House Purchase

What can I say, .com is not local, but on the other side I see this company is likely to be Dutch based (which I tend to trust). Having said that, what is the after-care once you bought the house (support with connecting to Water/Gas/Electricty, residency permit, company set up (if needed), builders (for repairs (almost impossible to fine nowadays).
I have no clue where you buy, but everybody needs some support before or after buying (we are from the Netherlands and bought through nexusimmo in Heviz, again if you buy through a broker from the Netherlands also a good chance that things are good (I just do not know them).
Only thing I want to say just buying a house is not all for getting settled. (The broker also has to be honest on infra-structure (buses, shops, theatre, restaurants. …) and neighbours (if you do not speak Hungarian and there are no multi-language speakers around you will have a challenge to deal with).

Again we are from Holland and live close to Keszthely/Heviz for almost 4 yrs and we are very fine, but all (in my view) need some type of contact/support. Please ensure the latter part is included (alternatively please feel free to send me a note).

It is rather irrelevant when it comes to any Realtor web site. Because a real estate agent works for the seller. Not you the buyer.

So, you should still hire your own professionals. Including an attorney to make sure, for example, the property is free and clear of any leans. Some houses don't have full living rights -- they are just for temporary residence. You have to check a lot of little details. An architect to look over the house, especially if it is an old house, to tell you what needs to be done to renovate and how much it will cost -- to your standards which you must explicitly stress often bluntly (here the standards may be a bit lower and they will assume you like such low standards). And an appraiser, as you are probably being overcharged for the house and property. A translator to translate all documents about the purchase (don't trust the agent or even your own hired professionals at face value -- they may leave out a detail here or there that you should know so get a second direct translation to confirm what they tell you is 100% complete). And that is just a partial list.

Many houses here are made of packed earth for example which have all sorts of problems. Even with brick construction, the walls often have water damage. The roof leaks. Some properties have power, water and sewage, but many others don't have any combination one more more of those, especially in smaller villages; which are by the way experiencing an exodus of most but the geriatric. Internet may be only via wireless, and coverage can vary. And village life is.... well, you have to live here a while to understand it may not be what you expect.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

There are no bargains in Hungary anymore. Just because a property seems "cheap" by foreign standards does not mean it does not come with issues. Everything is relative.

I second those thoughts.

Get a lawyer and people to act for you and really, it's best not to use the lawyer proposed by the seller but to provide your own.  The system is ludicrous with a percentage fee based on value.  Personally I cannot see why it's not a flat rate as it's hardly quantum physics.   

If you are not an EU citizen (or try to use a non-EU identity), you need local government permission to buy, otherwise it's not a problem. 

Construction standards are lower than one might expect.  Look out for damp, lack of insulation, bodged wiring, ancient heating systems and cowboy/amateur/home builders. 

Don't buy anywhere that doesn't have utilities on site or in the road as you have to pay for them to be brought to the site.  Minimum is water and electricity and septic tank.   Gas and main sewer, well, pot luck there. 

Internet access can be variable - I live in a very connected village in the burbs of Budapest and the Telekom fibre cable is 30m away and I can see the cabinet. But we have to use the cable TV system which works mostly fine for us (120/6 Mbps) but if Telekom were here, we'd probably be able to get Gigabits.   We have 100+ TV channels, none worth watching. 

Strangely enough, the ISP Digi(tel?) turned up a month ago and put in fibre in the street but no-one uses it as far as I know. 

Watch out for boundary mistakes.   We have been involved in a land dispute with neighbours for at least 4 years.   This week we received a letter to say the dispute has been resolved in our favour but that's only if the neighbour does not appeal.   We still do not have the proper plan showing the correct boundary and we still have to move the fence so it'd be close to 4.5 years to resolve and that's 4.5 years our garden has not been able to move forward.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Look out for damp, lack of insulation, bodged wiring.... and cowboy/amateur/home builders.

Absolutely. Even for new construction. Builders can be really sloppy here. And prior DIY'ers are also often really sloppy.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Watch out for boundary mistakes.

100% agree. I purchased 4 properties. Every single one had boundary issues with neighbors. One also needs to hire a surveyor if they care that the land one bought is maybe actually being used by their neighbor, on the other side of the fence their neighbor built, on one's land.....

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Look out for damp, lack of insulation, bodged wiring.... and cowboy/amateur/home builders.

Absolutely. Even for new construction. Builders can be really sloppy here. And prior DIY'ers are also often really sloppy.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Watch out for boundary mistakes.

100% agree. I purchased 4 properties. Every single one had boundary issues with neighbors. One also needs to hire a surveyor if they care that the land one bought is maybe actually being used by their neighbor, on the other side of the fence their neighbor built, on one's land.....

