Most of the laws approved during the last legislative session take effect on July 1st. One of them restricts the purchase of homes to foreigners from seven nations including China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela. While the purpose is to protect national security in South Florida there is an impact on the real estate market.
While the main focus of the law is to prevent the Republic of China from acquiring properties of interest in Florida, the measure also includes other nations and could have a very particular impact on areas such as Doral.
A few days before the law known in Tallahassee as “Interests of Foreign Nations” goes into effect, there are parts that are still very confusing, and even so, on July 1st we have to comply”.
Of course, Chinese-born individuals who are not yet US citizens cannot purchase commercial or residential property in the state, while there are restrictions on property purchases by people from Cuba, Russia, North Korea, Iran , Syria and Venezuela .
Companies with people from those nations who do not have citizenship or permanent residence in the United States cannot buy property that is within 5 miles of a military installation.
Vanessa Beltrán, attorney, from Agentis Law, says: “We have Southcom, which is in Doral, and the Homestead Airforce base, which is in Homestead, there we have to have two big ones that we have to keep pending.”
10 miles from what they call critical infrastructure “which includes the Port of Miami, the Airport, power plants, water plants and even telephone plants.”
Impacting much of the South Florida territory and potentially a significant part of the market
Aileen Garciga-Keller Williams of Premier Properties, says that “foreign investment is 3 percent of the market here in South Florida. First is Argentina, second Colombia, then Venezuela, Peru.
“We have many people from Venezuela who don’t buy just one property, they buy multiple properties.”
Violating the law carries penalties from fines up to a thousand dollars a day to losing the property.
The attorney interviewed is part of a recently established committee of real estate agents and attorneys assigned to draft information about this new law that will be included in the initial contracts for the sale and purchase of properties in Florida.
