Buying property in Hungary

fluffy2560 wrote:

Beware the agents. They will totally lie through their teeth to get you to buy. 

Agree.

cckmcc wrote:

I'm also using the lawyer of my agent.

Don't do this. That lawyer is likely working for the agent to help push through the deal, even if he says he is working for you. Get your own independent lawyer who will actually work for you. And have your lawyer translate, or have translated, word for word, the contact you sign at the time of signing. Only the Hungarian language version of the contract is valid. And you want to make sure someone working for you reads you all the details and explains them in detail and does not just, in their interests, "wave away" some issue as "not important".

cckmcc wrote:

Any issues people seen on this? I think  they've been helping foreigner invest for a while and I don't think they're out there to scam.

Nobody helps people just to "help" in real estate sales. Trust me, they are doing this to make money, and are surly doing a good business for themselves catering to foreigners.

And "scams" can be of many layers. Not all are illegal. And some are in fact globally common in the industry. For example, negotiate a higher price to you than what a local would pay to get a larger commission. Such is, in my opinion, a bit of a scam, just a legal one; taking advantage of you not knowing the market or speaking the language.

cckmcc wrote:

But I'm just a little concerns and trying to be a bit cautious.

Being cautious is good.

Just, curious : Is this your first global property purchase? Why are you buying in Hungary?

klsallee wrote:

cckmcc wrote:

I'm also using the lawyer of my agent.

Don't do this. That lawyer is likely working for the agent to help push through the deal, even if he says he is working for you. Get your own independent lawyer who will actually work for you. And have your lawyer translate, or have translated, word for word, the contact you sign at the time of signing. Only the Hungarian language version of the contract is valid. And you want to make sure someone working for you reads you all the details and explains them in detail and does not just, in their interests, "wave away" some issue as "not important".

I second that 100%. 

We know a bit more now about the circumstances.  Get your own lawyer independent of the agent.   Agent will be out to up their cut.

The contract can be in English too but as klsallee said only the HU one is valid.  You may even notice differences in the English and HU versions.  My own purchase contract differs between versions in minor details.

thanks. is there any databases to search for lawyers, specifically to confirm someone is a lawyer?

found it http://www.magyarugyvedikamara.hu/tart/ … atus=aktiv

cckmcc wrote:

thanks. is there any databases to search for lawyers, specifically to confirm someone is a lawyer?

In one of my past lives I was dealing with some of these government regulations in Hungary.
 
As far as I remember (>20 years ago, so not recent but still pertinent),  lawyers should (must) belong to their industry appropriate regulatory body (law association if termed that), i.e. effectively licensed.   

They definitely have  special access to the land registry and tax databases so they can do property transactions and report in on activities.  I am not sure directly in Hungary but your purchase contract should be lodged as record at one or all of the following for different purposes: land registry, tax office and law association.

Moreover, it is generally true (EU-wide) that lawyers should be covered by insurance for negligence/malfeasance/mispractice etc.  These are legal terms and how they are defined in Hungary will almost certainly be different in other countries even though they are generally along the same lines.

I do not count the UK in this as property transactions can be carried out by paralegals called conveyancer.  Spain I think has something similar.

cckmcc wrote:

is there any databases to search for lawyers?

https://www.hg.org/lawfirms/hungary/budapest.html

And here is a list, nicely provided by US citizen tax dollars, for lawyers/attorneys and Hungarian law:

https://hungary.usembassy.gov/attorneys.html (download the PDF list on the right for a list of attorneys)

Hello, I look forward to buy a small house in the Badacsony region (ie north-west Balaton). It would be mainly for the summer. I have a particular property in view (actually 2). The thing is I'm in no way a specialist so I try to gather as much information as possible but I have the feeling there are some things that I might miss, like the presence of asbetos or infiltrations. Is it possible to have a specialist visit the house and make a property survey for me ? This doesn't seem to be a frequent practice from what I read. I don't particularly distruss the agency but the concensus seems to not trust them too much. Any advice in the region, preferably english speaking ? I've been there 3 times since last december and the agencies mostly speak german and my german is OK for basic stuff but not much more. Thanks

Skiper22 wrote:

