All Forum Posts by: Erwin Groenendijk

@Linda Weygant 

Yes agreeing with @Montse C. here that this first needs to be discussed by the governing bodies and most likely will get tackled or at least in part tackled as it makes no sense.

Oke yes so we are basically talking about the same thing. 

The accountant offices focused on international clients will offer the possibility to register your SL at their address for a compensation (yearly or monthly).

Regarding these other services, like mail handling, phone assistance, etc., I would advise you to try to manage it yourself to slowly understand the Spanish system. Keep in mind that these offices love to charge you their premium package (€250-€350 and up) while usually, you will be perfectly capable of doing some tasks yourself, especially in the beginning when there are not that many things happening in the new SL. You can simply use a free or occasionally paid coworking space when a meeting room is needed.

To quickly zoom in on needing a meeting room: a thing to have in mind is that meetings here in Spain a lot of times are done during lunch with a decent priced menu of the day (the Spaniards immediately know what I mean). Just invite someone and you are good to go. 

To make it clear here I'm not talking about doing tax filing or similar legal tasks yourself by the way. Those should always be done by a professional representing you.

@Jesus Montero Pleasure. 

Roughly calculate €1500 for Spanish residents and €2500 for foreigners (also having in mind Power of Attorneys to delegate some of the work so you don't need to be here yourself) to set up the SL. From what we have been seeing from the people investing in our projects from abroad is that only to open a bank account they themselves need to be here, although I imagine that towards the future this will be changed as well. 

Monthly operating costs vary between €150-250 based on the amount of work and the type of accountant office you would choose to work with (those focused on foreigners usually charge more).

It is true that in general this is higher than in many other countries.

It is the first time I have heard about the possibility of a virtual office from out of an LLC. What I know is that for doing tangible real estate projects, a Spanish SL is needed as a working entity that holds the asset on its balance. This should be able to be linked to a holding outside of Spain to transfer e.g. dividends, however, keep in mind that other countries will ask you to have substance there for them to approve the holding. As you are living in the US and might this virtual LLC office work, it could be an interesting option.

What I personally do is link the working entities with my holding which is also based in Spain. After paying the company tax in the working entity I'm sending it to the holding as dividend, and there it is exempt from paying dividend tax if I leave it within the holding reinvesting in other projects without taking it out. 

@Jacob St. Martin the property management argument isn't really an argument if you look at the bigger picture that most investors don't want to manage their properties anyways because they are spending most of the time on their main job. So you might be living in the US or in Europe, investment properties are bought to outsource and earn from the cashflow. If this isn't applying to your first investment property, it will apply to your second.  

Hi @Mark Hafner, we are active in the Spanish real estate market and have been developing several real estate projects in the last few years in the Valencia area (Valencia city and the Costa Blanca). Usually, these are interesting investments because of the higher rental yield and cash flow it gives. 

It is getting harder to obtain the licenses though so it is important to do clear checks beforehand.

@Nick Hulsebos you can have a look at Artof.Co and subscribe to their newsletter Everything Coliving. They are bringing the coliving industry together across all continents. We were on their podcast recently talking about ways to finance a coliving business, for those starting and further along the road. 

They also recently opened an incubator program for people wanting to get into the coliving business with one of the modules that is on business models if I'm not mistaken.  

@Maria Murphy It was a normal transaction once we ended at the notary. When we were done at the notary and finished the purchase, we were able to obtain the license and start the works (it was a big commercial old furniture shop where we created 14 tourist apartments). 

It is true that before the purchase we needed to do quite a lot of work to make sure everything was organized with the payments of the debt etc. Most of the work needed to be done by the seller as they were the ones carrying it and it was owned by several family members who were getting into a fight, etc etc. Will not disturb you guys here with all the detailed information, but most of the time we then step in and organize this for them. Typical problem properties that are difficult to sort but once it is sorted usually with good upside potential.

@Maria Murphy yes correct, simply paying the debt in the owner's name to hacienda (tax office)/government first as part of the purchase at the notary and everything left to the seller.

Valencia has worked quite well for us the last years and compared to Barcelona/Madrid the m2 prices are a lot lower. Because of that the total project costs as well. 

@Joaquin Camarasa That's right, it works like any other business where you can deduct all the costs first. 

@Joaquin Camarasa regarding the mortgage as a company, once you get approved by the criteria described above, they will give you around 50 maybe 60% LTV.