Spain considers giving permanent residence to new foreign housing investors

The Spanish Government is planning to change the current Foreign Policy and establishing a new residence regime for investors, like Cyprus and Great Britain do. The main goal is providing buying advantages to foreign fortunes in order to stimulate Spanish property market. These fortunes include customers from Russia.

One of the main measures is giving permanent residence to anyone investing more than 250.000 euros.

Demand already exists and only the first trimester of the current year it has risen up by 30%. Most of these fortunes looking for holiday exclusive houses in Mallorca, Ibiza or the Canary Islands come from Russia, UK and Germany, investing in properties valued at more than a million euros. Despite of this, they find many obstacles to perform the purchase.

Many experts like the lawyer Juan Mateu Bo, from Ripoll Mateu Abogados, point the effectiveness of such measures: “This new approach expedites formalities to non-EU real estate potential buyers in Mallorca. Each year many clients ask us for visa and residence issues before buying a property in Mallorca, and this is often a clue element when they finally decline the business, as they are banned to spend more than 90 days a year in Mallorca”.