Hello, I look forward to buy a small house in the Badacsony region (ie north-west Balaton). It would be mainly for the summer. I have a particular property in view (actually 2). The thing is I'm in no way a specialist so I try to gather as much information as possible but I have the feeling there are some things that I might miss, like the presence of asbetos or infiltrations. Is it possible to have a specialist visit the house and make a property survey for me ? This doesn't seem to be a frequent practice from what I read. I don't particularly distruss the agency but the concensus seems to not trust them too much. Any advice in the region, preferably english speaking ? I've been there 3 times since last december and the agencies mostly speak german and my german is OK for basic stuff but not much more. Thanks

Yes you can get people to do it but they cost money and time - especially if they have to travel.   

Real estate agents are untrustworthy in general so you need a building inspector.  Proper inspectors will give you a written report.    Even then, there are pitfalls but they do not check everything so you need to be sure what they will check.  Some stuff you can actually check yourself visually if you read up on it.  Google is your friend.

It can all get quite expensive - surveyor to check the boundaries, surveyor for the building itself etc. 

To find one who speaks English, that's quite difficult so you will almost certainly need a translator for the report and an interpreter for work in the field.

Skiper22 wrote:

I have the feeling there are some things that I might miss, like the presence of asbestos or infiltrations

I live in the North Balaton region and I can say if the house is old and unrenovated, it may have asbestos shingles. Especially if the roof is of the gray corrugated sheets or if the shingles are small square flat sheet in a "diamond" pattern. Of course, if it is renovated, it may have "had" such shingles, it is unlikely those were removed properly, and you will never know about the asbestos load in or around the house without rather expensive tests.

And most older houses here are wet. And some newer ones. Water infiltration is too often not properly dealt with here with construction. That includes our house. Took no small expense to dry it out and add drainage to keep it dryer (not "dry" as it will never be really dry unless we tear it down below surface level and rebuild it completely).

Also, parts of the North Balaton may have radon issues, so you should also consider having a radon test done.

Skiper22 wrote:

Is it possible to have a specialist visit the house and make a property survey for me ?

Yes. Some architects here actually have an additional certificate to do exactly this. We hired one to look over our house before we purchased. He is very good. But only speaks Hungarian. Nearly 20 years ago now, he may even be retired by now, I do not know.

Our property line surveyor also only speaks Hungarian, but also very good (and very busy -- takes weeks or months to schedule him).

Skiper22 wrote:

I don't particularly distruss the agency but the concensus seems to not trust them too much.

I agree with the consensus. For any purchase of significance you should get your own expert who works for you, not the seller.

fluffy2560 wrote:

klsallee wrote:

First, thanks for your answers. I was expecting you would :-)

Yes you can get people to do it but they cost money and time - especially if they have to travel.   

Real estate agents are untrustworthy in general so you need a building inspector.  Proper inspectors will give you a written report. It can all get quite expensive - surveyor to check the boundaries, surveyor for the building itself etc.

The plot is clearly delimited so I'm not too much preocupied by the boundaries. It's more about the house itself.

To find one who speaks English, that's quite difficult so you will almost certainly need a translator for the report and an interpreter for work in the field.

Yes maybe I can have a hungarian guy write a report and then have it translated in english. Even organising that is a bit touchy.

or if the shingles are small square flat sheet in a "diamond" pattern.

Yes it's that kind. I'm pretty sure they contains asbestos. But from what I've checked, it's not necessarly a problem if the shingles have not deteriorated (millions of house have similar ones). But this is what I need to be sure of. Also an aproximate price for changing them eventually, even though that would come later.

And most older houses here are wet. And some newer ones. Water infiltration is too often not properly dealt with here with construction. That includes our house. Took no small expense to dry it out and add drainage to keep it dryer (not "dry" as it will never be really dry unless we tear it down below surface level and rebuild it completely).

The house is not very old (built in the early eighties) and it's not the typical square house with small rooms from the "soviet era". I saw water infiltration on the walls of the garage. What I need to know is if it can be fixed for a reasonable price. I know there are some techniques like injecting a damp-proof resin in the walls that doesn't cost too much. But the exterior wall might be difficult to access and I'm not sure it would be efficient just through the interior wall. The rest of the house seemed OK in terms of infiltration but like I said, I need a specialist or at least someone who is used to this stuff to be sure.

