No-name private sellers and real estate agents in Croatia write very poor descriptions of villas for sale in Croatia.
And once you’re viewing the property, there are things they just decide not to share with you.
How to buy property in Croatia then? Read this article and learn investigating skills that you really need to invest in Croatia.
Exclusive guide STEP-BY-STEP only on Candy Brick
This article is not a complete guide to buy a house in Croatia. It will give you though ONE VERY IMPORTANT LESSON, that you can’t find anywhere else!
Search on Google, you won’t find it anywhere.
Ask people, they will hardly explain you step by step like we do in this article.
First time, when I needed this kind of information, I paid few hundred euros to a lawyer and… he didn’t solve the case!
And very soon you’ll be able to find such information on your own!
Smart buyer in Croatia is cunning as fox
No-name private sellers or the real estate agents with short term goals of earning their commission avoid answering your uncomfortable questions.
Or they just tell you something to keep you calm.
But, remember, words to be valid, needs solid, proven data and legal documents.
And each time there is something you don’t know, puts your property investment at risk.
Learn how to discover reliable information on your own when buying property in Croatia using Geoportal and Cadastre.
The market dynamics that cause question how to buy property in Croatia. How?! HOW?!
You’re finding an ad with a villa for sale in Croatia.
You’re calling to get more information.
On the phone they just repeat what was written in the ad.
OK, they will make a proper presentation during meeting – you think.
Surprisingly, during the meeting, apart of showing you the villa, they doesn’t really know what to tell you.
It was all written in the ad… what to add?
Now, different days need to pass until they inform themselves on what they had showed you.
Understand this poor real estate agent.
He has over 200 real estates offers in his hands.
We offer a great variety of properties: garage, lands, apartments, flats, condos, villas, houses, cottages, office spaces, commercial spaces…. EVERYTHING FOR OUR CLIENT!!!
Yeah yeah, but they forget that you want to buy one, single investment property in Croatia.
If you want to buy a villa in Croatia, you doesn’t care about 100 lands for sale that he has to offer or the office spaces in centre of Pula!
What matters is quality, and not the quantity of properties the company has on its website.
Otherwise, how can they know well each of this specific type of real estate?
Work with an expert in a certain category.
Show your interest in buying, only afterwords you will be kind of informed (it’s really like this)
First, you need to show your solid interest saying something like:
I don’t know anything about this villa for sale.
And I have also no idea how it was built, by whom, what was the idea behind this project, who is the owner, what is the legal situation of the house, is there a mortgage on the property, but…
… I love it so much from the first sight, that I want to buy it. First, I sign, pay for the villa, and only then you will show me papers and I’ll analyse details once sitting in my new home.
This is what they want you to say.
First you need to show your strong interest (but how?? Based on what?? On no-information, and 5 minutes walking around the house??).
You spend more time choosing your suite, then those 5 minutes in which they want you to take decisions about the investment property in Croatia.
They don’t understand you’re buying property abroad for investment and that you need to analyse every little aspect to secure your capital.
But no, they don’t get it.
You mentality VS their modus operandi
Real estate agents really think, they can write 2 sentences about the house, add 2 pictures with an old smart phone and show you a cold and dark house, which was empty since last few weeks or in which there are still owners with their stinky mess.
Don’t you get more assistance when you’re buying doughnuts? 🙂
Anyway, you are a solution oriented person.
Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, thinking about buying a villa in Croatia!
A looser, a person with no ambition think at max. about Croatia as a holiday destination.
And he will keep thinking forever:
I can’t invest, because balance on my account is always close to zero.
Coming back to you, if you don’t get information from the no-name private seller or the real estate agent, you search for information on your own.
Easy.
If you have enough time to make this kind of tour de Istria with agencies and no name sellers instead of contacting directly Candy Brick to present you investment properties branded Candy Brick, be ready for what you’ve just read above.
Be ready not only mentally 😉
You need to learn now how to use Geoportal and Cadastre 😉
2 online websites full of precious information!
Get important information about the property: who’s the owner, what’s its size in documents, is there a mortgage, are there other problems?
Real estate agencies, don’t check their offers the way they should.
You will have an impression that they take everything in their portfolios, just in case someone will be ready to buy it and pay them their commission.
As a consequence they recommend you to buy properties which are impossible to be sold or with serious problems, which requires extra capital or expertise competencies. All this you should know before the purchase, directly on the start, so you don’t loose your time.
