Foreign property owners with holiday lets in Paris are being warned to ensure that they are fully complaint with local laws as flouting the rules could lead to a fine of up to 25,000 Euro a day and a criminal record.

The Office of the Mayor of Paris has stringent rules that now demands that property investors who let out their Parisian properties pay for affordable housing equal in size and similar in location and style to that which they are renting out. These rules have led many buy-to-letters to keep their buy-to-let propeties unofficial – any holiday property which is let out should be given government permission ahead of the start of the property’s lettings.  Read more... (460 words, 1 image, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

The saga of British expats being threatened with having their homes bulldozed continues after police turned up on the doorstep of around a dozen homes just before Christmas to serve them with demolition notices. The properties have been set for demolition in early spring unless a last ditch appeal succeeds.

The pair of Spanish homes in question are near Albox in Almeria in south-east Spain. The local town hall had initially issued building licenses for the properties however court action by a higher regional government led to the licenses being nullified.  Read more... (291 words, 1 image, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)

The Chancellor’s Pre-Budget report has hit holiday home owners. UK property investors who rent out their holiday home in the UK will no longer be able to offset the costs of that property against their tax bill.

The new rules look set to be introduced next April and will stop property investors with second homes from being able to write-off their mortgage interest and other maintenance bills as a business loss. Investors will also not quality for capital gains tax (CGT) relief, hitting those who will look to buy a new holiday home from the proceeds of other property sales.  Read more... (269 words, 1 image, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

With prices of of property plummeting in Spain, many overseas property investors started to rent out their Spanish property investments. Unfortunately, the downturn in the economy has now started to see greater numbers of renters defaulting on their rent, with some sources claiming that defaulting tenants and evictions have tripled in the last two years.

Naturally, the problem of defaulting tenants is not one that is unique to Spanish property investors – Spanish landlords are also seeing the same issue. However many expats moved to Spain for a better lifestyle and were then bitten by the recession bug. Without wanting to lose a fortune on their new Spanish properties, they turned to the rental market in a bid to keep their property until prices started to rise again.  Read more... (340 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

• French property prices rise by 0.1% during September
• Prices now 2.8% higher than six months ago
• Number of French mortgage enquiries through Athena up 21% Q3 on Q2
• French mortgage completions at Athena Mortgages up 14% Q3 on Q2

Similar to the UK, the French residential property market is continuing to show signs of stabilisation. While prices* fell by 1% during Q3 as a whole, they rose by 0.1% during September, resulting in a total positive return for the period April to September 2009 of 2.8%. Returns for the 12 months to September 2009 have now pulled back to a respectable -7.8%.  Read more... (665 words, estimated 2:40 mins reading time)

Athena Mortgages has launched a ‘next generation’ hybrid French mortgage product in conjunction with a major French bank. The new product, exclusive to Athena Mortgages, and with a typical rate of 3%, enables borrowers to split their mortgage amount into an interest-only portion and a repayment portion.

This is an evolution of the traditional hybrid mortgage structure in France, which sets out an interest-only period for a number of years followed by a defined repayment period until the end of the loan. The minimum loan amount for the product is €300,000 and within that the minimum level for the interest-only portion is €100,000.  Read more... (468 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

According to recent reports, Spain is heading for a recession with unemployment reaching levels that haven’t been seen since the 1930s. The slide is predicted to be so bad that it will take at least a decade for the country to recover. So what does this mean for Spain’s property market?

The Madrid research group RR de Acuña & Asociados has said the collapse of Spain’s building industry will cause the economy to contract for the next three years, with a peak to trough loss of over 11pc of GDP. The number of properties unsold still on the Spanish property market are said to be over 1.6 million, dwarfing the annual Spanish home demand of just 218,000. If no properties are built in the next few years, this means that it will take around seven years before the excess number of properties are sold.  Read more... (635 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)