About radon, I understand it can be dangerous but well, you have to die from something :-)

Some architects here actually have an additional certificate to do exactly this.

But how do I find one ? I google "műszaki ellenőr balaton angolul" and "Építészmérnök balaton angolul" but the results are not very convincing. Anyone has a good one to share ?

Of course, I understand that if it wasn't so difficult to solve those problems, the houses there might cost more. So maybe it's a bad for a good.

From the discussions I had, there are suprisingly few english (and english speaking) people in the north balaton region. I'm french BTW. And apparently there are even less french than english people. A small anecdote: when I was asking for information in a real estate agency in Keszthely last month, the guy did the classic: "where are you from ? me: France. Him: oh that's funny because just this week, we sold 3 house to french people. Yeah right... (Unfortunately for him, her colleague had told me the day before that she barely ever saw french people in the agency) :-).

Skiper22 wrote:

....
The plot is clearly delimited so I'm not too much preocupied by the boundaries. It's more about the house itself.

Don't believe what you see.   

Our plot was clearly marked as for boundaries BUT our architect found the fences were in the wrong position. Our neighbour had 30m2 of our land.   Not only is that worth real money, it changes the taxes you pay.  The neighbour enjoys your property and you pay for them to enjoy it.    The entries in the land registry cadastre (map) may not agree with what you see on the ground.   At our plot, we've been trying to correct the boundary on the ground for over 2 years!!

If you have asbestos tiles, you can get them removed.  They seem to have a free attitude about it.  We had ours taken off and we sold them as we had a totally new roof.   So long as the tiles are not broken, they won't release asbestos.  The standard treatment for disposing of them is landfill.

Regarding your damp problem, it's worth checking out the outside of the house.  It could be worth lowering the earth (if possible) outside in order to stop it transmitting damp into the walls.  If you can lower it by 1m, then  you won't have damp at the inside wall level. 

Houses built in the 1980s may have been built by the owner themselves.  Home builders cut corners.  Even now, with professional construction people, they can be less than diligent in their work.  Example: our balcony does not have a slope away from the house despite it being on the plans and endless discussion about it and of course, the obvious requirement.   We're going to have to have it repaired to put a slope on it so the water goes away from the building.

Some of those old "commie era" homes are built very solid even if they are not going to make the cover of House Beautiful.
Back in the day, home owners who built their own homes had to pay cash up front for every 2x4 every brick and every piece of tile.
There were a few approved home designs that one could buy and follow the builders plans.
For plumbing, electric and heating, one had to have a professional either do the work or to sign off on the work before one could continue building.
My in-laws built 3 homes, my FIL did most of the work on his weekends, took them a good 10 years , ready by the time they retired.
Even so, he was one of the only people on his side of the street who's cellar did not flood.
There is allot of ground water everywhere in HU.
I do believe the news laws require a home inspection to be done by the seller before the sale goes through.
They check the basic things, not sure how deep down they get with the inspection but the seller is the one who is suppose to pay for this not the buyer.

So really don't turn your nose up at some of those older homes, the time, energy and love many of those people put into building their own homes during those hard times can not be found with newer homes.
I know my FIL had experience building homes, fences, working with iron etc. from growing up in Romania as a German, very complicated in Hungary with nationalities , in the day people moved to HU from everywhere and brought their skills with them.
He helped many neighbors put up the frames etc, to their homes, these old timers took a ton of pride in doing a good job, they didn't want their neighbors talking about how sloppy and what bad work they did.
I think I would trust a solid old home more then a home that looks flashy but is rotting inside.
Just saying cosmetic things can be changed.
I know my parents bought a home in S. Cal. in the late 1960's, the house was nothing fancy, built on a concert slab, a track house, only two or three designs in the whole neighborhood, blocks and blocks of homes that all looked basically the same.
Built on land that had a nuke melt down in 1959 from a aerospace nuke meltdown that was covered up by the gov. Rocketdyne meltdown, 1959, no secret now info all over the internet about health issues, cancers etc.
This same boring, dangerous home is now selling for nearly a million US bucks!
I wouldn't want to live there if they gave me the place.
It pays to be careful with what sort of building materials were used and what sort of land the home is on.

