Real estate and overseas property is the latest field Language Insight has launched a custom translation service for. Owning a home abroad is a dream for many and as more people consider investing in property abroad, we will be there to help you purchase and market your investment.

There are two reasons people are attracted to purchasing real estate abroad. The first is purely as an investment, so you can build or renovate a property in a popular vacation spot with a view to selling it on for a profit. The second motivation is to have a permanent base in the spot you most love to visit on holiday, so you can enjoy the comfort of a real home away from home.

Thanks to increasingly economical and frequent flights from the UK to Europe, it is now easier than ever before to travel to the continent for a holiday. If there is one city you find yourself visiting more than any other, you may have toyed with the idea of purchasing a property there before. However, having to go through the difficult process of buying real estate in a foreign language might have put you off taking that leap.

That’s where Language Insight can help. Our team of professional linguists can help you make sense of this complicated process by translating everything from solicitors’ letters and surveys to the property deeds and lease agreements. By having access to the information in these documents translated into your mother tongue, you will find the whole property-buying process is made much easier and more efficient.

As anyone who has ever bought a house before will know, it is not always straightforward. Indeed, it can take months of toing and froing between the solicitors representing the buyer and seller and the estate agent, as well as local government agents if planning permission is involved. And that’s just when the process is conducted in your mother tongue. When you are buying abroad you also need to get to grips with the laws governing property in those countries. Failure to correctly understand these and the paperwork you are sent can result in the process being held up.

In addition to delaying the actual property buying process, failure to understand the rules of buying in a specific location could also mean there is a sting in the tail once you have invested in your dream holiday home or rental property. For instance, in some places there are local property taxes that must be paid, or an ongoing duty the owner will be charged regularly. There may also be rules governing what the property can be used for, which could have an impact if the buyer wants to convert it into a bed and breakfast or time-share opportunity.

While your estate agent should guide you through all of this and make you aware of local laws and taxes, being able to read and understand the paperwork at your leisure is also useful. Typically, it is the original contract that is legally-binding, no matter what language it is written in. However, it is useful to have a copy of the paperwork in your mother tongue so you can review it as often as you like and work out if there are any questions you wish to ask about the seller, your estate agent or solicitor.

If you are planning to buy land or property with a view to selling it on, arguably it is even more important you make use of translation services. To begin with, as mentioned above, you want to be sure that what you are buying can be used for non-residential purposes. If it turns out after the sale has gone through that you will not be able to do what you planned, you will have to put it back on the market and risk losing money as well as time.

Once you are ready to market your holiday home, either to buyers or renters, you need to ensure that you promote it in the mother tongue of the tourists you are trying to attract. For instance, if you own a property in Spain in an area popular with English holidaymakers, your brochures and website pages should be available in both English and Spanish. Again, this is something Language Insight can assist with.

Language Insight’s team of linguists are based all over the world, so we can cater to practically every world language. Your files will be assigned to a translator who speaks the target language you specify and who is also based in the country you are buying or selling in. The reason we do this is to ensure that they are familiar with the local property and tax laws and know the correct way to translate this complicated information. Where possible, we will assign your files to a linguist who has experience translating real estate paperwork.

If you have been toying with the idea of investing in real estate overseas but are concerned about the language gap, stop worrying and contact Language Insight today. Your dream could soon become a reality.