Lewis BakerVerified account@lew_baker 17m17 minutes ago Lewis Baker Retweeted Leeds United Can’t wait to hear the Leeds fans rocking Elland road. Thanks for all the messages. Much appreciated, pleasure to be here please log in to view this image
The building work is about two months late, and the lazy cnuts take July and most of August off. Expect it to be finished in March rather than January... What gets on my tits is the second you start building the local developers start offering to buy you out.. I have told her that if we cash out this time that’s it.... She has just accepted a really good job offer on a two year contract that complicates things. But it’s great money and she will be working in America, Oz, Japan, South Korea and Shanghai. The plan now is to treat the villa as a bolt hole for the two years and then move permanently when she finishes the project, had no choice but to downsize here to afford it but wasn’t meant to be the main home after January. To be honest I am a bit fed up with it even though it’s all for the best.
We came to Cyprus this year (flying back to the UK on Tuesday) with the intention of selling up. When we first brought the place nearly 15 years ago the intention was to spend 4-5 weeks at a time here, the truth is being self employed or any kind of employment it just isn’t possible, work always gets in the way. We’re lucky to visit twice a year for more than 10 days a time. Our Cypriot neighbour offered 10k below the valuation, bank transfer whilst here, sign papers done and dusted fly home with 80k Euro in the bank, it really is that simple here if you have the cash. We thought about what we would do with say £70k in the bank, it would make us extremely comfortable but I know we’d dip into it, new bathroom, wife would want a conservatory and holidays in expensive hotels twice a year so we decided to hold on. Empty it costs us £400 a year, that includes someone popping in monthly to open up and air it. It really is a home from home and when we’re in the UK and things are looking glum it’s good to know we can visit our other home. We do sod all here, sometimes hardly venture out but we totally switch off from the UK and problems back home, apart from me still wanting to know what’s happening in the Leeds United world. Money isn’t everything, can’t spend it when you’re dead, go for it, you won’t regret it and don’t let the missus pull out Oh for the record, I was 60/40 in favour of selling up, the wife really didn’t want to and I know deep down she was right. Sometimes back home and the pressure of being self employed and Anxiety can creep in with me, I get through, partly because coming here and switching off from it all is like a reset button
I am a believer in fate or has she puts “ feck it and let god decide”. We made a bundle in Crete and we wouldn’t lose if we sold up now but the plan is to live in it and not treat this as an investment...
You thought of renting it out when you're not there? Loads of Management companies will do that for you - most at a reasonable rate & good quality service. All you need to do is install an 'owners cupboard' to lock up your personal stuff in. We did that in Florida. Worked really well. I particularly liked not having to take out clothes, toiletries etc. with me whenever we went (although we seemed to fill 4 suitcases coming back!).
You need to watch the punitive taxes depending where in Europe you are. rental can be taxed as high as 65% of income with no offsets. local authorities are allowed to set local tax as they see fit. There is talk of rentals in national parks over here being taxed punitively to deter pricing locals out.
Crikey! Didny know that. Accounts for some of the ridiculous rental prices I've seen in the past. Macedonia disny seem to be caught up in it. 1 bed apartment with all mod cons for €30 a night. 65 sq m, top floor with views & all the accessibility details you can expect from over here. Which is a lift. Only. With stairs leading up to it. Not really a wheelchair friendly place, which is why I've only seen 2 others in the last fortnight.
It’s against the law here for non residents to let out holiday homes or short term letting unless you apply to the Cyprus tourism board. They then inspect the property, estimate what you “could” make in 12 months and charge you 3% of that projected income even if you then let it out zero times, oh and you can only let out detached properties, all very strange.
Oh! That's a lot better than Glory's experience. Is it worth approaching a Management company to explore the possibilities? Perhaps if they were doing the letting as your agent, it might be permissible?
