Property abroad and first time buyer status

hello

i'm close to finalising a purchase of a property in eastern europe. i'm living in germany but am an irish citizen. i dont have a property yet in ireland but want to buy one over the next 2 years. i have heard somewhere that my first time buyer status may be affected if i have purchased in eastern europe.
can anyone clarify this and if it is true how can this be monitored?
thanks
E

Yeah, you lose your FTB status by purchasing anywhere in the world (this does not apply with new houses, under (I think) 125sqm, as they are stamp duty free to owner occupiers). Re monitoring, I think it is up to your solicitor to inform the revenue of the amount owing.

we're using a solicitor in the country that's never mentioned it as we are both living and working in germany. do you think its likely that this will come to their attention?
thanks

Don't base the success of your plan on tax evasion. There is an ethical issue here - Why should you get to evade stamp duty?

But there are also practical issues - think of all those holders of bogus non-resident accounts in the 80's & early 90's who were oh so confident that Revenue would never find them - they were badly wrong. You can't base your approach on how Revenue operate now - you'd need to base your approach on how Revenue operate in the future, and unless you have a working crystal ball, you can't really do this effectively.

IMHO no, but, it is illegal, do you want to take that chance? Tax evasion can have some fairly hefty penalties, and in 10 yrs time this could be the next DIRT enquiry, where the revenue declare an amnesty to all who come forward and pay up (with penalties), for those who don't the investigation starts and then you could be very heavily penalised. In either case, it costs more then!

ok thanks that sounds right. i'm buying this with my fiancee. would it make sense to put it in one name and then a property in ireland in the other at a later stage?

yeah that would make it legal - but can you trust her ?

First time buyer status may revert to you if u you divorce later and the property that you are buying is part of the settlement . check out the revenue guidelines .