.... everything fluffy2560 said, plus just a few more comments mostly from experience:

Skiper22 wrote:

Some architects here actually have an additional certificate to do exactly this.

But how do I find one ? I google "műszaki ellenőr balaton angolul" and "Építészmérnök balaton angolul" but the results are not very convincing. Anyone has a good one to share ?
......

Yes maybe I can have a hungarian guy write a report and then have it translated in english. Even organising that is a bit touchy.

A local translator may help here: https://www.expat.com/en/business/europ … erpreters/ (first one listed is located in the North Balaton -- she also speaks a little French )

Skiper22 wrote:

Also an aproximate price for changing them eventually, even though that would come later.

To do it all legally and eco-friendly, rather expensive to throw away asbestos tiles (I checked at the time). But as fluffy2560 said, you can avoid that if you can unload them on someone else. We just gave ours to our contractor, who was happy to get them for other projects. Did not bother trying to make a few forint selling them. Just happy to kick that problem down the road.

Skiper22 wrote:

But the exterior wall might be difficult to access and I'm not sure it would be efficient just through the interior wall.

A good general contractor can also give you ideas how to solve this. Mine is very good (and I was disappointed with all the others I tried before I found him). I can recommend him to you (PM me if interested). He does not speak English, but that can be worked around with a translator.

Skiper22 wrote:

About radon, I understand it can be dangerous but well, you have to die from something :-)

Very true. Radon test suggestion was mostly to be informed, as mitigation is rather easy.

Skiper22 wrote:

From the discussions I had, there are suprisingly few english (and english speaking) people in the north balaton region. I'm french BTW. And apparently there are even less french than english people.

No, those languages are not as common as German. One person in our village is French (but have not seen her around lately). I am the only native English speaker.

hi we got a house in hungary about 10 years ago it was so easy  we went with a agent they did all the work we just sent the funds and turned up to sort the paper work out in the office and that was it , but not been over there in a few years so i think its time to sell up thinking of doing it the same way all the best hope all go well for you .

Hi! Back again... nearing to the end of settling my property. Hoping to get some final closure advice...I heard that i need to check all utility meters (gas, water, electricity) to ensure zero usage on the day of closing the deal. Then go to the respect companies to get my name changed. Any idea how complicated this process is (i.e. if they speak english) and any tricks to get it done quicker?

cckmcc wrote:

I heard that i need to check all utility meters (gas, water, electricity) to ensure zero usage on the day of closing the deal.

You can, but that will not prove much.

Rather you need to make sure all bills for all the above have been paid and are up to date at the time of the sale, and none are outstanding (that is you need to make sure before you buy there are not 3 months of unpaid bills). Then just overtake payment from then on. If you pay for a few weeks of power used by the seller before the sale, it should amount to peanuts in relation to the price of the property; unless of course the seller did something like used a hose to fill the neighbor's pool the day before the sale -- which you may not know about unless you do a bit of paperwork sleuthing or until you get your next yearly assessment.

cckmcc wrote:

Then go to the respect companies to get my name changed. Any idea how complicated this process is (i.e. if they speak english)

In theory, it is not difficult.

In practice it may be.

They may or may not speak English in the office: probably do in larger cities, less likely in small towns.

cckmcc wrote:

and any tricks to get it done quicker?

There are typically pretty standard processing times on most of these issues. Of course, in some topics, there are extra "expedite" fees one can pay, but (un)surprisingly, they do not always produce the results they claim.

But otherwise: don't do it yourself. You will spend time trying to figure out the system.  Rather, hire a professional who does this sort of thing as a business to do it for you (they will know which bureaucratic levers to pull if needed and they may "know a guy"). It is an issue or time or money. You choose.

Thanks for the reply. Any recommendations on people to hire to help this service of getting bills transferred to the right name? Ideally someone who speaks English.... Btw, this is in Budapest as well, so hopefully it is a bit easier.

cckmcc wrote:

.....hire to help this service of getting bills transferred to the right name? Ideally someone who speaks English.... Btw, this is in Budapest as well, so hopefully it is a bit easier.

