Spain's Balearics oppose restrictions on foreigners buying homes

The regional authorities on Spain’s Balearic Islands have come out against proposed restrictions on foreigners as a means of slowing down the increase in rents and property prices.

This follows news that the government in the Canary Islands has formally requested measures from the EU to limit the purchase of homes in the Spanish archipelago by foreigners.

There have also been proposals by Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to either charge non-EU non-resident property buyers a 100 percent tax or ban them altogether from purchasing homes in Spain if they have no links to the country, as well as a petition to force temporary residents to apply for the right to buy, a proposal which has already been rejected in Congress.

According to data from Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE), the average price of properties in the Balearics has risen 30 percent in the last five years, while rent has increased by 40 percent.

However, the Director of Institutional Relations and Parliamentary Affairs for the Balearic Islands, Francisca Ramis, stated recently that she is against restricting the purchase of homes by foreigners because it violates the free market, disregards fundamental rights and contradicts EU rules.

READ ALSO: Spain's Balearics will allow building on rural land to address housing shortage

This idea was first put on the table by the Canary Islands government on the last day of the General Assembly of the Islands Commission of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe, held in La Palma.

Ramis pointed out that the restrictions proposed by the Canary Islands Government “is not a solution” for her region, which also suffers from the consequences of mass tourism, but for which the regional and local powers have adopted various measures over the years, such as a tourist tax, restrictions on rental vehicles and cruise ships in ports, and even a reduction in the number of tourist places in Mallorca.

“We have to remember that we are Europeans and that we cannot go against the regulations set by the European Union,” she said, conceding that the Balearic Islands is, as with the Canary Islands, suffering a lack of housing and mass tourism but added that “we have to live with it”.

To address the housing shortage, she pointed out that recent reforms passed, mainly to simplify administrative procedures, to enable the construction of more homes, and highlighted, for example, that ground floor premises have been converted into homes.

READ ALSO: The new mass tourism measures in Spain's Balearic Islands

This comes after the Canary government announced recently that it would for the first time formally request measures from the EU which limit the purchase of homes in the Spanish archipelago by foreigners and non-residents.

The idea of placing restrictions on foreigners from buying properties in the Atlantic archipelago has been touted since at least 2022, when Canary nationalist political party Nueva Canarias asked the regional government to address the large number of property purchases by non-residents in the archipelago.

This however is the first time the Canaries’ regional government, led by local political party Coalición Canaria, has decided to take the matter to Brussels.

READ ALSO: Spain's Canaries ask EU to help them limit foreigners buying homes