Recently, the General Directorate of Taxes has issued several binding resolutions reiterating that real estate leasing is an economic activity, even if its management is contracted with a third party, when the complexity of the activity justifies such outsourcing. This criterion is applicable, among others, to SOCIMIs dedicated to hotel leasing
Article 2.1 of Law 11/2009, of October 26, which regulates Listed Companies for Investment in the Real Estate Market (SOCIMI), allows companies whose main corporate purpose is, among others, the acquisition and promotion of urban real estate for leasing to opt for this special tax regime.
The references in the SOCIMI Law to leasing as an economic activity (sections 5 and 6 of its article 2) and to the application of Law 27/2014, of November 27, on Corporate Income Tax (LIS) to these entities (without prejudice to the provisions of the SOCIMI Law – article 9.1), allow us to understand that to carry out this activity, the corresponding organization of material and human resources must be in place as established in the LIS. Specifically, article 5.1 of the LIS establishes that, for the leasing of real estate to be considered an economic activity, the company (or the group of companies) must have at least one employee with a full-time employment contract.
Given the above, it is relevant to refer to the criterion issued by the General Directorate of Taxes (DGT) and reiterated in binding resolutions V1377-24, V1325-24, and V0090-24, which states that the requirement of article 5.1 of the LIS is met, even when the necessary material and human resources for leasing are not owned but subcontracted to an entity outside the corporate group. However, all these resolutions describe factual situations where the volume of assets leased, their geographical dispersion, and the complexity of the business justified, in the opinion of the DGT, subcontracting to third-party experts.
As mentioned, the main corporate purpose of SOCIMIs must be leasing. In the hotel sector, SOCIMIs will own the properties, intended for leasing for hotel operation. This means that the entity owning the properties that has opted for the SOCIMI regime must have at least (according to the regulation) one person employed (by the company itself, or at the group level) to manage the activity. The DGT resolutions allow us to conclude, however, that if the organization of the leasing activity is sufficiently complex to justify its management by an independent third party, the management of this activity can be subcontracted.
Given the above, hotel SOCIMIs must analyze how their leasing activity is managed and whether the various concurrent circumstances justify its subcontracting, to understand that the requirement of article 5.1 of the LIS is met and, therefore, to understand that the main corporate purpose requirement of article 2.1 of the SOCIMI Law is met.