I don't remember how much the surveyor cost (maybe 50K HUF?) but we had our one, the neighbours had their own, so that was 2 x the amount.  Both surveyors were approved by the government so it was a waste of time really.  If the neighbours were reasonable, we could have split the cost.  Both surveyors (unsurprisingly) agreed with each other.   We've subsequently found out that on their other boundary (on the other side of their plot), they are missing 14m2 which is in their neighbours garden.  We were missing 30m2 which is quite a lot really.   

We're expecting the neighbours to go ballistic now we have the ruling in our favour.  I'm building in 2 or 3 months for their heads to stabilise before we get the builders back to build a wall/fence.  Their behaviour is likely to be very predictable.  It's all driven by reluctance to change, risk aversion, stability fears, just being stubborn, poor negotiation skills, being emotionally driven and so on.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Both surveyors were approved by the government so it was a waste of time really.  If the neighbours were reasonable, we could have split the cost.  Both surveyors (unsurprisingly) agreed with each other.

With one surveyor, then if the survey was found in your favor, the neighbor would accuse you of bribing the surveyor. And if not in your favor, how would you know the neighbor did not bribe the surveyor?

Think I am kidding? After we hired our survey, my wife was, by chance, at the land office and by some quirk of fate was behind our neighbor who was there, at the land office, trying to get the land office clerk to "change" the survey results (they were too cheap to hire their own surveyor, which cost us 80,000 HUF by the way).

Best for each land owner to hire their own surveyor. And if they differ, to hash out the difference in court.

Take home message: This is not necessarily an "honest" country. Do everything you can to protect your rights.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Both surveyors were approved by the government so it was a waste of time really.  If the neighbours were reasonable, we could have split the cost.  Both surveyors (unsurprisingly) agreed with each other.

With one surveyor, then if the survey was found in your favor, the neighbor would accuse you of bribing the surveyor. And if not in your favor, how would you know the neighbor did not bribe the surveyor?

Think I am kidding? After we hired our survey, my wife was, by chance, at the land office and by some quirk of fate was behind our neighbor who was there, at the land office, trying to get the land office clerk to "change" the survey results (they were too cheap to hire their own surveyor, which cost us 80,000 HUF by the way).

Best for each land owner to hire their own surveyor. And if they differ, to hash out the difference in court.

Take home message: This is not necessarily an "honest" country. Do everything you can to protect your rights.

Oh, I can believe that for sure.  Apparently our neighbour randomly went to the land office to plead his case and got nowhere which I can only be grateful for.   If I had been up against a knowledgeable person, then it could have cost an awful lot to fight the guy.  From what we heard, they told him very directly that the boundary was incorrect.  Mrs Fluffy determined that at least a year of our wait was actually waiting for the land office to redraw the plans and moreover, telling Mrs Fluffy the wrong procedure, which incidentally she happened to know  from research was actually wrong and could correct the clerk on the spot. 

But just to be sure we would win, we got our lawyer to badger them every couple of months.  Took 4 years and we're still not finished and we had a professional on their back.  Doing it on your own? Could take 10 years.

Hello Everyone and i mean everyone,

Thank you for your very detailed replies, i didnt realize neighbors can be very territorial and then fight you over land that isn't even theirs

will let you know how i progress,

im currently living on a 50 acre farm in Australia and only go into town for the essentials for the super market and mail, so i am sure the life in a village will be similar

i will make sure to get a architect, surveyor, and my own lawyer if i can find a good english speaking one

petromaya wrote:

Hello Everyone and i mean everyone,

Thank you for your very detailed replies, i didnt realize neighbors can be very territorial and then fight you over land that isn't even theirs

will let you know how i progress,

im currently living on a 50 acre farm in Australia and only go into town for the essentials for the super market and mail, so i am sure the life in a village will be similar

i will make sure to get a architect, surveyor, and my own lawyer if i can find a good english speaking one

I am not even sure they are territorial. In my own dispute, I am sure at least half of it just  sheer bloody mindedness.   There are plenty of apocryphal stories of awkwardness here.   

The law on "adverse possession" (that's an umbrella term over wrongly held land) is pretty clear but many here are stubborn (or probably really very frightened of change), refuse to accept what the law says or don't believe it and will try and manipulate the process to their own ends while paying nothing for proper advice.     

Even the government will ignore it's own rules or regulations.  It might say on some subject, there's 30 days for them to make a decision. But there will always be a clause that says that only applies when they decide it applies.  Yes, indeed, wtf?

This is a country with a long history of underlying instability and there's no common law unlike many English (legal system derived) countries.  What went before doesn't matter a hoot.

Legally no-one believes what someone else says unless it's in writing with a rubber stamp on it and even then any government documents can be actually in contradiction with anything that went before (i.e. it's Roman law which does not have precedents).   Sometimes it works for you so it's not dreadful but sometimes just plain weird.   

But anyway, the summary is that it doesn't work in the way that you might be used to.

