Registration rights: why moving to Wallonia or the Brussels-Capital Region can be financially interesting | Money

If you buy a non-new home in Flanders, you normally pay 12 percent registration duty. Unless it concerns your family home – i.e. your own sole home – then you only owe 3 percent. Or even just 1 percent, if you radically renovate your own home within six years, with or without demolition and reconstruction.

Is the purchase price no more than 220,000 euros, or 240,000 euros for homes in core cities such as Leuven, Ostend and Bruges? Or in a municipality in the Flemish periphery around Brussels? Then you may receive an additional discount of 2,800 euros. Or 960 euros, if you are already entitled to 1 percent registration duty. In other words: in Flanders the registration fee payable when purchasing a house or apartment can vary considerably.

Acquiring your own home with a modest income: how is it possible?

How much registration fee do you pay if you buy a home in the Brussels Capital Region? Normally this is 12.5 percent, but you may be entitled to an abatement, a reduction of the taxable basis of the registration duties to 200,000 euros of the purchase price.

As a buyer you must be a natural person and have full ownership of the property. It must also be your only home, where you will maintain your domicile for at least five years within three years after the execution of the deed. It concerns a purchase – so not a donation – and the real estate is of course located in the Brussels Region. Please note: the purchase price may not exceed 600,000 euros; above that you will not receive any allowance.

Are you buying a home in Brussels as your main residence and carrying out an energetic renovation that will improve the EPC value by at least two classes within five years? Then you will receive an extra allowance of 25,000 euros per energy class, which improves the EPC value.

read more: This is how you borrow to increase the EPC value of your home.

Have you set your sights on a home in the Walloon region? There you also normally pay 12.5 percent registration fee. But you can also claim a lower rate in Wallonia.

Suppose you buy a modest home, with a limited cadastral income, without already (partly) owning another home, and you establish your domicile there within three years and keep it there for at least three years. Then you pay 6 percent registration duty on a first installment of the purchase price, which varies per municipality. Or 5 percent, if you were previously entitled to a social mortgage loan.

In addition, you can receive an exemption from the registration fee, regardless of whether you pay 12.5 or 6 percent. The amount of that allowance depends, among other things, on the value of the home: 40,000 euros for all homes of less than 350,000 euros, less than 40,000 euros for homes between 350,000 and 500,000 euros (according to a decreasing rate), and 20,000 euros for more than 500,000 euros. It must be your only home, logically located in the Walloon Region, of which you acquire full ownership.

After the divorce: what about the mortgage loan?

Read more on Spaargids.be:

The Flemish government guarantees 10 percent of the housing loan

Young people borrow a smaller portion of their real estate purchase

Buying off plan or turnkey: what if the construction company goes bankrupt?

This article was brought to you by our partner Spaargids.be.
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