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Post by Madgolfer on Nov 30, 2009 13:49:22 GMT 1
Extract taken from last weeks budget discussions;
"In Parliament on Thursday during a debate over the 2010 draft budget, the opposition demanded the introduction of a property tax, to which Minister of Finance Ivan Suker said that the existing rates needed to be changed, but that this was not something that could be done overnight, given the disorganized state of land registries." "No one is saying that we don't have to change the quasi-property tax, which is a remnant of past times, or that we should allow that it continue to be paid based on the size of the property in question. But such a measure requires long-term preparation," Suker said.
We have all known that this was on the cards and has been looming for some time.
It will be interesting to see in what direction any new/revised property tax will go; EG being based on value, size, occupancy, main residence/holiday home etc etc etc or some complicated combination of these.
Lets hope that foreigners will only have to pay the same as Croatians and not punitive amounts.
Another Visa fiasco in the wings perhaps? Lets hope not.
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Post by cropal on Dec 4, 2009 12:05:54 GMT 1
Are they referring to the county taxes that are collected to pay for garbage collection, street lights, street cleaning etc? Or is this a new property tax that is in the pipeline? Or an amendment to the Real Estate Transfer Tax?
IMHO the current county taxes are reasonable compared to other places I have been subjected to them.
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Post by Madgolfer on Dec 4, 2009 17:57:06 GMT 1
I think all and every tax related to property is under discussion.
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 4, 2010 21:36:23 GMT 1
The new "system" of taxing agricultural land sales is now with us, effective from the 1st Jan.
Despite it's being generally regarded as "unconstitutional", this one really is a fiasco.
Effective immediately, anyone (domestic or foreign, individual or company) that wishes to sell, lease or transfer ANY agricultural land, including vineyards, orchards or pasture, MUST do the following;
1) It can ONLY be offered for sale by "open tender" through the newly established and govt run "agricultural offices". As of today, not a single one of these new offices exist anywhere in Croatia.
2) They will post an advert locally (in their offices which do not yet exist) for the sale of your agricultural land and after a total period of 45 days, tell you who was the highest bidder.
3) It will be a prosecutable offence to sell your agricultural land privately without adopting the above procedure.
4) Notaries will now stamp all applicable paperwork with an appropriate warning notice when anyone tries to file new owner registration papers or to notarize a sales contract.
Some other points; Thankfully for the moment, the 5% tax rate still applies. "First-right" options apply to Croatian nationals/companies.
There is a great deal more detail which we have been trying to work our way through (and an obvious legal way around it) so more to follow in due course.
Yet another case of mindless lawmaking, perhaps with good intentions, but which end up screwing things up for many people.
At least this time its not just aimed at foreigners.
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Post by mambo on Feb 6, 2010 1:55:10 GMT 1
If they start introducing property tax a lot of Croatians will lose their home, because they simply cannot afford to pay tax at the ridiculous price levels they themselves thought of in the first place. If that happens we will see housing prices come down like a piano in free fall.
It is of course also possible they will only tax the foreigners, would not surprise me at all.
One thing is sure though...............the government can tax the citizens like crazy, but it is not going to help the country. The only way to balance the budget is to stop plundering the country, stop the corruption, stop wasting money on useless pet projects and finally start living according to what they can afford.
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Post by siriwan on Feb 8, 2010 9:22:18 GMT 1
As for the "agricultural offices", it seems that in small places like mine, the "opcina" will be acting in lieu of that "office". Not sure it's good news for us, but we'll see...
I totally agree with limiting the sale of land to foreigners or having very big owners (watch out in a few years...) but if buying 2 or 3 ha becomes such a hassle, gulp!!
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 9, 2010 8:52:15 GMT 1
The ministry concerned have now provided a "grace-period" of until the 1st of July 2010, for any agricultural land sales to be completed, as these new offices are not yet set up, staff trained etc.
It may have to be extended further, perhaps until the end of the year.
I think we would agree that plundering of Croatia assets is not a good thing, but this law effectively stops Croatians from selling to Croatians........