BTW,  you might find that all the utilities want to come by and change the meter.  They seem to do that sometimes if there's a change in ownership.  They turned up at our place and replaced an ancient meter with a fancy electronic one.  Then, we rebuilt the house and changed all the cabling, they came and moved the meter (same one). 

But now, as we've modernised, we've added "Geo" electricity and yet another meter change is taking place.  Why? No idea!  But we've now got two meters outside.

We also had our water meter randomly replaced. Then we had it replaced again as the previous one broke due to the cold weather. 

Our gas meter was replaced as we moved the gas pipe so that was not unexpected.

All of this has taken place in the past 2 years. I am not entirely sure why they want to change the meters.  They have to be recalibrated but I also think it's an anti-fraud measure.

I think also you should get someone to help you do this stuff.   Utilities in Hungary are notorious for getting muddled up on meters and addresses.  Applies to Telekom as well (we've still not solved our problem with them and Mrs Fluffy has been working on it for months).

fluffy2560 wrote:

(we've still not solved our problem with them and Mrs Fluffy has been working on it for months).

Wait. What? Still?   

That is positively surreal.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

(we've still not solved our problem with them and Mrs Fluffy has been working on it for months).

Wait. What? Still?   

That is positively surreal.

Yes, Hungarian buck passing and weirdness reaches new heights.  We have inched forward to more knowledge of the problem.  The problem seems to stem from the fact that the local government changed the name of the street some years ago as it was a "köz" (short one way street) and a street address extension of another street.  So apparently we've got "two" addresses. Telekom refuses to accept either address at our location.  Also our plot was part of a much larger plot that was sub-divided in the 1970s (also leading to our slow burning land dispute, still also unresolved).  So the cable might be under the address of the original plot. 

While we can see the cable in the ground, we do not know where it goes and apparently neither do Telekom.   Looks to me they've possibly handed over their responsibility to others - one of the alternate providers - 20 years ago and they've lost any knowledge and paperwork as it's "not their responsibility".  It also seems no-one can be bothered to come and investigate.  I suspect whoever we can find to do it they'll just decide to run a new cable but Telekom are declining to do that so far.  We're continuing to canvass the neighbours to try and find out what we can actually do but none of them are knowledgeable enough to tell us anything useful.   They have no idea what is going on at all.  Most of them are elderly. 

The only way I think we can move forward is to try and capture a Telekom man and threaten him with a fluffy tickling stick and palinka until he tells us where the cable goes. 

My last resort is 4G mobile.  I personally view that as an utter failure.

Incidentally, the land registry has still not informed the combatants that our boundary has been redrawn to show our ownership.  Apparently, they are "too busy".   This is despite the law saying everyone should be informed within 30 days.  Now it's March and Mrs Fluffy was at the land tribunal in October 2016.   Our lawyer was told they would send him this confirmation which makes no sense - they need to send it to us and the neighbour.   Once we know they neighbour has got the paper, we're moving the fence.  It's quite a tense problem.  We'll need a animal control person on standby to capture the neighbours dog. Possibly even human control people (the police) in case they go nuts when the digger comes.

Sorry to hear about this troubles still going on Mr. Fluffy.
Nightmare doesn't even cover it.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Sorry to hear about this troubles still going on Mr. Fluffy.
Nightmare doesn't even cover it.

Nightmare? 

I think it's more a kind of purgatory.  We're like donkeys plodding around a bureaucratic wheel.  A virtual existence of Internet/No-Internet and Land/No-Land.

It's strange but I think I've almost become accustomed to these oddities.  These days, if anything works seamlessly at all in HU I am utterly surprised!

You should see the pile of permits  that Mrs Fluffy has acquired for moving into our house.  I would never have believed it.  And we're still not finished with permits.

Sorry, sounds like a trap or quicksand.
Even with a lawyer still all these issues, really sympathy to you all.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Yes, Hungarian buck passing and weirdness reaches new heights.

Certainly for something which should be simple like getting your land phone/internet connection activated where everyone else seems to have access.

But generally -- well there are those years of so called "30 day" (... I pause while I laugh ... ) replies from the various government offices and eventual legal actions to get our permits for the new (and actually now required -- we were ahead of our time) waste water treatment device installed.

fluffy2560 wrote:

My last resort is 4G mobile.  I personally view that as an utter failure.

