danny
New Member
Posts: 1
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Post by danny on May 8, 2007 13:20:05 GMT 1
Hi
I recently bought an apartment using the company route. I want to stay there on holiday next month with my family and then in July my sister in law wants to use it with some friends. Can anyone tell me what i have to do to make the stays legal? Do we all have to register with the police and do I have to make a rental agreement with my company for family and friends to use the apartment?
any help appreciated!
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Post by Ivana06 on May 15, 2007 18:59:19 GMT 1
Danny, You will have to register all your travellers with the local tourist office or police stn. Some people don't bother (like me) but i've heard of stories where the passport control start kicking up a fuss when you're about to board your plane home! Therefore i think it's wise to register. For your visitors later in the year. If it is your own property and your family are staying there, you don't need to declare anything. Hope this helps
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Post by mambo on May 15, 2007 22:26:11 GMT 1
You can avoid that if the company address is the same as the registered address of the company and if you are an employee. If you are an employee you can send yourself on business trip to...............your own house. This way the rent you pay will become expenses again and you can deduct the whole thing.
Another way is to have the house rented by a company from abroad, which you will invoice, but incredibly enough this company will refuse to pay. You will then send them a few reminders and subsequently book it as a loss. If they do pay they can re-invoice your company again for personnel services rendered to your company.
The ways of getting around this whole thing are basically endless if you have some imagination.
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Post by mc on May 16, 2007 14:57:45 GMT 1
My understanding was that everyone has to register, even Croatians if it is not their primary residence? Having said that we went to register last time I was there as the time before I was given hassle at Pula. In the office there were two people, neither of whom really knew what they were doing and they registered me but not wife, who is Croatian. We then had to go to the post office with the bill to pay the tourist tax, and had to pay extra for the privilege of paying the bill. This was at the beginning of May when I thought the tax only had to be paid from 15th June to 15th September. As it was only a few Kunas it was easier just to pay it. Flew out of Zagreb this time and they were not interested on checking if people had registered. We are going to get permission to rent it out so family and friends can use the apartment but I am slightly concerned that this will be more trouble than it is worth? We have all the paper work to do this but does anyone have any info on what is involved once the obligatory papers are handed in, including medical certificates The funniest part is when we went to the office for inquiring about renting our apartment out we were told the office was closed so had to come back after lunch. Went back and were just given a form which explained the docs that are required (Could easily have given us that first time). We then went back the next day, after lunch, with all the docs and completed forms and were told the office was closed. It had been open in the morning! We went home the next day so will have to try again next time, or get someone else to take the docs in (but my guess is that is not allowed?). Our apartment is privately owned but I am still at a loss as what exactly I, friends, or family should do if they stay there?
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Post by darcy on May 16, 2007 15:21:45 GMT 1
Lets see can we make it simpleā¦
That funny tourist tax is just a charge collected by the local shires and tourist boards. You (as the owner and not-resident) and your close family have to pay a small annual amount (I cannot remember, 50-100 CroKN) and you can stay as long as you like. For your sister-in-law and her friends, ask them to go and pay the tourist tax as any other tourist. She should always mention she is your sister-in-law. That part is easy.
You and all your family and friends are by law required to register with police. Do it, you do not want any real troubles. You and your family will need the company details and a property title. Your sister-in-law and her family should be fine with a written statement from you, signed and sealed in their funny way as they do in Croatia for all official documents (public notary). For your friends, I know police will ask for a "rental agreement", but your written statement might be OK as well (they are friends, they are invited).
Paying rental tax for friends..., that might be tricky one - your relationship with locals might suffer if you do not - they think you are renting and avoiding tax (and you know, you are always a filthy rich foreigner). Someone with more experience should help you with this.
As a general advise, as long as you keep friendly relationship with the locals and learn few Croatian words, you should be fine. Do not get too close, but give them something to chew. Keep low profile. And always first say "hello" to an older neighbour or person you know on the street.
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Post by mambo on May 17, 2007 0:48:12 GMT 1
MC, I understand that your apartment is privately owned ? By you as a foreigner ?
Officially you cannot even rent your house to anyone anymore, it is no longer allowed, not even to friends and family. The whole reason why they changed it was because everybody always said the people in the apartment were 'family' and nobody paid tax. So they decided to change the rules and now, as a foreigner, you can (officially) only rent through a company.
However, if the neighbors don't make too much of a fudge about it I would not worry too much.
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Post by mc on May 17, 2007 9:06:01 GMT 1
Thanks for you reply mambo.
On paper it is privately owned solely by my wife, who is Croatian. I hope that makes a difference however I doubt we would have any problem with neighbours if it came to that.
