Domino

no idea what agents are like in Spain, but very unhappy experiences with agents in the UK. The larger companies charge more for their services but the locals charging less are the ones to watch out for. Many horror stories, summed up by the owner of an agency standing in the middle of the house shaking his head, didnt know what to say.

Fred James

As a Spanish tax resident, and you let it out as a home, you only pay tax on 50% of the net rental income and you are allowed to deduct all relevant expenses such cleaning, marketing, utilities, rates, community fees, mortgage interest, insurance etc.

Non residents used not to get the same deal but two years ago it was changed and now non residents can have the deductions for expenses but not the 50% reduction.

If you let it to a tax payer then they have to declare the fact that they are renting on their tax return with all the details so if you haven't declared the income it could be tricky!

Domino

if the landlord hasnt registered the let with the tax office then when you make your tax return and claim for rent it will be rejected until such time as the landlord does register it. You can get the back payment after that at the end of the next tax year IIRC. This happened to the BH who had to wait a year until they had chased the landlord and processed his return.

It is a quirk of living in Spain that you can claim rent against tax but also can claim medicines as well.
not alot of (expat) people know that!!

cricketman

[QUOTE=Domino;10279003]if the landlord hasnt registered the let with the tax office then when you make your tax return and claim for rent it will be rejected until such time as the landlord does register it. You can get the back payment after that at the end of the next tax year IIRC. This happened to the BH who had to wait a year until they had chased the landlord and processed his return.
QUOTE]

Yes, we are due thousands in tax back thanks to our landlord in the CDS (British btw) who wasnt declaring our rental payments to the tax office.

And he had the cheek to get shotty with us when he found out the tax office were after him. I hope he gets taken to the cleaners and we can get our tax back!

Fred James

It's pretty limited as you can only claim 10.05% of the rental against tax and only up to an annual rental of €9015 and your income must be less that €12000. If it is above €12000 but below €24000 you can still claim but it is reduced .

cricketman

Sorry Fred, but that is not our experience

We get 15% of our rent back against what we have paid in income tax over the year. Given that our rent was 800 euros per month, so 9,800 euros per year, then we get 1,470 euros back each year. With no limits on income

This year they are investigating the landlord so our rebate has been delayed, but we got it back no problem in previous years

I think this is limited to under 35 years olds in Andalucia though. Maybe the rebates are lower for other age groups and areas

Domino

understand that, but still in these times of crisis not to be sneezed at.

HBG

When I started a business in Spain, I soon discovered that it was close to impossible to do it totally legally. The business needed several opening licences which were not forthcoming to a foreigner unless I waited a year or so.

I changed lawyer, took on a Spanish partner and was trading a week later. Everybody was paid in cash, and I mean everybody. I suppose the only people to lose out were the tax authorities, but if my lawyer and accountant weren't going to lose sleep over it, nor was I.

I must admit when it was finally all over I slept a lot better. And I still pay cash to the tradesmen when the drains burst or the pool cracks. Or the car blows up. Or paying for pirate TV because my wife is addicted to the soaps. (I'm thinking about getting a 3.4 metre satellite dish, but they're such ugly things).

Fred James

The figures I quoted are the national ones which apply in all regions unless the individual region has more favourable allowances.

Yes, sometimes they are limited to people under 35 or people with disabilities and 15% is not unusual.

There are loads of other special regional deals for all sorts of expenditure.

Which region are you in?

pain-in-spain

Thank God somebody else on here who dares to tell the truth about the Spanish way - every time I have spoken to an official or policeman about a legal issue they always reply "Espain is eh-different" and I get the typical shrugged shoulders and blank face.

I was once told by somebody, it may even have been a Spaniard, that the reason there are nearly as many "Gestorias" as bars is not because the locals like to pay their taxes but because they don't and these (often inefficient ) accountants spend their time trying to help their clients not pay tax.

Cricketman loves to think he is one of them (sorry but being married to one doesn't make you one) and will not have a negative word said, but the reality is that this country is sinking fast and much of it has been caused by allowing corrupt employers abuse their staff, over paid officials taking back handers - only recently was it shunned not to pay large amounts of cash to buy a property so as to avoid the very hefty stamp duty - by the way, for those of you out there who think I try to fiddle all I can, I refused to do this and paid everything legally and above board, this was when I was still naive about the happy cuddly fluffy Spanish and their relaxed ways, wish I'd known more about their practices back in those days.

We all know that builders and such like take cash in the Uk but it is truly epidemic here and this was way before the crisis and the way of life, all over Spain so don't give me that BS that it's just the peasants in the South with their backwards ways, the snooty Catalans are much worse in my opinion and unpleasant experience as they pretend they are legal and correct and are far far from that.

