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BREXIT: Is it true Britons are leaving Spain ‘in droves’ as UK tabloids claim?

If you've scanned some of the UK’s tabloid newspapers in recent weeks you would be forgiven for thinking that there’s a mass exodus of Britons from Spain. The Local finds out what is really happening on the Spanish 'costas'.

Published: 22 October 2021 17:51 CEST

man on balcony in the city of malaga in southern spain

Has Brexit influenced British property owners’ decision to sell up at all? Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP

Reports have claimed thousands of Britons – particularly retirees – are leaving the popular destinations of the Costa Blanca and Costa Del Sol because of Brexit complications, but is it really true?

Has Brexit changed people’s lives to such an extent that they’re packing up and leaving? Are Brits selling up and returning to the UK?

This would certainly buck a trend which has seen Brits flocking to Spain for decades. The great quality of life, sunny weather, slow pace of life and affordable house prices have helped make it a dream holiday home location for many Brits, with the latest Spanish government estimates suggesting 800,000 to 1 million Britons own a property in Spain.

In addition to the holidaymakers are 381,448 Britons resident in Spain, according to Spain’s Migration Agency. Andalucia, which includes Malaga and the Costa del Sol, is home to the largest number of Brits, which makes up almost 30 percent of the total.

The Valencian Community, where the Costa Blanca is located, comes in second with 27 percent of the total. In the province of Alicante alone there are over 85,000 Brits.

The British have long been the biggest home buyers in Spain, and this trend continued into the 1Q of 2021, despite both Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, there was a fall in new purchases in 2Q to just 9.5 percent of the total foreign purchases – a record low – with the Germans a close second on 9 percent, according to data from the Colegio de Registradores (Spains Property Registry).

It seems if anything Covid-19 has had more of an effect on property purchases in Spain than Brexit.

According to Alicante province real estate group Provia, Britons bought over 600 properties between April and June of this year, half the pre-COVID figure, but are still the largest group of foreign buyers in the area.

But while a drop in purchases may mean less Britons are relocating to Spain it does not mean those already here are fleeing.

People drink in a bar in Benalmadena Spain — Spain has more Britons officially registered as residents than it did before Brexit. Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP

According to estate agents on the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol that spoke to The Local, there has been no uptick in sales – something that would indicate an exodus.

“We haven’t noticed an important effect one way or the other,” Giselle from Bromley Estates Marbella explained.

“We haven’t had a mass influx of people wanting to list their properties to sell.”

Another agent from Engel Voeker Benidorm said the situation was similar on the Costa Blanca.

“There’s not a lot of people from England selling their homes,” she told The Local, adding that the situation was largely “the same as before Brexit and Covid.”

Giselle agreed: “The British are still buying, the British are still selling …there’s no mass exodus.”

So where did these tabloid headlines come from?

According to several agents, those that are selling their properties in Spain aren’t doing so for Brexit-related reasons.

Ingrid from GA Homefinders in the Gran Alacant area of Alicante province said many of the Britons selling would have done so anyway regardless of Brexit.

“They’d have been selling anyway, but for different reasons,” she says. “I don’t see people leaving the country.” If there is any Brexit effect on the Spanish property market, it is not to drastically alter it but to simply speed it up: these people “would have sold anyway maybe two or three years later,” Ingrid says, but because of Brexit “they may as well do it now.”

Many of these are retirees who arrived in the early 2000s – then in their 60s- and are now at an age where they want or need to be closer to home. “You get a little bit older,” Ingrid says, “you need to see the doctor more, and you want to do that in your own language.”

These older property sellers aside, it seems the reality on the Spanish costas isn’t as simple as a Brexit inspired exodus.

In fact, for some on the Costa del Sol the new Brexit regulations are having the opposite effect: “Some British are looking to buy because if they own a property they can get a visa,” Giselle says.

Under new Spanish rules, owning a property over a certain value can make you eligible for residency, the so-called golden visa.

