Lay My Hat

It seems to be a little known fact (and from what I can see a large number of Gestors do not see fit to point it out to owners) that if you are resident in Spain and you rent out a property long term you get 60% of the rental income tax free. That is in addition to the 3% of the catastral value of the house (not the land) that is also allowable against tax as well as other expenses such as insurance.

This generous allowance is to do with the government encouraging people to provide proper permanent accommodation.

I am not sure how long a rental contract has to be to qualify but last year my Gestor was happy that as short as six months was enough although we are now letting for a year at a time.

For us the arithmetic made it a no-brainer. We are now letting our big house long term and our bottom line is not much different than it was in a good year with holiday lets, plus of course we now have divested ourselves of all the hassle of admin, advertising, changeover etc etc.. Retirement is a reality at last!

Like you say Pepsi, it's a no brainer. The economics stack up well in favour of a longer term rental; BIG tax allowance, MORE costs allowed to offset, LESS running costs (unless something big needs replaced.
Two points on the downside: You will often get it back a heap of " she-she-she'll be coming round the mountains). People are incredible on how they leave a place. The other point is that if you have it registered as a holiday-rental with license etc you can't really rent it for 6 months. I am sure you'd need to cancel the license.

Happily the Ayuntamiento had helpfully not allowed us to register as holiday let without a very expensive AFO as the original cedula did not bear any ressemblance to the present house (although the escritura is correct!). We have fixed that but we had already decided when we found out about the tax break that there really was no need to be doing holiday lets and we wanted out lives back particularly in the summer

We have what we think is a really lovely couple renting and their intention is to stay as long as we will let them so hopefully it will not go sour down the line. We saw the place they had been for the previous year and it was immaculate so we have high hopes of a good outcome.

Sounds good Pepsi and I wish you luck. We used to rent our houses long term and it was fine. Having said that, I live on site.

I can understand the point about lack of rentals. Down here in Alhaurin near the Costa del Sol, rentals have become very scarce in the past year and rents have reached the high they attained about 14 years ago.

Owners are now being very choosy and many will not to rent to prospective tenants who have dogs.

With so many people, particularly expat renters who have been trying to help dogs and foster or adopt strays, that is now causing another problem.

Good news for you.
Just be aware that if you have trouble with a tenet it is difficult to get them out. Choose them wisely.

https://www.spanishpropertyinsight.com/ ... banos-lau/

PS I would change gestor if they did not know about laws and axes in Spain.

axes....

T ... I forgot the flipping