We actually had a TV cable in our house. We called the cable company asking for Internet on it. They said, they could not do that and would have to run a new fiber-optic cable to our house from a source a mere 10 km away. Because, apparently, we were basically told, the laws of physics do not work in Hungary like they do in the rest of the Universe and it was not possible to run Internet over the standard TV cable.

Tried for about a year other options. In the end we gave up. Accepted using only cell phones for calls and 2G for Internet. (Yes, it was that long ago). Have 4G now. Expensive. And not as fast as anything over wire. Keep at it if you can get the cable working.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Our lawyer was told they would send him this confirmation which makes no sense

I have been consistently underwhelmed by lawyers in Hungary. Yet to meet one that really seems to really know the law. But can not fully blame them, the laws and regulations seem to change here all the time.

fluffy2560 wrote:

You should see the pile of permits  that Mrs Fluffy has acquired for moving into our house.  I would never have believed it.  And we're still not finished with permits.

I do not know about the rest of former Soviet satellite block countries, but I have found in Hungary the government just loves piles and piles of paperwork.

cckmcc wrote:

Ideally someone who speaks English.... Btw, this is in Budapest as well, so hopefully it is a bit easier.

As for myself, I do not know anyone or any business in Budapest I can recommend. Sorry. 

klsallee wrote:

.....We actually had a TV cable in our house. We called the cable company asking for Internet on it. They said, they could not do that and would have to run a new fiber-optic cable to our house from a source a mere 10 km away. Because, apparently, we were basically told, the laws of physics do not work in Hungary like they do in the rest of the Universe and it was not possible to run Internet over the standard TV cable....

....Have 4G now. Expensive. And not as fast as anything over wire. Keep at it if you can get the cable working.....

I am burning a candle in the window in the hope the other end of the cable will turn up in the Telekom street cabinet somewhere.

The TV cable could have worked but the modern way would be fibre - hence the telco reluctance to bother on cost grounds.  Fibre costs about $10 a metre.  And that's with a good number of fibre cores. 

I'm having deja-vu on your fibre cable option. I am sure we've discussed this before.

Assuming a nearby hill, the best thing is to have an erection (!!!).

Yes, erection here means radio tower or high place to install a 2.4 Ghz or 5 GHz unlicensed ISM band (or possibly even licensed) link on a building on the hill pointed in the direction of someone cooperative who has a potentially decent connection. Obviously needs power and cooperation (ok, it's Hungary, challenge for sure). 

If you can find someone friendly and technically interested within fibre reach, then with a decent vertical height within line of sight, say 5-7km, you can then have a 100 Mbps link installed to their place, then route to the radio link back to your local radio tower.   

If you can club together with neighbours, then the costs could be shared.  You could run fibre from the local radio tower or just do WiFi distribution.  With decent (relatively inexpensive) gear you can share out the bandwidth equally on the links.  Radio does tend to be relatively slow and is affected by weather but it's well tried and trusted everywhere.

OK, easier said than done from an armchair  of course. But not particularly a technical problem and could be a relatively fun home project.

Futility companies in Hungary do take their time. My electricity was off for 6 months and I have still not found out why they cut me off. They said the installation was unsafe but would not give any details. I now have the meters in a box planted in the front lawn and the old box just contains 2 new consumer units with mcbs for the house and the cheap rate hot water. The actual house wiring is unchanged since they    condemned it.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I'm having deja-vu on your fibre cable option. I am sure we've discussed this before.

Probably.

Regarding suggestions: National park, no new above ground cables allowed (the existing TV cable was grandfathered in). Would cost quite a lot to bury new fiber optics over 10 km (not to mention property right issues) than just upgrade the TV cable. Just typical reply here when someone does not want to do something: they present the most ludicrous option as an excuse not to do it.

We actually did convince a company to install a radio tower, but the person up the hill who allowed it to be installed on their post worked great for the entire village, and our neighbors, but due to a fluke of geography our house was not in line of sight (the only house). At that point I decided the cosmos was trying to tell us something, so we gave up and went with GSM.