All agents who spoke to The Local were certain that Brits will continue to come to the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol. COVID-19 travel restrictions may have slowed new property purchases, and there are some older Britons returning home after many happy years abroad, but Spain will always be a popular destination for both British holidaymakers and retirees.

“Everybody’s been waiting for the Brexit effect,” Giselle says, but for now, there doesn’t seem to have been a particularly unusual one on the Spanish property market, and there’s no mass exodus of Britons as reported in the UK.

So has Brexit really influenced British property owners’ decision to sell up?

The Local Spain’s previous article “What worries British second home owners in Spain most about Brexit” suggests there are a number of Brexit-related reasons these property owners could put their homes on the market, from higher taxes as non-EU residents to the 90-day rule and residency dilemmas.

Whether these concerns have actually convinced many Britons to officially part ways with Spain doesn’t seem to be the case thus far.

Head of Bremain in Spain and MBE Sue Wilson told The Local: “I have personally been approached many times to provide examples of those returning to the UK, even by Spanish TV. The answer has always been the same – despite having put out a call to Bremain in Spain’s 6000+ members, I have been hard pressed to find anyone that fits the bill.

“Rather, our members have reported back that the traffic of Brits migrating, across various parts of Spain, has been in the other direction.

“It’s true that there are examples of British second-home owners selling up now they can no longer spend as much of the winter as they would like in the EU, thanks to the 90-day rule.

“But these people were never Spanish residents, even though, in many cases, they should have been. In truth, whether you support the new post-Brexit arrangements or not, they have forced us all to evaluate where we call home. For many of us – not least thanks to the UK becoming unrecognisable to us – that is most definitely Spain.”

Article by Conor Patrick Faulkner

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INTERVIEW: 'A lot of people think Brexit is done, but it's not for Brits in Europe'

In the early days of 2021, after the United Kingdom had left the EU and completed the final stage of Brexit, many British citizens returned to their home countries in Europe only to face a grilling at the border.

Though the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) technically guaranteed their right to live and work in the countries they’d settled in before Brexit, there was widespread confusion about these fundamental rights and many were treated like new arrivals.

Over time, the chaos at the airports subsided as border officials and airlines were given clearer guidance on the treatment of Brits. But three years later, a number of Brits who live on the continent still face problems when it comes to proving their post-Brexit rights.

This was the reason campaign group British in Europe decided to set up their new EU-funded ICE project. Starting this year in March, it aims to build valuable connections between UK citizens abroad and mentor the next generation of civil rights advocates around the continent. The acronym stands for ‘Inform, Empower, Connect’ and the project’s organisers describe it as “the first project of its kind”.

“It’s a completely innovative project – especially the fact that it’s across so many countries,” Jane Golding, chair of British in Europe and one of the project’s founders, told The Local.

Bringing together groups from 11 EU member states, the project aims to train up volunteers to understand both the Withdrawal Agreement and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as learning skills like advocacy and communication, using real-life civil rights cases that are referred to British in Europe.

“The ultimate goal is to amplify the messages across the wider group,” said Golding. “You start with the volunteers, they go back to their groups, then the people that we train, they go back and train people. Then they pass on that knowledge to the wider groups, on their Facebook accounts and through social media, and hopefully it all snowballs, not just in their countries but across the EU.”

‘Far-reaching repercussions’

So many years after Brexit, it’s hard to believe that there’s still a need for a project like ICE that empowers Brits to protect their rights. Indeed, the future of groups like British in Europe and regional groups like British in Germany and British in Spain felt uncertain just a year or two ago.

But Golding says there are still serious issues cropping up for Brits in several countries around Europe – they just have a different quality to the problems that arose at the start.

“In some ways it’s needed even more because as we predicted right at the beginning, at the first stage of implementation, you’ve got the more routine cases,” she explained.

“What we’re seeing now is not as many cases, but when the cases come up, they’re complex. They can have such far-reaching repercussions on people’s lives. And of course, memories start to fade. A lot of people think Brexit is already done, but it’s not.”