The replies of both Kisallee and Fluffy make a lot of sense and are very very true for the topics mentioned.  (I have to say both of them make very good comments).
On one topic I disagree (cost of real estate (and for me being Dutch)). Living in Hungary with low taxes (my salary a bit lower then EUR 1200) is more than enough to live here  comfortably (Not possible with this salary in eg UK, Netherlands, France or Germany).
I do have a job here locally and looking forward to get retired. (Income over EUR 1000 pm), of course things can change (inflation, taxes for retirees in Hungary, …). So far however Hungary and its people have served me very very well. (we can go to restaurants from time to time and (secret) we have a car.

I personally have (and I still am) considering Bulgaria, TRNC and Georgia as domicile, but the current set-up for Hungarian residents over 65 not paying taxes (and limited health care premiums as well as many reductions on eg swimming pool, free busses,..) is appealing for me and my wife.

What we need is a good life (good neighbours, food, drink, theatre and restaurants now and then.
As for real estate the comments made by kisallee and fluffy are more then relevant, bottom line, you have to be careful and lucky (finding the right real estate broker). Indeed in Hungary you can find up to x (even more then 5) brokers for a single property.
Where we live (and probably other locations as well), people die (Hungarian population is decreasing). In my village alone there are quite some properties at a very good price (due to decease). I have to disagree with the fact that the properties (in the country are not cheap).
You have to be careful though (are there doctors, hospitals, shops, …. around). But more importantly are you able to speak your language and are there good neighbours??

There probably still are some good deals in the countryside but if you're not a country person it might get to be too much at times.
We lived in Erd which is just outside of Budapest and sort of a popular place for some country type transfers but for us, it was some doing to keep ourselves busy in those 18 months time.
We had a car and family there and i was going to the gym and doing heavy workouts 3 or 4 times per week, going to the lakes 4 or more times a week in the summer months keeping the house in order and the large land in shape to sell the place off and walking all the time to keep myself busy and not bored staying indoors.
Not really a indoors person.
We looked at a few country places awhile back and decided, no, we are city people even if it does get to us once in awhile.
Can always take a drive to the countryside and get our fill of nature.
Of course everyone is different,staying still drives me crazy.
You also must consider inflation etc.
Once you retire your pretty much on a fixed income and with rising prices all the time you never know.
We bought our apt. in Budapest 12 years ago when it was only 200 Forints to the US dollar.
Now however if we wish to sell out the conversion of forints back into dollars will kill us.
Hungary is OK if you're healthy but you never know what the future holds as you age.
We are basically more healthy then most people we know our age but we work on it daily.
Even so, I've have a few bone issues that brought me into HU hospitals.
Believe me, not a place one wishes to even visit let alone check into.
The swimming pool discounts for seniors are only valid for those who have a special SS card from HU SS offices.
My HU husband worked in HU for 9 years and he doesn't qualify for a discount card.
The travel card and discount to events are 2 different things here.
The for now free travel for those over 65 is also changing.
They will soon be changing the system to enter the subway etc. and everyone will need a new sort of card to enter the transportation system.
Everyone over age 65 will soon need to register at the HU SS offices and get a travel card issued to their home address.
I thought the senior travel pass at age 65 was a thing from BKK but it is not, it comes through the HU SS dept. They must issue a paper to you to show BKK to receive a travel card. They were suppose to already issue these cards out to seniors over age 65 but they are a bit backed up and it's going slow. By the time I am 65 I am sure they will have it already up and running.
Was in SS just 3 weeks ago to find out about a pass for those between ages 63 1/2 and 65. Not free but a good discount.
Need to go through SS in HU and wait to see if they will issue a card or not. Need translations and  need to prove you are retired. I retired at 62 early so without that paper I could not of even of applied.
Still waiting to see if they issue a paper or not, first time my HU husband tried at age 62 ( they always change the required ages, now it's 63 1/2) they rejected his request, he had to write and give more details about himself before he got the discount pass 7 years ago.
I'm not holding my breath to get a discount card early, just thought it was worth a try.
Rumors of free things are not always true here.
Was told directly in HUngarian by both a few people at BKK and in person at the HU SS offices about this travel info.Latest info as far as I know on the subject.
Also about the discounts for seniors on things like pools, only get a discount if you have a retirement  SS card issued by Hungary. No other country, not the same thing as the free travel for those over 65.
I had surgery on my knee and as part of my therapy they allowed me to go to a choice of a couple of different spas. Had to choice one only, family doctor had to send me over to another specialist and get an exam from her. Tipped them both 10,000 Forints and she issued me a paper to swim or use the spa for 15 visits at a discount price. I choice the spa in the city park because it was the closest to our home.
Only good for 2 hours time, not very long really once you get there.
I saw some HU people with the same color wristband I was given, only good for 2 hours time.
Think instead of going in all day long for 4,800F I paid 1,500 for 2 hours time.
That plus the 20,000 in tips.
I only went there 3 times and didn't use all the visits I was offered.
Not fun to go alone. The doc wouldn't give a paper to my husband to go with me since the family doc had not sent him over too.

