Dh wants to buy a holiday home. AIBU to think it's an awful idea?

[flametrees]

Dh wants to buy a holiday home in a location we visit every year. At least once with kids and once alone.
We also visit other places though.
I cannot see any advantages to owning a holiday home there. Property is expensive for what you get.
We will have maintenance costs. The worry that it will be broken into when we are not there etc
Plus I think he will never want to visit anywhere else if he buys a holiday home there. While I enjoy the location it isn't somewhere I want to limit my entire future holidays to.

AIBU to think buying a holiday home is a really bad idea?

Sorry pressed post too soon:

1. Every visit there are jobs to do. Fixing a fence, getting an appliance mended, painting a room Etc. Essentially, the start of your holiday is consumed with maintenance tasks rather than relaxing. It's also harder to do than at home due to language barriers, if you need to call on a tradesperson.

1. Whose actually going to manage this property? I suspect it won't be your DH OP. It will be you whose the one who has to organise all the admin around running a second home - one you don't want in an area you don't like. That's not fair and it's a lot of work.

I used to have a holiday home -
Only in Ireland! And I can’t tell you what a hassle that was despite being close and having family local to it. Never again

Here is my view as a holiday home owner in France.
We had savings and always holidayed in some region of France so we bought ours in ‘01

We rent it out, 4 bed private pool 10 mins from a biggish town with cafes supermarkets and restaurants. First year renting was ‘02 we make 20K+ in rentals every year since, enough to to pay taxes bills housekeeper gardener/pool clean and to fund out travel over there a few times a year. We have a few weeks available to rent in ‘20 left. 19K of bookings already.

We also travel to other destinations during the year, fortunate enough to do this. Go over when we see the weather is nice and have a break in bookings. Can travel down to Spain in a few hrs and holiday on from there also.

So income of approx 160K no mortgage on it, great investment for us. Will see how Brexit pans out and take it from there.

Thought we were both on board to do this, you both aren’t which will have big problems family wise going forward.

I'd be concerned that you are holidaying twice a year in a place you don't like

Apart from the fact that DH is not taking your views into account much, I would suggest renting a very nice place in that area for a year, and see how it works out first, before committing to a purchase.

Having had two foreign properties, we sold both eventually as we got tired of the hassle, the charges, and not being able to use them as much as we would have liked. I know we were fortunate to be able to do this, but in hindsight, never again.

They weren't expensive properties to buy either, but OMG there was a lot of maintenance, council charges, community taxes etc. Plus the worry about the agents using it for free or renting to their mates when we were not there. Caught them in the act too, as we had suspected due to high utility costs. Gave up then, sold and barely broke even, well even less than that when you factor in the costs of purchase, and sales too. Ah well, it was an adventure!

We now rent the best place we can afford for our holidays, works out so much better value than paying for a property you own abroad. Just my 2c

I can think of nothing worse than spending every single school holiday in the same place. There’s a whole world out there!! I’d just keep saying no and that while you’re happy to go a few times a year, you don’t want to spend summers there with the kids and you want to travel to other places.
Those are valid reasons in my book. I’d just keep saying no! Sounds like he wants to keep up with the Joneses a bit?

I’m the opposite way round, but thought my perspective might be useful:

We live abroad and bought a small home in the UK so that we’d always have a base to return to, when visiting family.

It’s brilliant to be able to just book flights and go, we always have clothes etc waiting for us which is nice.

We’ve made it work for us because:

• It’s a small apartment so security concerns are few, and we have nice (permanent resident) neighbours who are kind enough to take in parcels if they arrive too early or late for us to catch.

• I wanted to buy the place more than my partner originally, and I had no preconceptions about how much time my partner would spend here. I mainly come without them, but they are happy to be here on their own terms. I never force or even ask them to come.

• It wasn’t bought as an investment, so we are not constantly worrying about house price fluctuations and plummeting values (not in London as you may guess!). We were very clear that this wouldn’t be used as a holiday rental or income source, and do not consider it even as a saleable asset. It’s a home.

• Our visits here vary, and there’s no ‘we must visit twice a year or three months of the year’. We’re careful to take actual holidays from both sides of the family too - much needed 😂.

