If property markets competed globally and it were an Olympic sport – who would be the winners, losers and ones to watch?

It’s not quite a spectator sport, but  the Knight Frank Global House Price Index makes for an entertaining read nevertheless. The latest figures have been published and the results are in for the first quarter of this year.

Ireland would retire due to injury. At an annual drop of 11.9% and ranking 48^th its sorry economic state is cemented with devalued properties lying empty all around the country.

Bringing up the rear, in a surprisingly solid performance would be Dubai which, in the past six months has finally showed a positive rise in prices by 2.1%.

But can the UK, which is placed at a middling 29^th with an increase of 1% after a year of decline, regain its position at the front of the pack?

For the moment, Asia will take gold, silver and bronze; Hong Kong, India and Taiwan dominate the top of the rankings this quarter although Hong Kong’s out-of-control inflation (which the government is trying to cool), has risen recently to 24.2%, which could have serious consequences in a year’s time, and cause them to drop to a level pegging with Europe.

On Asia’s heels, the wild cards for overtaking Asia  (and a safe bet for buying property in), are Israel and France. According to Knight Frank, Israel has been steadily in the top ten for the past two years and has a far more stable and controlled inflation rate than Asia. France has leaped from 30^th to 6^th place with an 8.6% rise since 2010. Knight Frank believes that the country’s greater productivity has impacted on wages, consumer spending and property demand.

So can the underdogs overtake Asia in a year’s time? Only time will tell; on your marks, set, go.

Owning a French holiday home but only using it occasionally will get more expensive next year after France’s government pushed the first stages of a new property tax regime through the National Assembly.

The tax, which could force many holiday home owners to pay between £500 and £3,000 a year extra in tax – depending where they own – will be levied on the 350,000 foreign-owned second homes in France, of which 200,000 are owned by Brits.

Still friends: Will Cameron still be shaking Sarkozy's hand when the French president's new tax on British homeowners comes in next January?

France’s embattled French president is proposing to raise £176 million with a third property tax specifically on holiday home ownership but, although he has said it is not about taxing foreigners, the new duty will not apply to people who have been tax resident in France for three of the past ten years which means that, apart from French people who live outside France, it won’t apply to – for example – Parisians with rural or coastal holiday homes.

Property owners in France already pay two taxes on their property. The first is the Taxe d’Habitation, which is variable, paid by the person living in the property (owner or tenant). The second,the Taxe Fonciere is also variable but always paid by the property’s owner regardless of how much they use it.
Part of the Taxe Fonciere documentation includes a ‘valeur locative cadastrale’ which is the average potential rental value of a property and the new tax will be 20% of this.

Pretty taxing: holiday homes in places like the Tarne et Garonne will soon face a third property tax on top of the two existing ones.

So let’s say you own a holiday home in Nice, use it from time to time but its ‘assessed’ rental value is €5,000 a year, then you’ll pay €1,000 or 20% of £5,000.

There are three groups of people who will be exempt from the tax, which is due to be introduced in January 2012. These are anyone who has signed up to a ‘leaseback’ arrangement with a company such as Pierres et Vacances; non-French who live in France permanently; and anyone who puts their property on the books of a local letting agent and therefore – in theory – makes it ‘available’ for rent year round.

This last exemption is in effect a loophole that would be impossible to police and may render is impossible to levy. But as an obstacle to the tax’s success it is nothing compared to the European Court.

Several legal groups have said they will challenge the new tax on the basis that, although not stated openly, in practice it will be a tax almost exclusively on foreigners and therefore illegal under European law.

There’s encouraging news for anyone trying to claim back overpaid capital gains tax from the Spanish Government, as a British couple become the first successful claimants to win back their money.

It’s nearly a year since Spanish lawyers Costa, Alvarez, Manglano and Associates (CAM&A), and currency brokers HiFX, together exposed the Spanish Government Capital Gains Tax scam. In March 2008, the two organisations revealed that non-Spaniards who sold properties in Spain between March 2004 and December 2006 were charged a hefty income tax rate of 35% on any Capital Gains, despite Spanish nationals only paying 15%.

They claimed that the charge contravened the European Community Treaty rules on discrimination and that it was against the rules for the Spanish Government to have made the charge. Plus, the Spanish Government could have made up to £350 million as a result of it.

To help bring justice to all those affected by the overpayment, CAM&A and HiFX launched Spanish Tax Reclaim last year and encouraged anyone who could have been affected to get in touch with them.

Many people did and, in addition to the successful claimants, 600 other British people are in the process of having their cases put forward to the Spanish Court. Between them they could be in line for reclaiming about £8.4 million, plus interest (the average tax reclaim is £14,100, plus interest). However, it’s thought that as many as 10,000 Brits could still be affected by the tax issue and entitled to claim up to £140 million.

If you sold a property in Spain between March 2004 and December 2006, then check out the Spanish Tax Reclaim website for more details of how to register a claim.