This was 5 years ago, not sure about it now.


Country people in Hungary are nice enough but most have lived in the same areas for generations and may take awhile to be excepted as an outsider who doesn't speak the language.
It's just different here.Suppose it might be the same even in the US in places where generations have lived close to an area and everyone is related one way or the other.

When purchasing property (or anything for that matter) it's recommended that you view with your own eyes first and not relyrelying on viewing pictures from websites.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....
The swimming pool discounts for seniors are only valid for those who have a special SS card from HU SS offices.
My HU husband worked in HU for 9 years and he doesn't qualify for a discount card.
The travel card and discount to events are 2 different things here.
The for now free travel for those over 65 is also changing.
They will soon be changing the system to enter the subway etc. and everyone will need a new sort of card to enter the transportation system.
Everyone over age 65 will soon need to register at the HU SS offices and get a travel card issued to their home address.
I thought the senior travel pass at age 65 was a thing from BKK but it is not, it comes through the HU SS dept. They must issue a paper to you to show BKK to receive a travel card. They were suppose to already issue these cards out to seniors over age 65 but they are a bit backed up and it's going slow. By the time I am 65 I am sure they will have it already up and running.
Was in SS just 3 weeks ago to find out about a pass for those between ages 63 1/2 and 65. Not free but a good discount.
Need to go through SS in HU and wait to see if they will issue a card or not. Need translations and  need to prove you are retired. I retired at 62 early so without that paper I could not of even of applied.
Still waiting to see if they issue a paper or not, first time my HU husband tried at age 62 ( they always change the required ages, now it's 63 1/2) they rejected his request, he had to write and give more details about himself before he got the discount pass 7 years ago.
....

Good info there Marilyn. 

I wonder how these new HU SS papers apply to EU foreign visitors over retirement age? 

When my sister and BIL came a year ago (both British, both EU for now) they just used their passports as evidence of their age.  But they are both over 65.  Sounds like that's not going to work in the future.   I cannot see EU citizens on holiday queuing up at the SS to get a bit of paper to receive their free travel benefits.

*edit:  I answered my own question here: BKK Free and Discounted Travel

cdw057 wrote:

I have to disagree with the fact that the properties (in the country are not cheap).

For what it is worth (FWIIW), and if I correctly understand the sentence above which I shamelessly maybe took out of context, I did not say that properties here were not cheap. Because, indeed, many are.

I said there are no more bargains in Hungary. There is a difference.

That is, what you pay for today is what you get (or worse). And expats will pay more than the real market value a Hungarian will pay -- even if the expat still sees it as "less" than what they may pay back home. That is a matter of relative comparison not absolute worth or real local market value. And one should take that into account. If one is okay with that, no problem. Just be aware of it. But earlier one could get a real diamond for the price of coal. Those days are gone. That was my point.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I am not even sure they are territorial. In my own dispute, I am sure at least half of it just  sheer bloody mindedness.

Agree. I might, even reduce that to simply say they hate to admit when they are wrong. Almost a national pathology. Americans, I have to admit, are often similar. 

fluffy2560 wrote:

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....
The swimming pool discounts for seniors are only valid for those who have a special SS card from HU SS offices.
My HU husband worked in HU for 9 years and he doesn't qualify for a discount card.
The travel card and discount to events are 2 different things here.
The for now free travel for those over 65 is also changing.
They will soon be changing the system to enter the subway etc. and everyone will need a new sort of card to enter the transportation system.
Everyone over age 65 will soon need to register at the HU SS offices and get a travel card issued to their home address.
I thought the senior travel pass at age 65 was a thing from BKK but it is not, it comes through the HU SS dept. They must issue a paper to you to show BKK to receive a travel card. They were suppose to already issue these cards out to seniors over age 65 but they are a bit backed up and it's going slow. By the time I am 65 I am sure they will have it already up and running.
Was in SS just 3 weeks ago to find out about a pass for those between ages 63 1/2 and 65. Not free but a good discount.
Need to go through SS in HU and wait to see if they will issue a card or not. Need translations and  need to prove you are retired. I retired at 62 early so without that paper I could not of even of applied.
Still waiting to see if they issue a paper or not, first time my HU husband tried at age 62 ( they always change the required ages, now it's 63 1/2) they rejected his request, he had to write and give more details about himself before he got the discount pass 7 years ago.
....

Good info there Marilyn. 

I wonder how these new HU SS papers apply to EU foreign visitors over retirement age? 

