Accepted an offer on our UK home, July purchase in Spain?

Lancelot, your excitement truly comes across in the context of your post .Many congratulations on the planned completion of the sale of your UK property . Good luck with your move to Spain and your new life in the Sun. Hope to hear more when things progress.

LeckyLes 

Thanks Les 😁

Hope it all goes to plan but bear in mind that if you take up residency in the same tax year as you sell your UK property you will be liable for CGT on the sale. 

In  case you don't know the Spanish tax year runs from Jan 1st to Dec 31st.

You might be able to avoid that by not 'arriving' until well into the second half of the year and pushing your first tax return into 2022 instead of 2021 but you should take proper advice on viability of that. 

Yep, 183 days is burnt into our planning. Advice on this site and from specialist advisors is that residency and tax residency aren't connected at the hip. We hope to arrive some time in July 2020 and apply for residency shortly thereafter. First year Spanish tax should be for tax year Jan 2021 to Dec 2021.

Hi,

We sold our UK property and purchased a house in Pinar de Campoverde last year. Due to ties in the UK we haven’t yet been able to move lock, stock and barrel yet, but are desperate for the day! If it’s Campoverde you’re looking at, you won’t be disappointed. We used Chrissie at Pinar Properties for our purchase and she showed us many areas so we were absolutely sure that Campoverde was definitely the place for us. It was the best decision we ever made. We have been made to feel really welcome and met some really lovely people/new friends.

Keep us posted on how things progress with you.

Sarah 

Thanks Sarah - we are looking near Algorfa but in fairness we've been trying to build a small list of "banker" properties/ areas which we could buy as and when our sale completes so that we can pull the trigger fairly quickly, after due diligence.

I think what is likely to happen is that we will try and look at a few more areas which tick our boxes before we commit but what we can't do is become serial viewers as it's simply not practicable.

I am overjoyed to hear that you made the right decision and you are happy with your choices made :) 

We advise anyone thinking of buying a property in Spain that it is important YOUR INDEPENDANT solicitor gets confirmation that.....

1.The seller is legally (and totally) permitted to sell

2.The property is exactly as described on the Escritura [Title Deeds] (buildings, extentions, pool, car port, sheds, etc...)

3.The property has a Habitation Certificate (and energy efficiency certificate)

4.The Cadastral value is equal or close to the purchase price

5.The property has NO debt (mortgage/rates/community fees/services/car - yes they are all debited against the property!)

6.Water is contracted and WORKING

7.Electricity is contracted and WORKING

8.Gas, (if supplied), is contracted and WORKING

9.There is no tenant

Otherwise you will have an uphill struggle!

Ensuring these are all in place before a deposit is placed on the property - and use the withheld deposit as leverage if any of the above has to be sorted out.

Inform the seller that you wish to buy, inform your solicitor you have the deposit ready BUT it will not be paid until you recieve written confirmatiion that all the above is satisfied.

The statement 'put a deposit on so we can take the property off the market' is purely a sales marketing ploy... Dont be sucked in - it could cost you!

This is the comprehensive checklist issued by the UK govt:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-buy-property-in-spain

We are in a similar position house in uk for sale. Then move over to our house in Spain. We will retire early. But the CGT is a concern. 

I think the CGT concern goes away if you will spend less than 183 days in Spain this tax year. I note your use case is slightly different to ours, in that you already have a house in Spain and might have been there for periods this year. For us it seems to simply mean we can buy a house is Spain anytime this year but apply for residency upon our planned arrival early July becoming tax resident from Jan 1st 2021 onwards.

We are engaging with a firm in Torrevieja called Abaco as they seem to offer the services we require all under one roof. They are also putting us in contact with a residency/ relocation specialist who will review our suitability for the residency application.

It does seem preferential to arrive and do all of this during the transition period rather than after it for obvious reasons.