The Spanish government has announced it is studying a change in the legislation in order to grant residence permits to foreigners buying a real estate property adding up to €160,000 or more. This measure is mainly designed to attract inversions from Russian and Chinese citizens.
The plan is to boost the sale – to investors – of the huge number of houses built during the real estate boom and that can’t be sold on the domestic market.
In exchange, a temporary residence permit would be granted to the buyer of the house. Countries such as Portugal, Ireland, USA and Canada have already implemented this kind of measures in the framework of their legislation.
However, the possibility to get the residence authorization through a different way is already foreseen by the current legislation for foreigners with “sufficient income”. Nowadays, a foreigner receiving €2,100 per month and wanting to live in Spain without working can ask for a temporary residence permit.
The main novelty lies in the fact that, according to the proposal, the purchase of a house would be enough to prove this income and ask for the residence.
Another piece of news might be that, as it already occurs in countries with special permits for investors, the buyer will not need to spend at least 6 months and one day in Spain, which is a requirement all the legal residents must fulfill not to lose their permit.
