Buying an apartment below the threshold of 104,000

Welcome, personally I would never buy here. Too many complications and difficult to sell on.
The exemption with requirement for additional costs applies to property which is not immediately habitable; a 'shell' or roofless property.

Hi redmik,

I got the info from the frank salt homepage in the faq section.
Thanks for the advice, that's interesting so its probably not that easy. So this would not work with a finished apartment?

i must once agree with Redmik on this one......and rents are so affordable - it gives a lot fo freedom to move about.without a millstone round your neck.

Why MUST you spend that amount? to achieve what exactly?

Rosie_Germany wrote:

Hi redmik, So this would not work with a finished apartment?

No. Not according to my information.

A quick calculation shows that you could rent for 16 years for your E70,000 though of course there would be no return.

I was thinking of a long let as well. Just to try if we would use the apartment that much. Rents are really affordable. But the question is if I'll rent an apartment as a holiday home will my friends and family be able to stay there as well. I don't want to sublet the apartment to strangers and I don't want to make money with it. But we have some friends and family who love Gozo as well. So I thought they could spent their vacation in the apartment and we'll just charge them like electricity, water and so on to make it more affordable for us. In Germany no landlord would agree to this. Do you think this might be possible to a rental in Malta?

Hi toonarmy,

this was the information I got from several real estate homepages. They say if you are not a resident you have to spent a minimum of 104.000  for an apartment to get the permit to buy property in malta

Rosie_Germany wrote:

But we have some friends and family who love Gozo as well. So I thought they could spent their vacation in the apartment and we'll just charge them like electricity, water and so on to make it more affordable for us. In Germany no landlord would agree to this. Do you think this might be possible to a rental in Malta?

Who would know?
Why cannot friends and family just stay and any conversations related to this remain spoken in German in Germany? 

Hello,
We did this and it was fine.
Bought an apartment for 85,000 and got an architects report showing how much we would spend. There is a list of things that can/can't be included in the proposed spend, eg floor tiles can, kitchens can't.
It all went through fine. No one ever came to check our actual spend and we have now sold that apartment and bought a new one 😄

Hi jackman,

Thanks a lot for your reply. Good to know that this is an option.

I think what redmik suggested about renting an apartment is a good idea. We are going to try this first and maybe we can buy something in the future.

I heard that rents in malta are really affordable, but I had no idea how low they really are. I saw 3 bedroom apartments on the frank salt page for 300 Euro per month. (3600 Euro per year)  this is really worth a try. We normally go to gozo about 3 times a year, so renting a holiday home for 4 weeks in the main season would be more expensive than that.

Are the utilities really that low as well? I heared something about 50-70 Euro per month for a 3 bedroom apartment

Rosie_Germany wrote:

Are the utilities really that low as well? I heared something about 50-70 Euro per month for a 3 bedroom apartment

They could be but that would depend, of course, upon usage, the number of people in the apartment and the time of year. Personally, for a 12 month occupancy, I budget at  E100 per month over a 12 month period. Also add, if required, internet at E24 per month.

short term rentals are not likely to be in the utiility cost bracket  - theyre low for true residents... short term rentals wil either have the utilitites included (not incl AC) or they wil be charged at a much  higher rate as a domestic rate  - but for short periods it probably isnt an issue.

Of course they depend on the usage, but it's good to have a benchmark. At home we are paying about 300 Euro on top of our rent ( electricity not included) so thats a big difference.So now that I'm not a resident,  do I need any kind of permission to do a long term let or can I just sign the contract and move in? 

Rosie_Germany wrote:

Of course they depend on the usage, but it's good to have a benchmark. At home we are paying about 300 Euro on top of our rent ( electricity not included) so thats a big difference.So now that I'm not a resident,  do I need any kind of permission to do a long term let or can I just sign the contract and move in? 

No permissions needed but if residing here for more than 90 days then you should inform the authorities by applying for an E-Residence card. See https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=370643