MFA Permissions

[Karl]

There has been a number of threads and comments about MFA Permissions and people having to wait a very long time for information / updates from their lawyers.

This is a common problem with it appears no end in site. We have a service that checks your MFA status and provides you a report explaining where you are in the system. We cannot speed up you application, but the people who have used our service so far have found it useful to double check what the lawyers have / have not done and get an idea of how much longer they may have to wait. If anyone is interested please email - [e-mail]

Regards

Karl

[nikh]

We also use someone locally in Split who does this for 65 euro, they had an answer for us on the same day we asked, with the name of the person daling with the file for future reference. Anyone wants details of this guy let me know, he can also do all your land checks etc in double quick time and is reasonably priced for all his services without added commissions

[brianmcc]

If anybody wishes to check if their property is registered with the MFA and
to get your case number, you can ring the following number 00385 145 699 64
or
the MFA civil department on 00385 137 106 21, they speak good English and
are very helpful ,all they ask for is your name and the name of the seller
Rgds
Brian

[Nicola]

Just to give you an update on timescales - we signed for our house in Istria in August 2004 and have just this week received our MFA permission!
Hope that helps!

[elaine]

Congrats, Nicola! Wonder how quickly your tax bill will follow??

[talisman]

Talking of tax bills, I believe the 5% that is paid in taxes is based on the current market value, not the purchase price?? If you have spent a lot of money on restoration, I presume it must be possible to include all the receipts for work done, or else you get hit with a double whammy! Also, as it now seems to be taking over 2 years to get the MFA approval, the original amount of tax we set aside for the "6 month permission" we were all initially promised looks extremely skinny now!!

[irac]

Talisman, from the reading of the law and what has been practiced (I asked a colleague who is a lawyer working in a katasters office) is that the 5% is from the contract price, otherwise (he said) it is unworkable. I know from experience (personal) that I paid 5% on the price I bought the land for, stupidly I rejected doing a "contract" price, but hey, hopefully honesty and stupidity are virtues!

[gmh]

The law says it's based on the market price at the point of signing the legal sale contract.
It also says it should be payed within 30 days of when they tell you how much to pay otherwise you attract a late fee of 15% pa.

[nikh]

market contract price, mine due in June after 2 and half years for one of my props, paid up the first props at market value at time of signing, final sales contract. Hope law hasnt changed as I could end up with a huge bil, off to check now

[irac]

nikh, I got an email yesterday from Zagreb stating it's from the time of purchase, if that's any help for you? My colleague had told me the exact same and I'm hoping this is the right information, or else someone in the Min. of Finance is very much misinformed!

[gmh]

Just a correction to my previous post.
Transfer tax must be reported within 30 days of acquisition and payed within 15(not 30) days upon recieving the decision regarding tax obligation.

[backinaction]

hi
Has anyone actually had their tax bill yet and was it based on contract value or current market value? seems crazy to go on current market value when MFA are taking over 2 years to process permission - of course the value will go up in that period but why should we be financially disadvantaged because they are so slow in approving?

Anyone know the definite status on this?

cheers

[Charles]

Unfortunately, it is MARKET VALUE, not contract Value. I bought a house at a very fair market price and it got valued by the local authorities 26% higher. This amounted to €3,000 more tax. We spoke to a lawyer who said lodging an appeal may be prejudicial to us doing business here (sorry - estate agent). In my opinion 'we wuz robbed' but we have no recourse. In todays market, a contract price at an obviously low price should attract attention but otherwise it seems rather officious to arbitrarily decide the value of a property where pricing is still an imprecise science. Any odds on the ratio of higher valuations to lower ones?

[AndyPandy]

Sorry but you was robbed. It is CONTRACT value.

There is clear jurisprudence concerning this point.

a) otherwise how could you budget?

b) if the property inflated many times beyond you control or you did a lot of work to it how can you be expected to pay x time more tax than you expected. Its not your fault prices may rocket

c) market value is arbitary, subject to opinion. Contract price is explicit.

As we've said before it looks like many local Cro officials make up the rules as they go along. Lazy Cro gov thieves.

I wouldnt have paid them to start with

[Charles]

Hi,

Interesting! I agree on a) and b). For c) I can understand the reasoning as every contract price would go through at €50 if possible. It stops people from trying to avoid the tax and I think it is fair BUT I still don't see how the local tax authorities (who came round to do the official valuation) can finesse the contract price to create an accurate valuation other than in a completely arbitrary manner. It's crazy that this is a grey area but there you go - just another one to add to the list.

If you can point us in the right direction of the piece of legislation we, our lawyer and I'm sure a large number of our clients as well as other buyers would be very interested.