“Chinese investors are buying your house. » Stuck under the windshield wipers of cars, these leaflets have flooded the southern and eastern neighborhoods of Madrid since the Government announced in April its plans to eliminate the golden residence permits granted since 2013 to foreigners who buy real estate worth more than 500,000 euros in the country. . “We will take the necessary measures so that housing is a right and not a commodity of speculation”declared the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, including the measure in a plan aimed at counteracting the sharp increase in rents and real estate prices and the difficulties in finding accommodation in the country’s main cities. In ten years, rental prices have doubled in Madrid. In Barcelona it jumped 65%.
Seven months later, the elimination of “golden visas” has just been approved in first reading in the Congress of Deputies, on Thursday, November 14, through an amendment included in a law“efficiency of justice”. It will still have to go through the Senate before final approval. And until then, “Investors who, before the date of entry into force of this provision, have submitted the corresponding application may receive the visa,” specifies the text. Enough to encourage further acceleration of applications.
In recent months, the announcement of the end of “golden visas” has had the opposite effect of the declared objective: investors rush to take advantage of their “last chance”, requests for information at specialized agencies increase and legal consulting companies. its advertising campaigns aimed at its international clients. “Buyers are in a hurry, because it seems that in 2025 these visas will no longer exist, explains Chen Tianchi, manager of the Barcelona office of the real estate agency Eticasa, specialized in advising Chinese buyers. Our customers usually buy after a video conference, without traveling. We offer you one or more apartments until you reach the requested 500,000 euros. And we help them manage the documents they have to send us, especially regarding the origin of the funds. The process can take around two months. For them, it is the simplest way to obtain a three-year residence permit, extendable to five, which can open the door to applying for Spanish nationality. »
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