As for maintenance, I’m comfortable sorting things as they arise and have trusted family members (with keys) who can let tradespeople in if needed. Because the property is fairly new (and we took our time when buying) maintenance has been fairly minimal, thankfully. If we didn’t have family or friends around to kindly help, it’d be more difficult obviously.

It sounds like his mind is made up and he’s trying to get you on board so he doesn’t have to feel bad about you disagreeing.

@AnotherEmma
Yes a few towards the end of the list.
It's more though that he will demand an alternative suggestion of equal merit if I disagree.
So I can't say I don't want to do something. I will have to say I don't want to do X because I want to do Y.

Sometimes I can't be bothered to come up with an elaborate alternative so just go along with his plans. I'd spend hours justifying my pick otherwise.

I can think of nothing worse than spending every single school holiday in the same place.

You don’t have to go every school holiday. And you can use the rental income to pay for holidays elsewhere, and you can also house swap.

Returning to the same area, building up links to the place and the country, learning the language, making friends there, absorbing the local and national culture - all these are enriching experiences for parents and kids.

It’s very different experience to short holidays.

He is definitely abusive then.
He's trained you not to have an opinion because he makes it so difficult for you have one.
See the abuser profiles.

Well, you can say 'I don't want to because I don't want to go there. I want to spend time at home during the summer hols and the kids do / will increasingly as they're older, too'. Your 'alternative plan' is spending some quality holiday time at home and letting the kids see their friends.

What's he going to do, book your flights, pack for you, bundle you into a car and physically force you to board them?

So what would happen OP if you said to him 'look, I do not want to get the holiday home and that's the end of it, I want to hear no more about it!'

AnotherEmma.Yes a few towards the end of the list

God, I've just read that list. All are horrendous. If he's displaying 'a few' of those behaviours you have real problems

‘As per the double taxation agreement you can choose to pay tax in Spain or U.K. It’s not hard to keep a spreadsheet of rental income..’
I’ve been looking at this recently and what I understood was the opposite: rental income is taxable in the country where it arises, regardless of where you pay income tax.
OP, if DH wants a place in Spain, ask for one in Portugal instead. No inheritance tax there, at least.

DTA means you don’t have to pay tax twice on the same income. If you pay tax in Spain you don’t have to pay it here or vice versa. If you live in Spain obviously you’d have to pay it there.

The consensus seems to be that Spanish tax is fiddly. My point is that you can’t avoid paying Spanish tax on Spanish rental income, whether you live there or not, because rental tax is payable in the country where the property is situated.

We bought a holiday home in my husband's country 2 and a half years ago. Eighteen months after buying it our marriage ended.
It's definitely made things very complicated!
We have never rented it out. It was just for us to enjoy holidays. The kids are now nearly 15 and 16 and arnt interested in it at all! They say they miss being in a hotel and that holiday feeling! It's definitely expensive but it's in Fethiye and I live it there. Not getting to use it much as flights have become expensive and Im still governed by school holidays but hope to live in it in the not too distant future. I have citizenship aswell which helps enormously

If Spain insists you pay it there, you won’t have to pay it again in the U.K.although you will have to declare it in both countries.

What happens if you refuse to do any of the admin or other associated work? He's not actually your boss, is he?

Agree that coming up with an 'alternative plan of equal merit' is weird. Equal merit in his eyes, by any chance?

I would let him buy it and go there alone. Sounds like having several breaks a year from him could only be positive.

But your alternative plan of equal merit is easy! It's to holiday in a different place each year and have lots of new and exciting experiences rather than the same boring one each time. And not expose yourself to the risks of the Spanish property market. And maybe for your husband to start treating your opinions as equally valid to his own rather than somehow second rate.

Agree with Lucile, wanting to holiday in different places each year and not be tied to a property overseas is of “equal merit”. He’s bullying you. You should tell him so

I do feel bullied a lot. But I often think maybe I'm just too sensitive. It's hard to know sometimes what is normal when it's all you've every known.

Can you think through and answer some of the specific questions asked here? The 'what if you said x, y, z'? That will help you see what your situation really is.

The Freedom Programme is very helpful for working out what's normal and what's not. There is an online version of the course.