Catchafire

Hey everyone.

We have finally made an offer on a land block of 5 hectares, the price is +gst

So wanted to know if anyone has gone done the route of a "zero rated" purchase, ie not paying the GST.

I am going to see an accountant tomorrow, but wondered if anyone has any words of wisdom?

Woodlea

Didn't think you could. You can claim the GST back after purchase though, assuming that you are going to be running a business using that land. (Like selling hay or renting out the land).

MrsFychan

I have pm'ed you

Catchafire

Well we have withdrawn. The estate agent, who is also a director in the development, is full of crap.

Hidden Gem | Trade Me Property

This is the ad in trademe, 5.5 hectares.....nope 4.6H, turns out the access rd for the whole subdivision is attached to the title accounting for nearly a hectare. Would have been nice if the agent had pointed this out, rather than paying $600+ for a valuation when this came to light, especially when I asked him if there was anything we need to know about the road!

Also there is no mention of GST, which only came up when we were making a offer.

So after 11 yrs here, this has been our first dealings with an estate agent and the experience has not been a good one.

escapedtonz

Yep. Amazes me how every bit of land is calculated into the advertised section size no matter how useful or not it is, including driveways/access, inclines, valleys, lakes, ponds, native bush yada yada.
We've seen so many large sections and so many properties advertised with large sections only to find that 2/3rds of it is completely unusable but the seller or agent still wanting a premium for it as if it was all flat.....and then + GST.

No thanks ;-)

MrsFychan

if you feel that the agent has mislead or not informed you on information he should of been aware of you have the right to make a complaint. he should of given you a guide before you made the offer which outlines your responsibilities, his responsibilities and complaints procedure.

Catchafire

Nope did not get any of that.

Spoke to the Real Estate Agents Authority, what a joke. If they have found we have indeed, been mislead, they will send a letter telling him not to do it again.

I am sure he would be terrified of the consequences.

escapedtonz

Complete waste of effort making a complaint about an agent. Will just go on deaf ears. If you'd take my advice, just take it on the chin and use it as essential experience for next time. Negotiate at least $600 off the land you do purchase so at least this bad experience didn't cost you anything.
Looking at the TradeMe ad it's clear enough to me that the total size of the section includes the long access road and doesn't appear to be misleading, but hey I just might have more experience looking at sections and reading covenants etc since we've been looking at many over the last couple years.....and still not bought anything!

MrsFychan

if you feel strongly enough then you could go to the Complaints Commission possibly under the Fair Trading Act if you feel that you were mislead, be it intentionally or unintentionally.

also looks like those boundary lines you would be responsible for the upkeep of the whole driveway (?)

Hazelnut

Tip for the future, go to Google Maps area calculator tool from Daft Logic.

Look at the boundary image for the property you're interested in on TradeMe. On this one it includes the track plus the land.

Find the property you're interested in on the Area Calculator service and check the area of the block bit without the track bit. Checking this one you can calculate that it's only just over the 4.5 hectares. I've used this for UK and NZ properties, you tend to need to put the country in the location search box as it has global coverage but defaults to the USA.