This main problems are:
- Multiple owners (I remember one property with 27 owners – yeah, yeah, go and lose 5 years of your life trying to find a deal with all this sellers, while some of them live all over the world, USA and Australia included);
- Mortgage (not everyone is Stralciando – our company’s business partner with an expertise in helping debtors in Italy – that when sees a mortgage jumps with joy ;-). Mortgages are generally much higher than the price of the property. What’s more, there are many issues you can’t solve fast, cheap and with no years of experience);
- Easements (like: there is a gas tube passing through your parcel or a water tube or your neighbour has a law to cross your garden to get to his place. That are also complicated cases and create you serious problems, especially when you want to sell the house again. New buyer will be also looking at the easements suspiciously and with fear. As a consequence you will get much less money and the sale will surely last longer, than for the same villa, but with no easements).
How to buy property in Croatia? First, discover Geoportal ️- a map with information about parcels
No matter that you’re buying a house in Croatia, Geoportal, that you need to start your investigation, is not a map of houses! 😛
It shows you a map of lands!
However, the information about the land, gives you also information about the villa for sale, that is situated on that land.
Don’t worry 🙂 You don’t need to be geodesist to understand this (by the way, for more knowledge about land issues listen to Candy Brick podcast – EPISODE WITH AN EXPERT GEODESIST).
Follow the steps and you will see that it’s very easy to move on Geoportal’s maps on your own 🙂
1. You go on Geoportal
2. In left up corner type the city you want to zoom. Let’s type… Vodnjan! That’s a very nice village with an excellent barbecue meat in one of its restaurants 😉 Do you know which one I mean?
You click the first option from the list VODNJAN and the map zooms automatically.
Then, you keep on clicking on the map to zoom it more.
Continue, until you can see numbers of each single piece of land (just like on the image under the next sentence).
IMPORTANT
When you are here in Istria, and you are actually visiting places or villas for sale, then, remember your position. Once back home you will find where were you, on the map with the number! 🙂
And that feels like being a detective, don’t you agree? 🙂
Now, on this screen, you’re in VODNJAN and let’s say you want to check house numbered:
1790/31
You’ll also need to know that the village of Vodnjan is under Cadastre in Pula (Katastarski ured).
Remember that, because now you will spy the situation of this house directly accessing data in Cadastre in Pula!
Time for Cadastre – detective level advanced 😉
Cadastre contains information about parcels, houses, owners and other information about each single piece of land or a land on which there is a house.
Most important Cadastres in Istria Croatia are in cities of Pula, Buje, Labin, Pazin, Rovinj and Porec.
Every single plot has its own number and it is associated to a certain Catastar (Katastarski ured).
Like plot 1790/31 in Vodnjan is under Pula.
When you want to know how to buy property in Croatia, then you need to learn how to use the online Cadastre.
1.Go on Cadastre website (www.katastar.hr/dgu/)
2. Write the name of the Cadastre in the red box (for the house we want to check it is “Pula”). Accept.
3. When you see this screen, click again on “Pula” as indicated:
4. You’ll get this:
1 is the name of the Cadastre office (Pula).
2 is the name of the village/city.
To fill up 2, click on the zoom symbol and this window pops up:
Write Vodnjan and click on the zoom symbol. Now you should get this screen:
Take now the plot number. That is 1790/31.
In the first box (“Broj“) write 1790, in the second box (“Podbroj“) write what’s after “/”, it’s 31.
Then, click “Trazi“, write the code and click “Potrvdi” to accept.
Lesson of Croatian for free 😉
Then, click here:
Write the CAPTCHA code and accept:
And here you are!!! BINGO!
Information about the owner, size, type of real estate, mortgage are IN YOUR HANDS:
Please note, that this is an original copy – 100% real case and this property in Croatia has been selected accidentally on the Geoportal. It is just for studying propose.
Extracting juicy information from the Cadastre
In document you can read what type of real estate property it is and what its size is.
Here, in the analysing document, the type of real estate is ORANICA. And that means an agricultural land.
How can it be? There is a villa with pool on the terrain!
Yep, but villa is on terrain, it is not in the document.
Often the reason why it is so, is that the house owner did not get the usage permit.
But there can be also other reasons or simply delays in communication between the institutions (that could be the case of this house).
Then, you can see who are the owners.
In the document we downloaded there are 2 owners. One company and one private person.
Remember, more owners = more problems.
It’s simpler to deal with one company selling the villa, then with 3 private people. When you have more owners they will be always trying to move the responsibility to another owner if something happens.
Last part is talking about the story of the mortgage taken on that plot and it tells also if there are easements.
As you can see Cadastre gives you a FREE access to very powerful document.
With Geoportal and Cadastre you can get a lot of information decisive for purchase (or not) than in any real estate ad!!!
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