When my sister and BIL came a year ago (both British, both EU for now) they just used their passports as evidence of their age.  But they are both over 65.  Sounds like that's not going to work in the future.   I cannot see EU citizens on holiday queuing up at the SS to get a bit of paper to receive their free travel benefits.

*edit:  I answered my own question here: BKK Free and Discounted Travel

I looked over your posted link really fast,hard to see it was printed so small.
Will double check it later on but it does seem they have already changed it to having to be a resident of HU if not a citizen. That's  what we were told, think the subway, tube, underground will soon change the way one enters the system. More like in NYC with a turnstyle so one will need a special card to enter for free.
In Hungary like I mentioned if you are retired and between the ages of 63 1/2 and 65 you can apply for a discount, only good to use in city limits, not for use on trains or outside of Budapest. Not sure about people who live outside of Budapest, suppose they can apply for a pass for their own county?
Sort of a gap filler for those who retired early.
I was first told I had to be 62 then 63 then 63 1/2. So it does seem they are always changing things up. Guess there had even been some talk of just doing away with the whole free travel thing.
Mostly it was set up for poor retires to get about to places they needed to get to, doctors, shopping etc.
Not really set up for holiday travelers to go here and there for free.
Will look over the link later when I get back home today.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I am not even sure they are territorial. In my own dispute, I am sure at least half of it just  sheer bloody mindedness.

Agree. I might, even reduce that to simply say they hate to admit when they are wrong. Almost a national pathology. Americans, I have to admit, are often similar. 

Interesting, I hadn't even thought of that.  We all have similar traits.

However, I thought it was just lack of experience in negotiating or understanding the logic in a bit of give and take and how to reach a compromise. It seems all far too emotionally driven to my (apparent) Spock like thinking.  I don't understand why they don't know about that kind of thing? How did they ever resolve things in their lives previously?

I am not even angry that they (the neighbours) have my land, it's just an administrative thing that needs correcting which really is simple. It just needs discussion and agreement. I wasn't even here when they put the fence up 40 years ago so I am detached (but they were here 40 years ago so maybe more invested!).   If they hadn't argued about it then we'd have resolved it at least 3 years ago and my land  boundary would be corrected, slightly larger and nicely landscaped.   

So what have they gained by being awkward. Nothing at all!

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I am not even sure they are territorial. In my own dispute, I am sure at least half of it just  sheer bloody mindedness.

Agree. I might, even reduce that to simply say they hate to admit when they are wrong. Almost a national pathology. Americans, I have to admit, are often similar. 

i would agree with you or go further, I know it borders on racism or nationalism or whatever, but among the more intelligent Hungarians (by which I mean the professional classes etc) they do not like to admit that they don't know. I am not a qualified teacher of any kind but in the natural course of my work I teach people on the job. Now do you understand this? Oh, yes. Have I made myself clear, Oh yes? OK then, let me know if you have any questions. A week later you find that they have made a complete -up of it not because my explanation was bad (it possibly was, but that is not the reason) but that you said you understood it when patently you didn't have a clue.

The missus and i have a kind of pact with this when we are hunting for words in the other's first language, that we will have a go to find the right, idiomatic word, or if we know we don't know it try to describe it so the other can tell say what it is. That is, we basically say to each other "I don't know." But she has lived in the UK a long time where people tend to be more self-effacing and do not mind to admit they don't know something, indeed it is almost a badge of pride,

My missus and I always go about a job in completely different ways so almost by definition we are each wrong in each other's eyes (or in my case, more often in my ears). She (Hungarian) does sometimes have trouble when I say that it was wrong to start to do it her way, though, she is very hard to teach, but then that perhaps is partly because she was a teacher (tertiary education). The best teachers make the worst pupils and all that.

It gets ingrained, I think, very early in the Hungarian education system. In the UK education system (if you show any care at all about being taught) you are challenged in both senses of the word on every bit of work you do at it is ok to explain to Teacher why you did this and Teacher will explain a better way to do it. In Hungary, Teacher's way is the right way and if you do it a different way your scores etc will suffer from disagreeing (politely and intelligently of course) with Teacher. To call it a "didactic" way of teaching is perhaps tautologous.

SimonTrew wrote:

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I am not even sure they are territorial. In my own dispute, I am sure at least half of it just  sheer bloody mindedness.

Agree. I might, even reduce that to simply say they hate to admit when they are wrong. Almost a national pathology. Americans, I have to admit, are often similar. 

i would agree with you or go further, I know it borders on racism or nationalism or whatever, but among the more intelligent Hungarians (by which I mean the professional classes etc) they do not like to admit that they don't know....

Straying off topic here.....

This happens in school now.  My kids relate to me stories of teachers doing things a certain way. My classroom, my rules.  Mrs Fluffy's parents are teachers and there were rules - this is the way things are done so just accept it.  As very liberal (I like to think) parents, this puts us in an odd position here in that we allow the kids to challenge what they are told. It's part of their growth. 

