Spain PM proposes to ban home purchases by non-EU buyers

MADRID: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez proposed on Sunday to ban people outside the EU from buying housing in the country, as part of his drive to ease an affordable-homes crisis.

The plan followed the Socialist leader’s proposal last week to slap a tax of up to 100 per cent on such property deals in a country struggling with strong demand and soaring prices.

“We are going to propose to ban non-EU foreigners from buying houses in our country, in cases where neither they nor their families reside here and they are just speculating with those homes,” Sanchez told a gathering of his Socialist party in the western Extremadura region.

Announcing a list of proposed measures last week, he vowed to offer more social housing, improve regulation and provide more support to renters.

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He blamed the crisis on measures passed by the conservative Popular Party when it was in government during the financial crisis that erupted in 2008.

Announcing his 12-point programme to alleviate the crisis on Monday, Sanchez said non-residents from outside the European Union bought around 27,000 houses and apartments in Spain in 2023.

According to real estate registry data, Britons led the way for foreign property buyers in 2023 with 9.5 percent of the total transactions by non-Spaniards.

Sanchez has also announced higher taxes and tighter regulation for tourist apartments, often blamed for reducing the availability of residential properties and causing rents to spike.