Post by mambo on Feb 17, 2007 13:16:09 GMT 1
I was on VIR this week and although it looks on the map like a nice island, forget the whole place if you ever thought of buying something over there.
The first thing you will notice is a building spree which has gone fully out of control. Houses are built on every square centimeter, no streets were planned and of course no parking places, so guess how that will look like during the summer months.
We spoke with some locals and then heard some interesting news which completely astounded me.
On the island there are approximately 10,000+ houses (each having one or more apartments). There is electricity on the island, but there is no running water !
All the water is supplied by trucks for a price of 50 Kuna for a cubic meter, which is very nice when you have a swimming pool with 50 cubic meters of which 10 cubic meters evaporate each month during the summer months.
But the most worrying news was that NONE of the houses on VIR has a building permit. We spoke with an owner who had a house on the island and he told us that he has been there for 22 years and so far has not received any building permission. Apparently it is impossible to get a building permission for the island of VIR.
We also spoke with the owner of a bar and a supermarket and also they confirmed they had no permission whatsoever. The only thing they had was the promise of the officials in Zadar that they would get a permission soon. When 'soon' is or was they don't know either.
Even the bridge to the island has no building permission !
Of course there will be people who claim that they have a permission, but fact is that several tourists found out that they had been ripped off.
Last year a few houses were destroyed by the goverment for not having a building permission and all of these houses belonged to foreigners. So far none of the houses belonging to Croatians have been destroyed.
Worst part is that these foreigners did pay the taxes (for the sale) to the Croatian goverment, who of course said 'thank you', which leads me to the question of 'how can you pay tax and accept tax on something which is illegal ?'
Vir gives me a very bad taste, it is an island where greed and ripping off unsuspecting foreigners/buyers has reached a new level. It is a disgrace that a country, which wants to be seen as civilized, lets this scheme go on and on and on, in fact people are still building everywhere and lots of it is for sale...........waiting for another unsuspecting victim.
In other words.
If you plan to buy something on VIR, forget it, you may get burned pretty bad.
The first thing you will notice is a building spree which has gone fully out of control. Houses are built on every square centimeter, no streets were planned and of course no parking places, so guess how that will look like during the summer months.
We spoke with some locals and then heard some interesting news which completely astounded me.
On the island there are approximately 10,000+ houses (each having one or more apartments). There is electricity on the island, but there is no running water !
All the water is supplied by trucks for a price of 50 Kuna for a cubic meter, which is very nice when you have a swimming pool with 50 cubic meters of which 10 cubic meters evaporate each month during the summer months.
But the most worrying news was that NONE of the houses on VIR has a building permit. We spoke with an owner who had a house on the island and he told us that he has been there for 22 years and so far has not received any building permission. Apparently it is impossible to get a building permission for the island of VIR.
We also spoke with the owner of a bar and a supermarket and also they confirmed they had no permission whatsoever. The only thing they had was the promise of the officials in Zadar that they would get a permission soon. When 'soon' is or was they don't know either.
Even the bridge to the island has no building permission !
Of course there will be people who claim that they have a permission, but fact is that several tourists found out that they had been ripped off.
Last year a few houses were destroyed by the goverment for not having a building permission and all of these houses belonged to foreigners. So far none of the houses belonging to Croatians have been destroyed.
Worst part is that these foreigners did pay the taxes (for the sale) to the Croatian goverment, who of course said 'thank you', which leads me to the question of 'how can you pay tax and accept tax on something which is illegal ?'
Vir gives me a very bad taste, it is an island where greed and ripping off unsuspecting foreigners/buyers has reached a new level. It is a disgrace that a country, which wants to be seen as civilized, lets this scheme go on and on and on, in fact people are still building everywhere and lots of it is for sale...........waiting for another unsuspecting victim.
In other words.
If you plan to buy something on VIR, forget it, you may get burned pretty bad.