Just one of those assumed "obvious" things (Internet access) which was not so obvious when we first bought here. Live and learn. I am currently "satisfied" with G4 despite its limits. Except it is certainly the most expensive solution.

klsallee wrote:

...Regarding suggestions: National park, no new above ground cables allowed (the existing TV cable was grandfathered in).  We actually did convince a company to install a radio tower, but the person up the hill who allowed it to be installed on their post worked great for the entire village, and our neighbors, but due to a fluke of geography our house was not in line of sight (the only house). At that point I decided the cosmos was trying to tell us something, so we gave up and went with GSM...

Yes, well, there is the NP issue.

On the other hand you could always use radio "mirror" which would then bounce the signal down to another place and then to you, all within line of sight and bounce it back to the house.  If there is anywhere on your property within line of sight of the tower,then cable from that place to your house.  There is a need power (solar possible with battery backup for nights).  To make it cheaper, the equipment shelter could be a building or just a street cabinet with an inverter, panel and a couple of batteries.    Fibre optic cables are actually quite cheap for short distances and effectively unlimited bandwidth until you hit the radio link.  But these days, even with basic transmission technology, 1.2 Gbps+ radio is easily available with off the shelf gear. 

I distribute my WiFi signal even to my garden.  I used to beam it to a kids playground within line of sight of my apartment.  That's so I could still get my email when the kids were playing in the sand and on the swings.  I left it open and free (I have fancy gear that I can create multiple WiFi networks, some with passwords, others without).  I think I only had  one or two "customers".  Turned it off when the kids decided that playground was no longer of interest to the kids.

I suppose might be guessed, I like this sort of technology DIY challenge and the winters are quite long in Hungary.

I am sure the amateur (ham) radio community in Hungary has plenty to say on this matter and the technical interest to dabble for free.  I've got a Europe wide license for that but don't have much time for it  these days but I drive around with my radio on but only very rarely do I hear anyone CQ'ing (CQ - Seek You, geddit? i.e. asking for a contact).   

There are some radio distribution technologies still around, but these are considered obsolete. I expect the gear can be had almost for free but spares would be problematic.  I expect no-one has that stuff any more in HU.

fluffy2560 wrote:

On the other hand

My reply maybe off topic, so moved to: https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 15#3626793

Hi All,

I'm finally settled with my apartment in Budapest and now I need to face the utility companies to get things switched over.

I heard there are a number of different branches for each utility (water, gas, electricity) - any idea which ones would be more likely to have english speaking staff? I've got the forms printed out and filled in, and will bring the contract and photo evidence of current usage. Is there anything else I would be required when I am there?

cckmcc wrote:

Hi All,

I'm finally settled with my apartment in Budapest and now I need to face the utility companies to get things switched over.

I heard there are a number of different branches for each utility (water, gas, electricity) - any idea which ones would be more likely to have english speaking staff? I've got the forms printed out and filled in, and will bring the contract and photo evidence of current usage. Is there anything else I would be required when I am there?

No idea but very recent anecdote we know of re: meters:

(Former) tenant was trying to get the meters read at an apartment and was told (erroneously) that only the owner can ask for the meters to be read.  The former (moving out) tenant requesting the meter reading had permission verbally. The utilities were told the actual owner said it was OK but they rejected this as there was nothing in writing from the owner. As the owner lives overseas and was not in Hungary, the tenant had to take "extreme" action and simply sign the paper using the owner's name which despite being ridiculous was acceptable (even without any additional proof).  Laughable really but that's Hungary for you.

So basically, as you said, really do make sure you take your purchase contract with you every time you get involved with these people to show you have authority.  Take also your ID with you.  They will probably come and change the meters.

Oh, and don't forget the rubbish collection - the house organiser/manager will be able to help on that.  Some places, they also deal with the water.  If you have to deal with it yourself for rubbish, then you will probably need to go to the local government AND you have to buy your own bin.  Ask the house manager (might just be another owner) for advice.

Would you be prepared to recommend your lawyer via a private message?
Emma

Tuckerj, PM sent today.

Hi Guys,
Any recommendations for a good lawyer in Hungary?

Hello! What kind of legal service do you need? Purchasing az apartment?