Image Interiors 04.08

Keep it Legal  (Image Interiors)
(April 2008)

Tom McGrath, a Dublin solicitor who has been specialising in assisting clients purchasing property overseas for several years, advises on how to proceed with buying a foreign property for use as a holiday home.

The first question to ask yourself is why are you buying a foreign property?, Are you buying as a holiday home, or as an investment?,

Whatever your intention, it is most important that you should take your time and do your homework. The selling of overseas property is unregulated in Ireland. This means if that anyone can act as an agent for any foreign property. Have you thought about the country where you want to buy? Is it for use as a holiday home? If you intend to use it for a number of months during the year, have you been there off-season? If you need to rent it in order to meet mortgage repayments, what is the rental potential?

There is a huge variety of overseas property being sold. Every month a new area is being promoted and it is amazing to see people visiting property exhibitions clutching bundles of glossy brochures full of promises by smooth talking agents. Our advice is, do not get caught up in the euphoria and take your time. Over the years, we have seen many satisfied investors and people who have got huge benefit from their holiday homes.

On the other hand, there are far too many people, duped by unscrupulous agents and developers, who have lost vast sums of money or have bought properties with flawed titles. It seems the level of trust that people will place in complete strangers knows no bounds. We have had people come to us who have signed over powers of attorney in a foreign language to people that they hardly know, giving them powers unwittingly to sell their properties when they thought they were merely renting them on their behalf.

A good in maxim to bear in mind is "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong". Therefore, do the wise thing and take professional advice.