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Post by jimandsue on Feb 15, 2011 14:40:35 GMT 1
Hello,
A question for the wise folks on this board - nice site, by the way, lots of useful info.
We've been thinking about buying a place in Croatia... There was one apartment we were interested in where the agent said something like "it has a 171 building permit but there's no usage permit". Could that be a problem? What does it mean in practice? The apartment's not new, by the way, it's about six years old.
J & S
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Post by Carol on Feb 15, 2011 14:46:44 GMT 1
when you get planning permission, you get it in stages. The final stage would be comparable to a building completion certificate in teh UK (if that means anything to you?). It means the building has been built accoprding to the planning permission that was granted.
however in Croatia, it also means that a fairly hefty tax was paid by the developer to the town council and that is probbaly where the problem lies.
I would not buy this place if I were you. No usage permit should make it cheap (is it cheap now?) for when you come to resell and it may bring all sorts of problems with things in the future such as the electricity supply and the water supply.
Its a buyers market and you can pick and choose, so just avoid ones which are not "clean" paperwork-wise (and whatever you do, do NOT trust the developer to obtain this usage permit later, even if he promises he will in the purchase contract).
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Post by jimandsue on Feb 16, 2011 9:27:48 GMT 1
Ok, thanks for that advice. I knew it sounded a bit dodgy. The asking price is fairly cheap compared to similar places.
There isn't actually a developer involved now. The flat's probably 6-7 years old, and the seller is the guy who's living there.
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Post by prkbrk on Feb 16, 2011 11:22:15 GMT 1
Isn't the usage permit a relatively new thing in Croatia. For properties built pre early 90's you will find a lot of them dont have a usage permit?
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Post by zvekov on Feb 16, 2011 14:20:32 GMT 1
Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. The seller just needs to legalize it and give you a usage permit. Or you can buy it, payment subject to him giving you that usage permit. Otherwise its the biggest hospital pass...And everyone around knows it
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Post by splitpersonality on Mar 4, 2011 15:44:04 GMT 1
Just to make something clear, an apartment as such doesn't require a building permit or a usage permit. These things (as well as a whole bunch of other paperwork) are required for the building, or house, in which the apartment is situated. In other words, the entire building is "illegal." There is no way to get the permit specifically for your apartment and make it a separate "legal" entity, apart from the rest of the building. That's not how it works.
What most likely happened is that a shady contractor (UK: dodgy developer) pulled a fast one over the apartment's current tenant, and now the tenant/owner is trying to do the same to someone, anyone, down the river. Someone who would be blinded by the price.
As for the issue raised by prkbrk, houses and buildings constructed during Communism (pre-1991 in most cases) had a different ownership system and the whole permit system doesn't normally apply. One of the few exceptions would be if a lot of work was done on the place since it was constructed.
Afterthought: various local governments in Croatia are legalizing large numbers of these illegal houses and buildings all over the place. In Split where I live this is one of the biggest local stories going on right now. So maybe this is something to consider, perhaps not for Jim and Sue, but maybe for others reading this topic.
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Post by splitpersonality on Mar 8, 2011 14:13:02 GMT 1
Hello there january, cool bike and quote, if I may say so  I apologize for the late reply; I haven't yet found a way to be notified when someone posts in a thread I posted in. I'm not sure I understood your question. If you're saying "is there a procedure, paperwork etc. involved" then you must be new to Croatia Yes I'm afraid there most certainly is, and it's neither simple nor quick. The prices are hefty, too, in the thousands, or even tens of thousands of euros for larger houses. The general idea is that the owner of a permit-less house will take out a loan for this purpose, pay for the permit, and then get a mortgage on the house to pay back the initial loan. The catch is that, without a permit, the owner could only take out a mortgage for the land plot, not for the house itself. I hope I answered your question. I would expect the procedure in a smaller town to be faster and more streamlined than in a "big city" like Split, where things tend to drag on indefinitely. Cheers from Split! |
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Post by jimandsue on Mar 11, 2011 10:57:06 GMT 1
Ok, thanks for this additional info. So, as I understand it:
- if building doesn't have usage permit, apartments within building will not be granted mortgages (at least on apartment itself but might get mortgage on apartment's share of land plot?)
- "legalisation" is possible but long-winded and so expensive that for an apartment building owners of all/most apartments would need to "club together" to apply?
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Post by Carol on Mar 11, 2011 11:12:16 GMT 1
that's right. However the reality is that you will never get all the owners to club together to sort it out. Some simply will not have that sort of spare cash, many others will not care as they live mortgage free and intend to pass the flat to their children when they die, one of whom will live in it until they die. So paying a lot fo money to sort this out will be seen as a poor way to spend their money. However, they wouldn't say no if someone else volunteered to take on the work and pay for it for them.
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Post by Carol on Mar 12, 2011 18:02:29 GMT 1
what other countries have this usage permit system? splitpersonality. Thanks, bike is much modified Rickman Weslake, quote of course is courtesy of George Orwell. The Uk for one... it just has a different name (building completion certificate) and in Britain it does not depend on a big tax being paid |
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Post by zvekov on Mar 14, 2011 15:51:38 GMT 1
spliy person:
this legalization you refer to : Is it called POTVRDU IZVEDENOG STANJA?
My colleague just got this issued on a house he built originally without building permisssion. And he subsequently needed to do this whole process and he's npw finished with the avove document. Does he still need Uporabna dozvola? Or is the pain over?
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Post by splitpersonality on Apr 23, 2011 15:04:28 GMT 1
Hi, sorry AGAIN for the late reply but I do have the answers. To Zvekov: YES the pain is over UNLESS the building was redone to the point of looking different from the blueprints. This means inside as well as out. The rooms need to be the same size and purpose as in the blueprint, etc. If that's not the case, then you need an inspector to look it over and issue a usage permit. An additional limitation of the "potvrda" is that the building needs to fit into a certain set of measurements - the cut-off point is 400 square meters; the "potvrda" doesn't apply if the area is bigger than that. (By the way, "potvrdu" is just the accusative case, as in "give me that potvrda" = daj mi tu potvrdu.") As for getting a mortgage on an apartment's share of a land plot: perhaps an excellent lawyer could pull this off for you - or one with excellent connections, more realistically - but I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed either way. What I meant was private homes, built on private-owned land plots. Any other arrangement would just drag on through the courts indefinitely IMO, as in *decades.* About the usage permit: hardly anyone needs it. The properties which don't have one far outnumber those that do. Nearly all of those are buildings where the apartments have separate owners and the place was built by a 3rd party. This 3rd party then got the permit to convince would-be buyers that it's all legit. Even so, it's mostly done only for (pricewise) the top quarter of the market. If you own just a house or an apartment, you do NOT need a usage permit. I just double-checked this in the actual legal document pertaining to this. They will enter you as the owner in the property registry and add a note that you didn't show them the usage permit, and that's that. There will be no other consequences. Disregard horror stories about places being torn down for not having this permit. Mortgage and other bank-related considerations likewise have nothing to do with the usage permit. Now let me add a few words for the sake of other folks reading this. There is no countrywide authority which legalizes buildings lacking this or that permit. Therefore there is no fixed, uniform procedure either. It's down to the local authorities, which are even more notoriously corrupt than the central administration, though there are examples to the contrary. Therefore most legalized buildings at this point were helped along by a bit of cash. If you're looking to buy a holiday home in Croatia, the reputation of the local authority is the number one thing you should look at. Even though I'm Dalmatian, I must admit that Istria is far ahead of Dalmatia in this respect. Well I sure hope this helps. Summer's coming, us Croats are feeling more and more patriotic by the day |
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