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Post by hansel on Feb 9, 2010 14:34:03 GMT 1
What will happen with the plots that are part agricultural, part building land and recorded as such in katastar? I hope they are not going to make us divide these in case you want to sell a whole plot and than sell the building part privately and the agricultural through the agency, both being not substantial size. Nothing can surprise me!
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 13, 2010 11:46:13 GMT 1
No, any land that is registered as being "agricultural" but is within the building zone is exempt and can be sold as normal.
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Post by riki on Feb 23, 2010 7:49:23 GMT 1
Madgolfer - Is within the building zone a certain no of m from a road? What other criteria are there?
As for the extention the July, I have some agricultural contracts drawn up that will not be cleared by then. Locating dead relatives etc takes much longer than 6 months. It's already been going on for nearly 2 years. What would happen to these contracts, would the owner have to cancel them and re-open the sale to tender?
It would be much more productive for them to try to speedup the cleaning process. If they could put land up for tender and have notification everywhere that says so and if you have a claim to this land come forward within 1 year even, otherwise it can be sold by the people listed as owning it at the registery.
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 23, 2010 13:52:40 GMT 1
Hi Riki, If you go to your local katastar office they can show you where the building zone for your town or village is. For 75kn they will print you out an A4 colored plan showing the area to scale. If your land is within the approved building zone, then as a general rule, it will extend approx 50M back from the road. In practice this tends to mean that the front face of any property you build can not be more than this 50M. If you property is then 30M deep, you can usually get away with this. Regarding current, unresolved contracts, the 1st of July 2010 is the grace period allowed for these to be dealt with. Some people are expecting this to be extended until the end of the year, but I am not holding out much hope. After 1st July 2010, any agricultural land MUST AND CAN ONLY be offered for sale, lease or transfer through the new Govt agency. It has to be sold via this new agency and there is no other option available. It's completely crazy I know but that is what the new law says. I totally understand what you mean about the amount of time that it takes to clean a properties paperwork, we are doing this every day. Waiting years for clean papers is ridiculous and the main reason why our company will not offer properties for sale until this has been done. Buyer beware as the saying goes.
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Post by Carol on Feb 23, 2010 15:20:39 GMT 1
After 1st July 2010, any agricultural land MUST AND CAN ONLY be offered for sale, lease or transfer through the new Govt agency. It has to be sold via this new agency and there is no other option available. What happens to houses which have a field for a garden i..e the house is legally built but it come with land which is agricultural? And what about land that still hasn't had the GUP agreed?
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 24, 2010 19:44:57 GMT 1
Carol and January, "What happens to houses which have a field for a garden i..e the house is legally built but it come with land which is agricultural? See answer below and the proviso that if the agri land is within a building zone, then it is exempt And what about land that still hasn't had the GUP agreed?" No one has even thought about this yet"If a house is owned that has agricultural land as part of the "garden", then a surveyor should be able to determine and sub divide into ‘ within building zone ‘, and ‘agricultural.’ Correct and at the owners expense of course, including fencing, hedging off the "garden" etc.The problem only exists if you come to sell (or wish to buy) the property, but even then the house plus agreed garden can be sold, and the agricultural part kept within the doo, if you do not wish to offer it for sale via the ag office. Correct, but kind of cuts out any buyers who do actually want to own the agri land. And what about any potential Croatian buyers? They would almost certainly not want to take on a dooImagine being a land owner, Croatian or Foreign, that wants to sell their land and having a buyer in place, you are simply not allowed to! Imagine being a buyer, Croatian or Foreign, and you want to buy some land. You reach an agreement with the owner, only to find that you then have to bid against who knows how many others and pay who knows what price! The new agri land agencies will be the only ones allowed to offer agri land for sale and they can do so UNTIL IT IS SOLD! That is the actual wording of the law, UNTIL IT IS SOLD. OK in real terms there may not be queues of people lining up to buy agri land, most likely only one or two interested parties, but there are potentially huge openings for all sorts of scull-duggery to go on here. All common sense seems to have gone with this law.
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Post by riki on Feb 25, 2010 10:41:04 GMT 1
If the land is classified as orchard or vineyard, is it agricultural?
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Post by Madgolfer on Feb 25, 2010 16:30:50 GMT 1
"If the land is classified as orchard or vineyard, is it agricultural? "
YES.
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