Incidentally, we've just returned from our ~4000km road trip around Europe and Mrs Fluffy's Dad asked her if she'd seen hordes of illegal immigrants. I believe he was seeking to confirm his learned knowledge (i.e. not from experience) spouted by HU fake news outlets.

My answer was, "How could we tell?".  Human beings look pretty much the same to me wherever they are.   

Probably 1/2 the England, French and Belgium football teams could be classified by some Hungarian political standards as potential illegal immigrants if you saw them on the street.

Stupid.  Very very stupid.

Off topic - we should go elsewhere.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Interesting, I hadn't even thought of that.

Because you are a rational thinking Libertarian type. If you think 2+2=5, but when someone can show you 2+2=4 from objective facts and proof you can accept it. You can admit error from the overwhelming objective facts.

Not everyone can do that. Especially those that base their "opinions" on emotions, not facts. In fact, most people find saying three word "I am sorry" the most difficult words to speak in the English language. And admitting they were in error tantamount to an emotional mental storm that more likely results in their denial of any objective fact and doubling down in a whirl of cognitive dissonance to deign anything which does not fit their pre-conceived ideas.

Plenty of research and information about this. Available to anyone online who appreciates objective facts. Those that believe the world is flat are too far gone, and of course need not bother reading things like:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto … 1308580247

fluffy2560 wrote:

We all have similar traits.

But we can each express those traits to a different degree and in varying ways. Two people may fear the prospect of potentially deadly circumstance. But one may become over emotional, go screaming around a room, and another may face the prospect rationally and try to find a way to avoid death.

That is, don't assume everyone will react how you would react.

klsallee wrote:

.....
Because you are a rational thinking Libertarian type. If you think 2+2=5, but when someone can show you 2+2=4 from objective facts and proof you can accept it. You can admit error from the overwhelming objective facts.
.........
Not everyone can do that. Especially those that base their "opinions" on emotions, not facts. ....

That is, don't assume everyone will react how you would react.

Oh indeed, cognitive dissonance and I are old friends. I try to embrace it on a regular basis - more touchy feely stuff than my Vulcan alter-ego.

I was previously married to a volatile person who had - apparently - no rational behaviour at all.   I learnt a lesson (and a costly one) when I assumed everyone (her and her lawyer) were behaving rationally.   I've had to constantly remind myself about those hard lesson over the years.  Still, long time ago.

It's like Synesthesia.  Everyone has a different experience of their own existence.  Quite fascinating really.

I think there's a difference though between accepting 2+2=4 and getting used to it.  This is why we've not pushed the land boundary thing too hard -  we're waiting for them to become more comfortable with the idea we're officially having our land back.   

My model for the way they and probably others think is directly from the Kübler-Ross model - denial, anger, bargaining, depression,  acceptance (and resolution) etc.   

People say that doesn't work but it actually in my experience it's actually quite a good way of managing hard to accept things. Better than pigeon holing of Myers-Briggs anyway.

What is it with boundary problems? Are they no plans given in the deeds when you purchase the property?

SimCityAT wrote:

What is it with boundary problems? Are they no plans given in the deeds when you purchase the property?

It's really quite complicated.   There are no paper deeds in Hungary. It's the same as in Austria. Everything is in the land register.   The land register is considered definitive.

Yes there are area and plot plans but the situation on the ground may be different.  When they put in the fences 40+ years ago, they put them in the wrong position.  Which means our land is on the other side of the fence and we have less m2 than we should have.  The previous owner didn't bother presumably or had neither the means or knowledge to do something about it.  These days, we've got GPS, so we can measure to down to cm easily.   

There's a small issue of taxes too - we pay our land taxes based on property area. However, we are effectively paying for the land size on the plans not the reality.  That means the neighbour is getting free land subsidised by us. It's not much money of course but it's hardly fair.  Moreover, if we had failed to get our land back, I'd have sued the buggers for land taxes I'd paid for land I didn't have rights too.   

See where I'm going?

We know that strip of land is maybe worth 4K EUR possibly?  So we'd be down 4K EUR if we sold the place and possibly in bother over the sales contract - pay for Xm2 of land, receive X-y m2.  We've been conned!

For planning purposes, our built in area is 20% of the land area.  In extreme example, if I had 1000m2 of land officially, I could build a house (or buildings) of 200m2.  But if I had 900m2 with 100m2 on the other side, things wouldn't be right as I'd be missing opportunity to build up to my 200m2 limit by only having 180m2 to work with.  Reason being it would almost certain end up with hassle from the building people as it would seem that I was crowding my available plot which of course would lead to questions at the land office. 

In our case, our sewer pipe runs almost parallel but under the fence as well which is very bad planning and a total blunder. 

