Recap of holiday home news: 14 August 2009
Buying overseas property at online auctions
Online property auctions are one way of picking up an overseas bargain, as investors who bought in areas where the market has all but dried up try to offload homes they can no longer afford. Bargain hunters can snap up cut-price properties without leaving home. However, buyers should exercise caution and do their research.
Some auction tips from the article:
- Be wary of buying any property “sight unseen”. It may be carrying undisclosed liabilities, have legal issues or be poor quality.
- You may be told a property is reduced by up to 50 per cent, but that may be based on a valuation taken two years ago.
- In Spain a cooling off period allows your lawyer to check the legal status of a property before signing contracts.
Ryanair flight cuts worry second home owners
Ryanair is cutting flights from Stanstead to second home destinations, which could leave holiday home owners facing being cut off over the winter.
The cuts will mean that the airline is operating 168 fewer flights than it did during the same period last year.
This is a warning for anyone looking to purchase property abroad. Always consider how accessible the location is, how many airlines fly there and what would happen if they stopped doing so. This is essential, especially if you plan/need to gain income from holiday lettings.
Unfortunately an average of five children drown every year in swimming pools abroad. Holiday villas account for nearly a third of these and toddlers aged from two to three are most at risk.
A significant number of these accidents happen when parents tend to be distracted on arriving at a holiday destination, or when packing up to go home
If you own property abroad with a swimming pool, installing a secure fencing around the pool – whether permanent or temporary – can greatly reduce the chance of a tragic incident occurring. If you holiday let, highlight any potential risks to your guests and check that your public liability insurance covers the use of swimming pools by guests.
The hidden expense of buying property in France
This is an interesting read about a family’s experience of owning a holiday house in France.
“we were convinced that it wasn’t simply a sensible but a joyous investment; it could pay for itself if we let it out to tenants while we weren’t there, and guaranteed us relatively inexpensive holidays for ever after – but the expense and stress of maintaining a farmhouse near Bordeaux was unsustainable”
The reality of their experience included:
-The six-bedroom house was filled with friends on ‘free holidays’
-Plumbing and electric problems
-Dealing with paperwork in French and struggling to communicate
-Demands made by our hard-to-acquire tenants
-The house was broken into and robbed
Overall in a year they spent about €20,000 on the house and spent exactly 10 days inside it. They eventually sold and decided it’s much better to live someone else’s dream and rent.
There is some constructive advice in the comments (if you ignore the nasty ones) from others who run successful holiday lets and have different opinions.
Hopefully the article and comments will help others avoid similar mistakes. Some tips:
- Employ a reputable management company
- Get rid of freeloading friends
- Be prepared, do research on the area and property
Ten things you need to know about the tax amnesty
Tax dodgers have been given a “last chance” to pay tax on money hidden in offshore bank accounts, as HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced a new tax amnesty this week.
This involves owners of property abroad as HMRC is not just interested in undisclosed income from these accounts, but also the possibility that the capital comes from an untaxed source such as rental income from overseas property.
Read the top ten tips to ensure that your tax position is correct.
Do you advertise your holiday home on Holidaylets.net?
Then your listing on Holidaylets.net will be automatically published on holiday-rentals.co.uk (who own Holidaylets) around the 31st August 2009.
Apparently, Holidaylets.net will be discontinued shortly after the transfer. This leaves just three main players in the UK holiday rental portal market where owners can advertise – holiday-rentals.co.uk, ownersdirect.co.uk (both owned by the HomeAway group) and holidaylettings.co.uk (owned by rightmove).
There are lots of smaller niche sites, but these are the ones that receive the most traffic.