New property thresholds for foreigners too high

The new permanent residence scheme introduced by the Ministry of Finance will surely have the opposite effect of what the government intended. I have two stories to share.

A Swedish lady for whom I drew up a contract bought a property in Valletta last year, and intended to further develop it to use as a second home and possibly eventually selling it on.

This is a quality property; however, it’s not worth €500,000 but rather less, about €300,000. She wanted to spend a further €100,000 renovating it, but knows that the property will not sell for more than €500,000 if she ever comes to sell it.

She has now therefore stopped all work on the property and is actually considering leaving this, her second home in Malta, since she does not want to live here, as it is.

This lady is a paper euro multi-millionairess, but she would not consider spending €500,000 in Malta since she is not consdering the property market to be healthy at this point in time. She tells me Malta needs a lot of polish to become a Monaco. She merely bought the property as a secondary base.

The second story is of another client who has a promise of sale agreement, this time on a €150,000 property. Of course, if you are buying a property for yourself, you would want to live in it.

If you cannot live in it because of the restrictions now imposed, why buy it in the first place? Hence the promise of sale agreement is now falling through... thank you very much.

I am not sure the Finance Minister realises that the property market is based on the smaller buyers within a society that allows the bigger business to take place.

Hence he is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, with the result that all architects, tradesmen, estate agents, notaries, plasterers and all those who benefit from a turnover of trade are losing out.

It is also not true that the richer you are, the more you spend on a day-to-day basis. The rich person is seeking a simple but qualitative social life in Malta.

Hence if someone goes to a restaurant, he will not spend more than the average well-to-do person, and if he buys a car, this will be a quality car but not a Rolls Royce.

Hence it is better to have the larger numbers of above-average income foreigners than a few rich citizens who will scarcely scratch the surface of the Maltese economy.

I beg the minister to reconsider his decision and merely introduce those elements in the law which curb any abuse.