Both PSOE and United Podemos have in principle reached an agreement that empty homes will be taxed by up to 50% of the IBI in the next Real Estate Law.
At Lasose Properties & Investments we tell you what taxes owners will have to pay for empty homes and how empty homes will be defined.
The new housing law that will come into effect in the coming weeks is still open to negotiation between the coalition partners of the government, UNO Podemos and PSOE. One of the agreements that has been reached is that this new law includes a surcharge of up to 50% of the IBI to tax empty housing.
Although the INE has not been publishing data on empty homes for about 10 years, it is estimated that in Spain around 10% of housing is comprised of empty or uninhabited homes. Included in this data are those homes that need renovation or that are considered to be homes that are part of empty Spain.
The COAPI General Council of Spain believes that this new regulation could be a way of boosting the market, although they also take into account that it could be counterproductive for homeowners, seeing as this type of provision appears in a 2004 regulation in the Regulatory Law of Local Treasuries, but it is not currently put into practice. This is because there is no real definition of what is considered to be an actual empty dwelling.
However, the Council points out that this new law will establish a clear definition of what is considered to be empty housing, and it will be for those owners with more than four dwellings. It will also be the local councils who will decide whether to charge the surcharge or not.
This new law will establish vacant housing as that which has been uninhabited for more than two years. This is in order to boost the property market, and as experts say, the measure should be accompanied by more intense measures to increase and offer more competitive prices, with the aim of improving access to housing for all citizens.
