bondy
Junior Member
Posts: 16
|
Post by bondy on May 20, 2007 9:27:54 GMT 1
Building plot near Labin, Istria. We still wait for our Location Permit after 10 months, but are trying to plan the route ahead. When the land is bought via our company, we would like to put our 4 berth caravan on the land for our holiday use and, when the Building Permit is granted, as our home while the building work is done. Will I/we have to register for tourist tax if we are 'preparing' the plot prior to building? Will I/we have to be employed by our d.o.o.? Do you think we could get temporary electric & water connections to a caravan without a building permit? and in what time scale? I've been told I can get these temporary supplies when I have a building permit, can anyone confirm? Can a d.o.o. buy a Croatian registered and insured car for employees use?
We would be grateful for any comments and advice. Thanks, Graham & Adele
|
|
bondy
Junior Member
Posts: 16
|
Post by bondy on May 21, 2007 5:36:19 GMT 1
Sorry, please excuse my bad manners,. I've not worded the above as a forum topic, have I ? I should have directed these questions to my lawyer ! The need for good information has got the better of me.
|
|
|
Post by darcy on May 21, 2007 7:22:27 GMT 1
Hi bondy,
Certainly if you have 2 lawyers, one short and one tall, you should be able find the answer.
On a top of that, for a small tax deductible fee (payable in advance), I will help you, but not before I find out what is your question all about, so I can determine how much actually I will charge you. Once final payment is complete and only if the weather is rainy, I will be able to answer. If the weather is sunny your payment will end up in a local pub, so better hurry up to join me. If you miss, unfortunately you will be required to provide another payment in the same amount.
Sound familiar - welcome to Croatia.
I cannot help you with a building permit, power and water and company issues.
I only know that you can camp on your land, do not forget to register with a local police and I suggest you to pay the tourist tax (they might give you a discount as you are the owner, but they do not have to because you are a foreigner). You will be OK for the beginning.
Do not forget to keep friendly relationship with the locals, you will need their help to finish your project. Good luck.
|
|
|
Post by mambo on May 21, 2007 8:16:28 GMT 1
Normally you will get temporary water and electricity so that you can build, perhaps that is what they mean with 'water + electricity' with a building permission. Otherwise............don't you have any neighbors that want to give you water and electricity if you pay them each month ?
That permissions take forever in Croatia is well known, but your ar ect should guide you through this process. If he does his work well it should only take one month. The law is changed not too long ago and now the communes are obliged to handle everything in that time.
I understand you are in Labin, which means that the head office in Pula is probably the one to talk to. We had to do the same when it took forever in our case. Best thing to do is to simply call them every day or pass by there every day, guiding the paperwork through the subsequent offices yourself. They may not like you and perhaps don't even want to talk to you if you don't speak the language. In that case you could consider hiring a charming, good looking lady, who has 'hair on her teeth' (as we call it). This usually works a lot better than some ugly man, trying to bully his way through. If the people in the commune don't want to work, they don't work.
And yes, if your company is registered, also for PDV, you can buy whatever you want and charge it to the company. If you want to buy a car through a lease they will require you to give a bankguarantee for the full amount. So in fact there is no need to lease if the company has no income..............what is there to deduct anyway ?
Just make sure that all your bills have your name, address and company number + a stamp from the company selling the goods.
If you want to deduct the cost of the fuel etc your company will need at least one employee.
|
|
|
Post by mambo on May 21, 2007 9:04:56 GMT 1
Can anyone explain me why a word like a*r*ch*i*tect is censured on this website ?
Is this a dirty word all of a sudden ?
|
|
|
Post by gmh on May 21, 2007 11:37:28 GMT 1
archetect
spell it incorrectly and you'll be ok. seems this forum has a problem with c.h.i.t.
|
|
bondy
Junior Member
Posts: 16
|
Post by bondy on May 21, 2007 21:55:05 GMT 1
Thanks for the info and for the reason 'building designer' comes out all wrong. Darcy; We wait patiently for a straight answer to a straight question! Croatia is a country of maybees! But we are deturmined to make our home there. Mambo: I'm certainly an ugly bloke in his 50's. The wife and daughter will have to do the nagging. (They've had plenty of practice). Sorry we were not able to meet up in March, I'll e-mall you when our next visit is planned.
Thanks once again, Graham
|
|
|
Post by darcy on May 21, 2007 23:17:00 GMT 1
Hi Graham, May I ask you who did building plans for you (it has to be a Croatian certified architect) and did they help you with building permit process? I hope you are aware that process is not quick and can last for years. Before you go walk thru this site: www.croatiaproperty.proboards16.com/ - what the guy is talking makes lots of sense + that guy is in Istria, he might help you. Darcy
|
|
bondy
Junior Member
Posts: 16
|
Post by bondy on May 22, 2007 7:24:59 GMT 1
We have an agreement with an architerct in Labin who has prepared the Location Permit. He has given us a guide costing for preparing the Building Permit and overseeing the 'Project'. We've paid him for the 1st part only. We have met the man from Visnjan, who gave us our first tour of potential properties around Porec. We chose to proceed with a plot via Sfinga Nekretnine in Labin. We placed a deposit on the land Feb,'06; Submitted the location permit July,'06; We visited the Planning office March,'07 to be told that "The letters will be sent out shortly". We realise that it is going to take a long time, so we plan to make longer visits, camping on the land (when its ours), clearing and fencing the plot, and trying to move things forward. Our frustrations are: Why don't they employ an office junior to send out the planning letters? Why won't they start to prepare the building permit until the Location permit is granted? Why won't anyone give a written Quote? Its all 'Guesswork and Maybees'!!!!!.
