Buying property
How to buy a place in Belgium
You should give careful consideration to whether you’re better off buying or renting property in Belgium.
If you’re staying for only a short time, e.g. less than five years, you’re probably better off renting. Owning your own home isn’t considered such an important an investment as it is in some other countries. Although property prices ‘boomed’ in the late ’80s and early ’90s, increases have slowed and high transfer (conveyance) costs discourage home ownership as an investment. The tax benefits of home ownership vary greatly.
While property in Belgium is cheap by UK standards, the various fees, charges and deposits associated with buying a house and securing a mortgage are likely to discourage all but the most determined buyers. There’s no mortgage relief on income tax and, if you resell the property within five years, you’ll be hit with capital gains tax. The good news is that mortgages are fairly easy to secure, but don’t forget that total transfer fees will add 15 to 20 per cent to the price of a house, and there’s VAT at 21 per cent to reckon with if you buy a new home.
Houses for sale are advertised in newspapers and through estate agencies, or you can use the ‘sign hunting’ method, i.e. looking for ‘For Sale’ ( à vendre/te koop) signs on available properties. Listed prices are understood to be negotiable, and you normally make an offer that is somewhat below what you’re prepared to pay and ‘barter’ with the vendor according to how keen you are to buy and how eager he is to sell. Having an estate agent to assist you with the process is usually sensible, even if you end up paying more than you would if you bought privately.
Once a price is agreed, the buyer and the vendor sign a sales agreement ( compromis de vente), which is usually secured with a non-refundable deposit equal to 10 per cent of the purchase price. At this point, the buyer has four months in which to obtain the balance of the money (in most cases by securing a mortgage) before the sale is concluded. In order to ‘buy time’, it’s sometimes possible to purchase an option on the property for a period, during which the vendor may not sell it to anyone else; if you back out of the deal, you forfeit the option payment, so you should negotiate as small a sum as the vendor will accept.
The actual transfer or conveyance of the property must be done by a notary ( notaire/notaris), who charges a fixed fee of 1 to 4 per cent of the purchase price. Generally, you must have a property surveyed, which will cost around €100, but your biggest expense will be the registration of the sale – a massive 12.5 per cent of the purchase price. It’s possible to buy a property at auction, in which case you may save money, but the notary fees are doubled and you have only one month in which to secure a mortgage and complete the transaction.
Also in this section
- Introduction: The Belgian rental market
- Finding accommodation: How to find a place to live
- Agencies: Rental agencies and estate agents
- Leases: All you need to know before signing a rental agreement
- Other things to consider: Common charges, house rules and inventory
- Buying property: How to buy a place in Belgium