Fastighetsköp i utlandet
En jämförelse mellan Sverige, Spanien, Thailand och Turkiet
AbstractBuying real estate property is a complex process for the uninitiated. Apotential buyer has to keep track of laws and regulations affecting theproperty. The purchase of a property is for many also the largest deal made inlife and because of that it is especially important to make sure everything getsdone correctly.A real estate property purchase contains a number of different elements, suchas engineering data and inspection of the property and documentation to makesure that the signing of contracts and clauses are done according to the laws ofthat country. These purchase process steps are ordinary people not familiarwith, and therefore they hire the help of a real estate agent.Buying a property abroad complicates things because the countries have theirown laws and rules that make them different from the Swedish rules which theSwedish real estate buyers are accustomed to.Our thesis is about exploring if a Swedish buyer knows the buying process inforeign countries, or whether they rely on the broker they hired. The countrieswe have chosen to examine and compare against Sweden is Spain, Thailandand Turkey.Our questions will be answered by interviewing buyers about how they feelabout their buying process, if they encountered any problems before, duringor after their purchase, and if they are happy with their purchase after theevent.Our study shows that the buying processes in all four countries are generallyequal to each other. Our conclusion is that a Swedish property buyer offoreign real estate does not devote more time to obtain information on eitherthe buying process or the documents needed in a shop, which maybe theyshould do in the case of a foreign market. They rely instead on getting all thenecessary information from their hired real estate agent and that the agentinforms them on what is important.The respondents in our survey have all answered that they had confidence thatthe intermediary has acted properly and know what is right.We have discovered that the agents in Thailand have failed to inform theirbuyers about the actual rules of the land lease agreement. This may, or maynot, have serious consequences for a buyer in the future if the land owner.We also come to the conclusion that a buyer does not necessarily need to befamiliar with laws and rules around a property, but this requires that the realestate is. However, it has been shown that agents do not always have aneducation and it is therefore not at all certain that the agent has thatknowledge. We believe that this is one of the negative consequences of thatthere is no requirement of any sort of education for a real estate agent in thesecountries. With a regulated law, the buyer (and seller) situation in the businesswould be made safer.