Nasty surprises

[anton]

In the last 12 months we have had a few of the above from the Croatian authorities:

1st the requirement to re-register our Company.

2nd a request for a tax payment on our dividends (even though we already pay this in the U.K.)

3rd a new property tax on our Villa.

We have complied with all of these but wonder if these are general or are they just picking on us.

We are seriously thinking of jacking it in. Does anybody know how we could get a rough evaluation of our property to see if it's worth it? In the U.K. an estate agent would do this for free.

[Carol]

you contact an estate agent and you ask POLITELY what the villa would sell for at the moment.

In case its not obvious, I say the word politely because you'd be amazed how many people seem to think they have a God-given right to be helped. Most properties aren't going to sell in the next year so the agent will probably never earn a commission from you. Therefore what they do for you is likely to just be then trying to be helpful and that will evaporate if you come in with a request along the lines of "I order you to drive 50km to my villa, get the keys from someone who may not be all that willing to make themselves available to hand over the keys, walk around and take in the detail, then drive back to your office and contact me with your opinion which I will probably reject on the grounds that I don't like what you tell me. Expect me to be rude about your country whenever I feel like venting. However, just maybe I will go ahead and then you might be lucky enough to get the chance to try to find a buyer for me."

If you really want a sale then i'll tell you what i told someone else recently... buyers only want bargainsand your papers have to be clean. There's no point in factoring in what you paid for or how much you like it (because its a different year and you are not the buyer). To sell you need to make sure your property is lower priced than anything else on the market at the moment that a buyer might go for as an alternative. Then when you get a buyer, you need to be very flexible.

[crojoe]

Dec 14, 2011 21:17:19 GMT 1 Carol said:

you contact an estate agent and you ask POLITELY what the villa would sell for at the moment.

In case its not obvious, I say the word politely because you'd be amazed how many people seem to think they have a God-given right to be helped. Most properties aren't going to sell in the next year so the agent will probably never earn a commission from you. Therefore what they do for you is likely to just be then trying to be helpful and that will evaporate if you come in with a request along the lines of "I order you to drive 50km to my villa, get the keys from someone who may not be all that willing to make themselves available to hand over the keys, walk around and take in the detail, then drive back to your office and contact me with your opinion which I will probably reject on the grounds that I don't like what you tell me. Expect me to be rude about your country whenever I feel like venting. However, just maybe I will go ahead and then you might be lucky enough to get the chance to try to find a buyer for me."

If you really want a sale then i'll tell you what i told someone else recently... buyers only want bargainsand your papers have to be clean. There's no point in factoring in what you paid for or how much you like it (because its a different year and you are not the buyer). To sell you need to make sure your property is lower priced than anything else on the market at the moment that a buyer might go for as an alternative. Then when you get a buyer, you need to be very flexible.

I think I could get a loan for about 20,000 Kuna right now so let me know if you accept my offer? I can even be your estate agent seeing my company papers allow me to do so at no extra charge.

Here's just hoping it's no ruin on top of some hill down near the tip of Croatia.

[happy]

Don't worry, there are Russians queuing up to buy your property for a million Euros.

Can you wait until 1st July 2013?

[anton]

Many thanks for all the replies.

January - dividends are the money we pay ourselves as Directors of our Company from profit (?) on our rental income. The property tax owners just seems to have been introduced from out of the blue but our accountant assures us it's legitimate.

Carol - many thanks for your advice. I hope we would do as you suggest as a matter of courtesy but will try to be extra reasonable if possible. We just want to see if it's worth selling as we're not making anything on the property at present and the way things are going we could soon be making a loss. We do have clean papers and the property is in Rogoznica and is in excellent condition. We bought in 2004 so hopefully current prices will still be a little higher than then.

Mr. Happy - We could wait until 2013 but wonder if it's going to make any difference to prices given the current situation in the EU.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Madgolfer]

Hi Anton,

Its not just you that new laws effect, try being a real estate agent.

Firstly they bring in a law requiring all real estate agents to be qualified and licenced (Something which we fully welcome and endorse but which the govt have no way of dealing with the illegal opporators).

Then they change the law to stop anyone (including Croats) selling their agricultural land without first offering it to the govt.

Then they change the law so that no one (including Croats) can sell a property without a building permit or proof of construction before 1969.

And all that in the last 18 months.

Like yourselves, we are also now seriously thinking about closing up shop and waiting until the govt sort out what they want from us foreigners and start again then.

[upthevilla]

Dec 14, 2011 21:17:19 GMT 1 Carol said:

;I order you to drive 50km to my villa, get the keys from someone who may not be all that willing to make themselves available to hand over the keys, walk around and take in the detail, then drive back to your office and contact me with your opinion which I will probably reject on the grounds that I don't like what you tell me. Expect me to be rude about your country whenever I feel like venting. However, just maybe I will go ahead and then you might be lucky enough to get the chance to try to find a buyer for me."

How True..
i like it when i tell them what the property is worth and i could sell for 200,000 euro for example.
The seller, now upset, then says a man in the coffee shop heard that his friend in the next village had a house in Lnjzzjnjz...Icicisci . 100 km away and that sold for 600,000 euro.
Therefore he will sell his for 500,000.