Tourist exhibition in Madrid

VALENCIA – FITUR – Europe´s largest world tourist exhibition was opened in Madrid by King Juan Carlos of Spain on 31st January. With 187 countries taking stands in an area covering 89.000m2 there is a lot to see, and judging by the TV news reports it all looks great fun with a real holiday atmosphere. Obviously Spain has a large presence in the exhibition which is not surprising as last year a total of 58.8 million tourists visited Spain, 4.5% more than in 2005 which has broken all previous records with Brits at the top of the list. Valencia has gone all out and put on quite a show with stands taking up 5.500m2 (more than one acre of space)! It was good to hear the King make a special reference to Valencia in his speech regarding how wonderful it is that the America´s Cup will be held here. Of course, we have to remember that sailing is his main hobby!

Multiple property owners escape extra taxes

EAS (Estate Agent Speak): Those of you who have come to settle in Spain and have got to know some of the local people may find it strange to find, as we did many years ago, that most of them are the owners of more than one property. One of our workers had four properties but the others mostly just two! Alot of these properties are inherited or bought for investment and many are not rented out but just left and used on occasion by the owner´s family and friends. This of course means that for much of the time these dwellings are vacant. You also must have noticed the vast amount of building that continues going on and scratch your head in wonderment when the newspapers tell us that there is a shortage of accommodation!
For some time the government has been pondering on how to address this situation and then came up with a tentative solution: There should be an extra tax on every property which is not occupied. This tax could be added to the IBI receipt. What a great solution! All those unable or unwilling to pay the extra tax will release these properties onto the market and therefore put a halt to the excessive amount of building work.
But just a minute, isn´t this political suicide? To make it work the tax would have to bite. And if it did the market could be flooded, and for a left wing government who has a lot of supporters in the building trades those in construction would be none too pleased to be out of work. Also, don´t forget that many of those on the lowest income have a second home!
It therefore came as no great surprise when Sr Solbes speaking of behalf of the government on the 24th January decided against adding any tax onto the IBI receipt for an unoccupied residence as it would be in his opinion too `legally complex´ to decide when a dwelling is unoccupied or not ie. `As in the case of when the occupants are temporarily away for reasons of work etc.´. He went on to state that in his opinion a vacant property is `a legally inconclusive concept´. Sr. Solbes stressed that this was the central government´s decision and that every autonomous region could take their own!