However, we still feel very comfortable with our plans for our future. We love Croatia and know that, eventually, we will have our new home and business in Istria.
Graham.
|
|
|
Post by darcy on May 22, 2007 8:23:59 GMT 1
Hi Graham,
As I am preparing to renovate, few questions: - Did you actually get your location permit? (That is like a first stage, they tell you what you can do - make sense) - Once you have it in your hands, they you do to see the arch-man and you will submit all of that again for your building permit. Am I right?
Cro is about to change/ has already changed a Law that regulates building, and I was told to hold on in the property is less them 400 m2. Do you have some update?
Darcy
|
|
|
Post by mambo on May 22, 2007 8:52:10 GMT 1
That whole location + building permission process is such a load of c.r.a.p, that it makes you want to laugh, but in reality you will start crying.
For comparison. I asked for a building permission in the Caribean, made the drawings myself, handed them in and within one month I got a reply that some changes were needed since the design was not in compliance with the existing law. I made the changes and they handed me an A-4 size of paper on which it says I can build. I also received 3 cards, in three different colors that I had to hand in at various stages. The last card is green and you hand it in when you are completely finished. This card is the notification for the tax office, for the Kataster etc. Once you handed in this card you can officially get electricity in your house (otherwise it will be the building electricity only). And that is all it took for a building permission. The house is finished, still standing like a rock and did not collapse, in other words, I must have done something right.
Here in Croatia I had to go through the whole process of location + building permission because we wanted to set up some machines in an existing building in an industrial area. It took close to a year and a stack of papers of almost a meter high to get those permissions.
And what is written in those papers ?
At least a third of the 'project' is statements about 'who is responsible', 'who made the project', 'his resume' etc. Then you get some general description of what you want to do. Next you will actually find 'how to mix concrete !!!' and what kind of waterpipes are allowed and only then you will find some drawings of which I think they are the most important, but I found out that nobody ever bothered to look at them. The ar.c.h.i.tect made a mistake, made all of them in mirror (so 180 degrees around), but nobody noticed ! So far for thoroughness I would say.
One thing I found out is that these permissions are handled by personnel who really have no clue what the hell they are doing, so the only thing they do is follow the book. The book however is a technical book and if you don't understand that either the easiest solution is to have the people do everything in the book.
And next to that they have a lot of senseless and useless regulations. You are required to give people information which they don't need at all and some offices have to give permission even when they have nothing to do with it.
If your land is designated as building land for a house and you want a permission to build that house.............why does the firebrigade, the police, HEP and Vodavod etc have to give prior permission ? If you are not allowed to build a house there it should not be building land in the first place. All these things complicate the process unnecessary, but most of all, they drag the whole process out over months and months when it could be done in just a week.
|
|
|
Post by darcy on May 22, 2007 9:04:56 GMT 1
The process and the law are OK. There are no developers selling a land package with power, water, phone, sewage and location permit (like in most of the other countries), so you have to do it all by yourself and that is why the process is so difficult.
|
|
bondy
Junior Member
Posts: 16
|
Post by bondy on May 22, 2007 22:13:38 GMT 1
You are so right! We,ve been told that it will take another year for the Building Permit, although the 'new law' states it must be done in 1 month. I've been advised not to complain, or 'tell Zagreb' as the officials in Labin could make it impossible for me. They have got us stuck between a rock & a hard place. We know of no option but to wait it out!! We are a Croatian business wanting to open a guest house with restaurant & swimming pool. We are not building a holiday home that is locked up for 10 months! We thought that our enterprise and capital investment may have made a difference, but, so far, its counted for nothing. Istria and Croatia will never benifit from outside investment, large or small, untill they get their act together. I wonder how much business they have lost already by their inefficiency.
We are ready to start. It appears that Croatia is not ready for us ! Graham
|
|
|
Post by darcy on May 22, 2007 23:06:17 GMT 1
No, do not tell Zagreb, they will get offend and understand it as a provocation. Better go to Bruxelles or NY. Just always keep in mind that Istria is one of the regions where it is easy to do a business in Croatia.
|
|
|
Post by mambo on May 22, 2007 23:23:13 GMT 1
I tend to disagree with you.
In your case I think I would start to rattle the cage not a little bit, I would shake the whole foundation until in falls apart.
If you have a company and want to have any chance of survival you will need to take action. Unless you have a fortune hanging around you need to do something or your company will not even survive. So what is the point of waiting when your company is collapsing ?
That is why I said to get a local person, preferably a good looking, charming, female to handle your paper work. She should first go to the head office in Pula, the boss over there is a reasonable person and he also got our papers moving, he does understand that you cannot wait forever.
To be honest, I would not give a rat's a.s.s. about the sensitivity of the local personnel and I personnaly leave no chance unused to tell them that. We used to play the 'good guy, bad guy' scenario and it did work. The local personnel understood I was angry as hell and when our charming lady would then walk in and start offering solutions they started to accept them.
You do not need to go to Zagreb, that is indeed completely useless, before they will answer you are another year down the road. Get the mayor involved, get local politicians involved, get anybody you can find involved, start handing out presents, you name it, but I would not sit still and wait until I can close the company again. In our case it took also more than a year and we still took a huge financial hit from that.
You will surely miss this season, but the way you describe it you will also miss the 2008 season............can you afford that ?
|
|