The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, has valued the roadmap drawn up by his Government since the beginning of the Legislature in the delivery of the VIII Andalucía Real Estate Awards, where he has collected in his name the Special Mention 2021 for the management of the pandemic in the health and economic sphere. Moreno has taken the opportunity to talk about the future State Housing Law and highlight the “underlying problem” that our country has on this issue, pointing out the lack of security and guarantee for homeowners: “When you You ask someone like me, and I have asked many of them why they don’t put their home up for rent, they tell you that they don’t dare because they can squat, because they have no guarantee, because there is a lot of legal insecurity. It is the great underlying problem that we have to solve. The Government of Andalusia will always protect homeowners. The owners of their home have to be protected and they always have to have legal certainty under any circumstance.
In this sense, and in line with the future State Housing Law, it has rejected any type of imposition and interventionism to solve the housing problem in Spain. Likewise, it has regretted that the Government of the Nation has not counted for the design of this rule with the autonomous communities or with the municipalities, which are the competent in this matter. “This can only be resolved through consensus, dialogue and negotiation”, has added.
Administrative and fiscal revolution
On the other hand, the president has assured that Andalusia has gone from being in the penultimate position in foreign investment to being the third autonomous community with the highest investment. Andalusia has gained 119,000 new taxpayers who previously paid taxes in other communities and has managed to raise an additional 600 million euros.
Moreno, following this line, has alluded to the new tax cut, including specific aspects that seek to boost the real estate sector and alleviate the problems of access to housing. Such as the Property Transfer Tax, which improves the rate by unifying the general tax rate at 7% and 0.3% for leases. Thus, he stressed that the 7% rate will be one of the lowest in Spain, only above the Canary Islands and Madrid.
Also Documented Legal Acts, where the general rate will become 1.2%, which represents a reduction over the current 1.5%. Likewise, an improvement is introduced in the reduced tax rates for both taxes and personal income tax.
As the Andalusian president has stated, all these measures are positive for the Andalusian economy, they generate confidence and attract more and more investors. In fact, GDP increased 6.1% in the first semester, more than the average for Spain and Europe, and exports grew three times the average, with the best July in the entire historical series with almost 3,000 million euros, consolidating Andalusia as the second exporting community only surpassed by Catalonia.
In addition, Andalusia has registered the second largest drop in year-on-year unemployment in Andalusian statistical history, and in September it reached the record for self-employed workers, exceeding 561,000. At this point, he has valued that through the flat rate for freelancers, 90% of the self-employed who took advantage of this measure continue with their businesses two years later and 25% have become an SME employing more Andalusians.
On the other hand, he highlighted that business confidence in the autonomous community has increased by 13.3% in the third quarter, above the national average. “The roadmap in Andalusia is accurate and is going well, to make this one of the most prosperous and locomotive lands in Spain”, he assured.
Likewise, it has asserted that the Government of Andalusia plans to approve the New Andalusian Land Law, the ‘LISTA’. A Law that, in itself, is an example of simplification by combining the current legislation in a single text and reducing administrative processes by 30%. In this case, he has given the General Plans as an example, which streamlines terms from ten years on average to less than two.
In relation to the latter, he stressed that in Andalusia home sales grew 67% during the month of August and, according to the INE, one out of every five real estate transactions took place in Andalusia. In this context, more than a million Andalusians are willing to move because their economy has improved. For Moreno, this is a clear symptom of an improvement in the economy in Andalusian homes and an increase in business confidence in the autonomous community.
The mayor of Córdoba, José Mª Bellido; the mayor of Benahavís, José Antonio Mena; the mayor of Marbella, Mª Ángeles Muñoz; the mayor of Chiclana, José Mª Román; the president of the Andalusian Business Confederation (CEA), Javier González de Lara, and the delegate of the Government of the Andalusian Government in Malaga, Patricia Navarro, among other authorities.