but also its deduction taken later by banks. (A more detailed article on this subject will soon be available from SpainInformer.com)

Residency permits to be allowed to foreigners buying properties over €160,000

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MADRID Earlier this week the Secretary of State for Trade, Jaime García-Legaz, announced that the government is studying changes to the Foreigners Law in order to issue residency permits to foreigners purchasing properties for over €160,000. It is aimed, he added, at the Russian and Chinese markets, and that the changes will take place 'in a few weeks time.' The established purchase price is, said García-Legaz, at a 'balanced level' that is not expected to cause a 'massive demand for residency permits' and a lower price could serve as an 'excuse' to obtain residency.>>>

Two years' 'moratorium' on evictions

MADRID The Government agreed last week on allowing a delay of two years to families whose income is below €19,200 per year, and are defined as large families (familia numerosa, a legal definition) or with small children or other dependents, are unemployed or are victims of domestic violence. The mortgaged property must in all cases be the primary residence. A social housing pool is also being created. The Council of Ministers approved the Royal Decree-Law to protect mortgagees from being evicted for non-payment, and the housing fund to house those who do get evicted. Evictions are stopped for those coming under the above definitions, for two years. There are a number of requirements to qualify for protection under the decree. The housing pool will be created from properties the banks have repossessed by banks. The new law comes as a quick response to numerous evictions and the suicide of at least two people who were about to be evicted, as we reported here.

Aareal Bank is Factory Guadacorte's new owner

Headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has property business in 17 European countries, the US and Singapore

LOS BARRIOS The 'factory outlet' shopping centre has been anaemic for some time. There are only a couple of franchises, a bookshop and little else left, out of what used to be a bustling, reasonable place to shop. It couldn't have been making any money, and it began to look that way three or four years ago. But things may changeSOON YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO

Spanish property market at bottom of the pit

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Media reporting 'state of collapse' · Cádiz sales at historic low

MADRID The property market balloon in Spain is more than punctured. If you read the national media, paper and online, the language will offer a picture of Daliesque collapse, with deflated balloons hanging from the skeletons of unfinished buildings instead of clocks from tree branches. The latest report from the National Statistics Institute (INE) on the subject, for June 2012, shows historic minimums: only 681 property sales took place that month, 585 of them urban. In June 2011, there were 800 such sales and loud warnings were issued. The figures offer a year on year downturn of 15%. Agents and government bodies confirm that neither rentals nor sales are working,  and estate agents are clinging to the precipice by the fingernails.>>>

Property deals fall sharply in May

Andalucía is second on the list of most sales

SPAIN (Agencies) The latest statistics show that year on year property sales have fallen by 11.6% in May. Of a total of 27,286 sales/purchases, 52% were for second-hand properties and the remaining 48% for the newly built, according to the National Institute of Statistics in a report issued last week. The annual decrease is slightly less than that experienced for April, when it fell by 9.9% and and reached historic minimals. The May figures show a downturn that has now lasted 15 consecutive months. Andalucía follows the Valencian Region, which reached a relatively low 103 sales per 100,000 inhabitants, with a mere 90. At the other end of the list are La Rioja, Cantabria and Navarra. The spread between country and urban property sales is as follows: 84.6% of transactions carried out in May were for urban properties (including apartments, townhouses, etc.) and 15.4% for country properties (rústicas); and within the urban property section, just over half, 53.7%, wer for homes, the remainder, commercial. Of the total number of sales in May, 60,003 properties, 5,519 were transferred by donation, 1,061 by full or part exchange, and 33,329, by inheritance.