They must have known they did it wrong but couldn't be bothered to fix it.  We reckon they solved it by swapping a couple of bottles of wine.   Unacceptable of course.

Hello All,
once again i appreciate all the input you guys have put in
so when it comes to doing electrical, water, heating, getting the building say renovated are you better off getting a trade outside of hungary

has anyone had issues extending their house going down the normal route, Architect etc

has anyone build the extension them selves

do you just get all your planning approval to upgrade your house from say 1 bedroom  to 2 bedroom normal kitchen dining room, do you go to OBI and just buy the stuff you need.

and actually another question re house buying / renovating
is it worth putting a heat pump in for spring/summer for cooling

though i am sure it wont work after the temp goes below -15

regards

petromaya wrote:

Hello All,
once again i appreciate all the input you guys have put in
so when it comes to doing electrical, water, heating, getting the building say renovated are you better off getting a trade outside of hungary

has anyone had issues extending their house going down the normal route, Architect etc

has anyone build the extension them selves

do you just get all your planning approval to upgrade your house from say 1 bedroom  to 2 bedroom normal kitchen dining room, do you go to OBI and just buy the stuff you need.

and actually another question re house buying / renovating
is it worth putting a heat pump in for spring/summer for cooling

though i am sure it wont work after the temp goes below -15

regards

Big questions.

If you build anything, you need permission and that means plans submitted to the local building office and inspected by an "architect" (actually probably just a government master builder).   You need properly done plans.  You can build stuff yourselves if you want but it's slower than getting trades in.  Not worth bringing in people from outside the country.  You just need to watch them like a hawk to make sure they aren't bodging stuff.    And watch out for "architects" as some of them (including ours) are not very good or simply don't pay attention and do stupid things. 

We have a brand new house we built ourselves and yet I find myself planning (minor) repairs already and finding people to redo stupidly designed stuff.  For some reason our repairs will be about drainage. In other posts, I've described (half jokily) that some builders in Hungary believe that water runs uphill.  Really! 

After you build, you need it inspected and you need a permit to live in the place (reality is that you can move in and do the permission afterwards) . If for example, you put in a wood burner, that needs inspecting separately by some outfit like the Ministry of Emergency Management. This isn't the Fire Brigade, it's some other lot. I forget what it's called but they come around and look. 

Be aware that some utilities - especially gas - are very fickle. It took months and months for us to get our gas pipes moved.  And we had to have special permission for the boiler, the pipes and the installer (we had 4 of them, each falling at different hurdles).  We even have a special gas pipe plan showing the outline of a building with a gas pipe drawn on it. And we had to decide on the boiler in advance as it has to be on the permissions paper.  It's all paperwork, fees and waiting. It was absolutely painful.  Oh, and they put the meter in the wrong place despite us telling them again and again. Absolute bozos.  Didn't have any problem with the cable TV, electricity or water.

You can go to OBI to get stuff but best to shop around. You can save plenty by shopping around  - even online.

The rule of thumb in the region is to have two heating sources such as electricity and gas, or electricity and wood or a heat pump and wood.  Obviously you always need electricity anyway but the point is that in the event of failure you won't freeze.   In an emergency power failure in the depths of winter, our plan (yes, it's a real plan), we all move into the living area to sleep, use the wood heating and sit in the dark.

It could be that temperatures could be below -15 C for 2-3 weeks with snow and hard frosts.  Worst I've ever seen is -23 C for about 3 weeks.  We use our heat pump for cooling as our house has bedrooms in the roof space and it's a sauna in there.  It's pretty good for heating and cooling.  It's only open air based (not with buried pipes).  It's just really large sized air-conditioners (we have two condensors - the outside part) and 6 evaporators (the inside parts).  As it's considered "green", we get a special electricity tariff.

BTW, the FIT (Feed In Tariff) for domestic solar production is not a consideration for power generation. I believe to qualify for a FIT, you need to do over 50 kW so that's industrial level.

ohhh wow fluffy you have advanced knowledge, it really really helpful,
i was looking at putting solar on but no fit doesn't really matter as long as i dont pay and electric bill i dont care,

i didn't realize getting services connected from the street to the house required so much paperwork and time compared to Australia


i was going to buy a house over and then renovate but with renovations like everything engineer / architect to do the extension and movement etc etc

you have definitely cleared up a lot of miss information out on the internet however one thing that is not clear is internet access

if a fiber cable runs past i am sure it can be connected right, however if not any wireless providers or even satellite

regards

petromaya wrote:

....

you have definitely cleared up a lot of miss information out on the internet however one thing that is not clear is internet access

if a fiber cable runs past i am sure it can be connected right, however if not any wireless providers or even satellite

regards

It depends where you are. 