With all its problems, the UK has a much better reputation for legality and before anyone pipes up to tell me all the doom and gloom, I am totally aware of all of it and know exactly what I am heading for, just sick of the way lawlessness (yes, I continue to use that word) is accepted and tolerated here and with impunity too.

My street in central Barcelona is littered with illegal Pakistani beer sellers, no papers and no licence, the police do nothing and it has made our life a misery for over 5 years. I took a Spanish friend to London last month and when he got back he told me he was shocked that he didn't see any of these beer sellers there - say no more.

cricketman

Well the Raval is a little piece of the third world transported into the centre of Barcelona. It has always been a bad neighbourhood, you would have known that when you bought there

The whole of Barcelona isnt that, I have family who live of Rambla Poble Nou and there is a great village atmosphere, as long as you speak Catalan. Its where the well-to-do young professionals and their families live.

As for "Spanish this" and "Catalan that". I thought you and your family were Spanish and come from Barcelona? I'm guessing you are from either Murcian or Andalucian roots which would explain your chip on your shoulder about Catalans

Yes Catalans think the "Murcians" (as they call all Southerners) are backward and different to them. The Asturians think the same. A bit like what the British think of the Spaniards they are surrounded by in the South of Spain

pain-in-spain

Mr. Know it All to the rescue once more, oh how I wish I had your brains, what a man! First of all I live next to Plaza Universidad just off Ronda Sant Antoni, it's become very fashionable akin to Hoxton and Brick Lane in London, we are creative types both artists by training and my boyfriend sells his art in London as nobody here buys art. When we moved in we knew of the so-called multi cultural vibe, at that time nothing like the darkest parts of Hackney, now it's way over taken in just 5 short years, but as you said in another post, these highly educated and well integrated immigrants are paying my pension, bless their little souls!

Being in an immigrant area is water off a ducks back to me, have lived in those parts of East London so been there and got the t-shirt, don't be so damn condescending. My point is that this is over run with Pakistani beer sellers, and not just in the Raval they are all over town now, been back here lately have you? I go to Poble Nou regularly and have been for years, that too will be engulfed by illegal sellers just give it a bit longer, and don't be ridiculous you don't need to speak Catalan to live there!

I know a lot of shopkeepers along my street, a Catalan bar owner who we visit a lot and even an Indian guy who runs a supermarket (not Muslim that is) and they are utterly sick of these beer sellers who keep their stash in flats nearby and in the sewers too and also sell cocaine and other drugs, they do what they do with impunity. The local run bars cannot keep up with the costs of their businesses and it's totally unfair that these illegals abuse the law so openly and their fellow so called legal brothers who run all the supermarkets use their shops as fronts for this mafia, it has been widely written about with a huge spread in the Periodico not long ago, fact is that the law does nothing to stop it.

My point is that it's nothing to do with living in a multi immigrant area, I did in London and have been to other equivalent areas in other countries, not once did I see this beer seller thing as it is here. The Spanish are sick of it too. But of course, as these wonderful immigrants are contributing to all our taxes and health care we should treat them with respect, right? No worry that their numerous families are dragging down the welfare state or that those that work actually send all their money back "home", what would we do without them?

When I refer to Spanish and Catalan it's because they, the Catalans that is, don't see themselves as Spanish so I am being polite by allowing them this differentiation. For your interest my father and his family come from La Rioja not that this makes a blind bit of difference.

My problem with Catalans, if I am forced to generalise, is that they are the ones who think they are superior and others inferior. You should have stayed here longer as you are arrogant and superior enough to blend in perfectly with the bourgeois Catalans.

HBG

How interesting. After my business years in Spain, I returned to London for a breather around 16 years ago, not knowing whether to stay or what to do next. I met my future wife by chance in an East End pub and when we discovered that we had both lived in Spain and spoke Spanish (hers was much better than mine), we decided within half-an-hour that we would move back here, together. We had both been on the love merry-go-round before.

She had come to Barcelona as a teenager and spent the next 15 years of her life there, bringing up two Spanish children along the way. I had spent a mere six years in Andalucia and Valencia, running a business.

Six hectic months later we arrived in Bilbao after a stormy crossing of the Bay of Biscay. We had decided on a place neither of us knew, Denia, at the north end of the Costa Blanca. After getting lost in Madrid and Alicante, we finally made Denia and around midnight went into a Spanish bar at the end of our street.

Hearing Spanish voices all around us nearly reduced us to tears. Of happiness.

We're married now, not all that long ago, and hope never to have to step back on that merry-go-round, and having to return to the UK fills us with nightmares. But we're sensible people. It could happen.

cricketman

What a lovely story

Not even the humble beer street seller could ruin that

pain-in-spain

Yes a nice story, not sure what it has to do with the topic but I wish the poster well here in the land of cuddly and friendly locals, where the sun always shines and the skies are blue, nobody has a care in the world, as Spain is paradise and the UK is a miserable rainy dump - yes, I get the idea.