The Brexit White Paper and your foreign property

The White Paper is only a starting-point from which to discuss final terms with the EU and, essentially, the aspects affecting British-resident owners of a foreign property fall under Tourism, from a sector point of view.

The UK Government has set-out a future economic partnership to provide reciprocal arrangements, consistent with the ending of ‘free movement of peoples’, one of the EU ‘four pillars’ of EU membership. The UK proposes to allow all citizens to travel freely, without a visa, for tourism and temporary activity only.

The following 4 sections address areas of particular interest to British owners of a foreign property; Tourism, Border Arrangements, Aviation and Road Transport.

In the year ending September 2017, UK residents made approximately 50 million non-business related visits to the EU spending £24 billion, and EU residents made over 20 million non-business related visits to the UK spending £7.8 billion.

The UK therefore proposes reciprocal visa-free travel arrangements to enable UK and EU citizens to continue to travel freely for tourism in the future, maintaining the close links between the people of the UK and the EU.

The Government wants UK and EU nationals to continue to be able to use the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) to receive healthcare should they need it while on holiday

The UK already has existing arrangements with low-risk, non-EU countries that enable smooth access at the border, such as the Registered Traveller Scheme in place with a number of countries like the US and Japan.

The UK wants to agree reciprocal arrangements with the EU that ensure smooth passage for UK nationals when they travel to the EU, for example on business or on holiday.

The UK will strengthen the security of its borders, which should include exploring whether to apply the electronic travel authorities proposed for third country nationals to each other’s nationals, and ensuring travel documents meet minimum security standards.

But at the border, as now, tourists and business visitors should not routinely have to face questions about the purpose of their visit.

The UK also wants to minimize administrative burdens for those seeking permission to travel, enter or reside in each other’s territories, including short, simple and user-friendly application processes.

The UK will explore options for maintaining reciprocal liberalised access through an Air Transport Agreement.

This would permit UK and EU carriers to operate air services to, from and within the territory of both the UK and the EU on an equal basis.

This could be supported through an approach to ownership and control that avoids introducing additional barriers to businesses.

There is precedent for this within the EU-Canada Air Services Agreement, which provides for the possibility of fully liberalised access subject to a sufficiently open bilateral approach to ownership and control.

The UK wants to explore options for reciprocal access for road hauliers and passenger transport operators, and arrangements for private motoring. The UK is taking legislation through Parliament to ensure that a permitting system can operate if required.

If you would like to read the full 100+ pages of the White Paper then please click this link to visit Gov.uk