Our biggest concern is that when family, or friends, stay in it it, which of course they will, they can register legally for tourist tax so they do not get any problems whilst in Croatia or when they try and leave.
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Post by mambo on May 17, 2007 9:17:13 GMT 1
If she is really croatian it changes everything again. You will need to register your apartment for renting, nowadays you pay a fee for each bed that you have (I think it is around 700 Kuna for each bed), this is a sort of tax.
After that you will get a piece of paper and you can legally rent your apartment.
You can of course rent it just like this and hope nobody will notice. Most of the time it will work out, but sometimes not.
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Post by darcy on May 17, 2007 14:35:30 GMT 1
Hi mambo,
Could you please elaborate little bit further your statement:
"Officially you cannot even rent your house to anyone anymore, it is no longer allowed, not even to friends and family. The whole reason why they changed it was because everybody always said the people in the apartment were 'family' and nobody paid tax. "
That seriously limits your rights as an owner. Could you please check it or pass to me any link explaining it, Croatian will take some time but it is OK ...
Hope it would not be a problem.
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Post by mambo on May 17, 2007 21:08:13 GMT 1
If you are a foreigner you are no longer allowed to rent your house as a private person. Reason is very simple, most foreigners claimed that everybody staying in there house was friends and family who did not have to pay and all the rent was received abroad. In addition nobody registered these visitors for the tourist tax, so also there the goverment missed out.
Like they did with the charter boats (all of them now need to have Croatian registration) they also changed the law for the apartments. If a foreigner now wants to rent his house he has to do that through a company. You can either have a Croatian company do that for you against a fee or you can put your whole house into a company, of which you are the owner, and do it like that.
For the locals the rules also changed. The goverment apparently wants more money so they decided to charge everybody a fixed amount per bed. Even if you don't rent your house at all you have to pay this fee (if you want to be able to rent it). If you don't pay you are not allowed to rent the rooms and if you do............you get a fine, as usual.
Now, the price you are allowed to ask is not free. Only if you have something special (swimming pool or whole villa) you can ask more, but all the others have to abide by the published prices by the communce. The commune will divide the city into zones and for each zone a maximum price is determined and published. You can go lower, but quite obvious that the locals never go lower.
There are probably many more rules, but these are the important ones.
Long live communism !
Let's have as many rules as we can make.
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Post by darcy on May 18, 2007 13:12:53 GMT 1
That is all OK, and it is not complicated at all - other countries have these rules as well (capitalism is not a wild wild west), and you have to find your optimum way to legally, morally and community friendly maximise profit and minimise tax.
Only thing I cannot agree with you is: "Reason is very simple, most foreigners claimed that everybody staying in there house was friends and family who did not have to pay and all the rent was received abroad. In addition nobody registered these visitors for the tourist tax, so also there the government missed out."
That is not a reason, that is nonsense! Foreigners are the best what could happen to Croatia and it would be even better if more of them come, live and start business in Croatia.
Do you maybe know the link for the renting regulations, or at least the name of the body administering it?
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Post by mambo on May 19, 2007 1:18:03 GMT 1
Darcy,
I did not mean that foreigners did not pay...........it were the foreign apartment owners who claimed that all their guests were friends and family. If you understand that probably 70 % of all the new apartments are foreign owned and all of them were trying to rent out rooms, you can see why the goverment was getting angry.
Just take a look at all the websites on the internet, in the UK, in Holland, in Germany etc and all of them are still renting houses, but not through a company. So in essence they are illegally renting their property. Usually the guests have to pay to a British, Dutch, German, French or Italian bank account, no money changes hands in Croatia.
Officially that is now illegal.
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Post by darcy on May 19, 2007 4:14:40 GMT 1
Mambo,
This question is fundamental difference between Croations and non-Croatians - investment is there to provide an income. Of course, you are going to put your house on the Internet and as th owner I can do with my money as I please. Problem that Croatia does not want to make a fair tax system where you do not need to cheat! I know that very well from my 1.5 years of experience helping Croatians go get on their feet in mid-90s.
Do you know any link to the issue, simply it cannot be right - Croatia is there to be a part of free world and rules of the game are well known!
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Post by anton on May 19, 2007 13:49:38 GMT 1
Mambo
Your suggestion that everyone advertising as individuals are illegally renting is a bit sweeping. We advertise our property on web-sites under our own name but bill our customers through our Croatian company and pay our Croatian taxes
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Post by mambo on May 19, 2007 22:12:22 GMT 1
If you have a company you are not renting as an individual, right ?
I wrote that foreigners, who rent houses, but not through a company, do something which is considered to be illegal
You say that you rent via a company, so you don't belong in that group.
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