The European Commission has put forward an Affordable Housing Act that would give towns and cities across the EU legal backing to restrict holiday-home ownership in areas judged to be under “housing stress,” according to the Telegraph. The proposal does not itself ban purchases; it creates a common framework so that local and national authorities can apply “targeted, necessary and proportionate” restrictions, and would need approval from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU before becoming law.
An area would qualify for the framework’s legal backing where average house prices are at least eight times the average resident’s income, that ratio has been growing over the past decade, and prices are judged unlikely to ease within three years — a description that fits popular British-buyer destinations including parts of Spain, Croatia, Italy and France. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen framed the proposal as providing “support” and “clarity” to local authorities responding to housing pressure, saying “essential workers and students cannot afford to live where they serve and study.”
Dirk Gotink, a Dutch MEP from the centrist New Social Contract party, said the legislation carries clear “ideological colouring” and would have “serious consequences” for British buyers, while arguing it does “nothing” to solve the EU’s underlying housing shortage. Borja Giménez Larraz, a Spanish MEP for the conservative Partido Popular, said he was “deeply concerned,” citing risks to “the fundamental right to private property” and pointing to negative employment effects from similar interventions already tried in France and Switzerland. The proposal follows a wave of local action against overseas buyers, including Spain’s proposed 100% transfer tax on non-EU-resident buyers and the Balearic Islands’ proposed ban on home purchases by non-residents.
References
The Telegraph – Britons face being blocked from buying second homes in EU crackdown