Volunteers in British in Europe ICE project

The volunteers of the British in Europe ICE project pose for a photo at the kick-off meeting in Brussels on May 21st, 2024. Photo courtesy of Jane Golding

Though the rights set out in the Withdrawal Agreement apply across the continent, different countries have taken different approaches to implementing them.

That means that while in Germany, for example, UK citizens simply had to declare that they lived in the country, people in neighbouring Denmark had to apply for their rights.

This led to a notorious situation in Denmark in which as many as 2,000 Brits were threatened with deportation after not applying in time or completing the right application process. According to Golding, this had a lot to do with the fact that people who arrived in 2020 weren’t given the same information as other UK migrants who arrived before.

In Sweden, meanwhile, the situation is still difficult for many Brits who lived there prior to Brexit.

“There have been issues with an anomalously high numbers of refusals compared to other countries, and they seem to be taking a very strict approach on late applications,” Golding explained.

Portugal has been another difficult case. Although the country opted for a declaratory system where Brits could simply exchange old residence documents for a new ID card after Brexit, reports suggest that the authorities have taken years to issue these cards, leaving many of the some 34,000 Brits in the country in limbo.

“While people are still waiting to have their status confirmed and have their card in their hand, it’s difficult to access a whole range of services, like health services, or applying for jobs or dealing with the authorities, or even going to the bank,” Golding said. “All of these problems just affect people’s lives.”

A French border guard checks a passport at the border

A French border guard checks a passport at the border. Photo by DENIS CHARLET / AFP

There are also concerns about the EU’s new exit and entry system (EES), due to come into force in October, which is based on biometric documentation.

“We still do not have clear data on how many people in declaratory countries like Germany, where it wasn’t compulsory to apply for the card, don’t actually have a card,” Golding said. “How is that going to play out if it’s a document-based digitalised system?”

A lack of support

In the immediate aftermath of Brexit, funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was still available to support NGOs in Europe helping Brits with their migration and civil rights issues. But that temporary funding soon expired, leaving groups like British in Europe largely on their own.

“The whole point is people’s lives change at very different paces,” Golding said. “And now this project is really going to start to pick up some of those cases and report on those issues, which is really crucial and exciting for the precedent that it sets, and it’s very clearly necessary still, because people don’t just sort their lives in the 18 months that the FCDO chose to supply that funding.”

This feeling of being left alone and increasingly isolated from the UK is one that many Brits in Europe have felt in the aftermath of Brexit. But the upcoming UK election on July 4th could be a game-changer.

This time, following a change in the law, Brits who have lived abroad for more than 15 years will be able to vote for the first time.

Polling station in the UK

A polling station in the UK. Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

When it comes to the election, the message from British in Europe is clear: “Make your voice count now, make your vote count, make sure you use it,” Golding said.

With the June 18th registration deadline fast approaching, BiE is advising UK citizens abroad to apply for a proxy vote as soon as possible, rather than relying on a postal vote from abroad. Since the 15-year rule was abolished on January 16th, more than 100,000 British citizens have registered to vote, according to official statistics. It is unclear how many were registered before the change in the law.

With an estimated 5.5 million Brits currently living abroad – 1.3 million of whom are in the EU – this could have a significant impact on the electoral landscape, Golding says. But most significantly, the change is creating a feeling of connection and belonging that wasn’t there before.

Nurturing this sense of belonging is one of the main goals of ICE.

With these bridges being built, British in Europe hopes to create a network of support that spans across borders.

“Now we’ve met. We’re going to meet,” said Golding. “We know we’re going to meet again in Berlin in October and then we’ll meet again in the new year in 2025 as well. It means a huge amount because even British in Europe, our steering team, we’ve only met physically three times.”

This opens up the possibility of people sharing their knowledge from country to country, Golding explained.

“There is crossover and the reassurance of having that EU wide view and knowing that you’re not alone and knowing that in this country, we managed to get this solution,” she said. “And then you can go back and say to the authorities in your country, well, in that country they did that – all of that helps. It’s really good.”

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