As I said before, 30m away is fibre but all I can have is cable TV.  They don't have "capacity" to do the final copper part from the street box.  It's just such utter nonsense.  But we have at least cable TV and we get the internet from there instead.  Others complain about the ISP but I've never had much trouble as I know what I'm doing.  Different companies operate in different areas.

In theory you can get 4G but in my experience it's very variable and in no way comparable to cabled connections.  I have to use PAYG wireless 4G in Balaton and it's horribly (really horribly) expensive.  Hungary is really crap for 4G - even the worst places in Africa are better (usually with flat rate unlimited usage). But not here.   As others will post, National Parks are very dodgy for infrastructure telecoms wise.

I don't know anyone who uses satellite. In any case, to get that to work, you should have the downlink path on satellite and the uplink part over some other connection like the phone line which if you can get Telekom, you can probably get DSL there.

Wireless you can also get but variable coverage.   Never used it for myself.   There are some WiFi hotspots that are free but most of them never seem to work for me.

Don't believe any of the real estate agents claims on Internet services. Check yourself and ask the neighbours AND ask Telekom (do not always believe Telekom either - they told us yes, then told us no).   There's an online checking tool at Telekom but be cautious. Even that data is wrong sometimes.

Thanks for that

i was looking at SkyDSL
if i cant get cablet tv / internet i did look at the pole and it has it on it

one other question and sorry for so many questions in australia i drink water from water tanks i installed can i do the same regards

I actually do have fibre optic into the house but it is rather waffle really.

The attenuation on the cable over 3ö metres is about sodding zero in practice, you can get a 10dB or 20dB attenuator to put in between on the coax which should push it up a bit but with digital it is really not a problem, it either works or it don't. On analogue, a good attenuator at those dB tend to boost it quite nicely to give you a better signal overwell far more than 30m, it will do it out to about 500m over good coaxial copper.

I have a feeling once again fluffy thinks he knows what he is talking about, whereas I actually know what I am talking about. I did RF engineering for many years. That is why my signals are clean and do not bounce despite the crap I get in from the street cabinet

Fluffy, if you do not know what you are talking about, don't pretend you know what you are talking about. That is just being Hungarian. I do know what I am talking about.

Don't get one person's advice seems to be the finish of the thread. If you trust fluffy all your new electrics will be in the wrong colours cos that is acceptable, all your coax and fibre optic will be well fuck knows,seems to me fluffy is a bit of a cowboy builder whereas I do things properly. Sorry to say it fluffy but all the evidence is you fucking bodge the fucking lot rather than doing it properly do don't go handing your advice to others.

Simon Trew chartered engineer (CEng), I have a fucking duty as a chartered engineer to point out when someone is recommending bodge jobs. That is part of the fucking duty of being a chartered engineer. he isn't, I am.

Simon on your opinion what is your advise regarding fibre / or hybrid fibre coax i have seen them on the pole going past the house im looking at buying and its its not available i was going to go satellite

SimonTrew wrote:

I actually do have fibre optic into the house but it is rather waffle really.

The attenuation on the cable over 3ö metres is about sodding zero in practice, you can get a 10dB or 20dB attenuator to put in between on the coax which should push it up a bit but with digital it is really not a problem, it either works or it don't. On analogue, a good attenuator at those dB tend to boost it quite nicely to give you a better signal overwell far more than 30m, it will do it out to about 500m over good coaxial copper.

I have a feeling once again fluffy thinks he knows what he is talking about, whereas I actually know what I am talking about. I did RF engineering for many years. That is why my signals are clean and do not bounce despite the crap I get in from the street cabinet

Fluffy, if you do not know what you are talking about, don't pretend you know what you are talking about. That is just being Hungarian. I do know what I am talking about.

I don't know what you think you are saying there but either you don't read things properly or I'm really bad at describing stuff. 

There's a multiplexer in the street cabinet and then it goes onto copper to the consumer premises.  That's how it's distributed from the street cabinet.  What I am saying is that the morons at Telekom do not have the physical cables in the ground or on the poles to go from the street box to the individual houses and moreover they don't want to do anything about it.  That's why I cannot get Telekom service in my street.

Bugger all to do with signal strength.

petromaya wrote:

Thanks for that

i was looking at SkyDSL
if i cant get cablet tv / internet i did look at the pole and it has it on it

one other question and sorry for so many questions in australia i drink water from water tanks i installed can i do the same regards

G'day.

I've used satellite networking in projects delivering services into remote areas in places like Africa and island nations.  I would say it works pretty good for Internet.  But of course, there has to be a "but".  Apart from the expense and the lack of competitive flat rate pricing, the "but" is the delay/latency.  The signal has to go up to the satellite and back down again which adds about 2 seconds to the round trip. For things like Skype or any kind of telephony, these delays are at the edge of acceptability.  For ordinary surfing, it works well enough as they can buffer data to even out delays.   In relatively rare instances, the weather can get you - a snow storm can cut you off.

Satellite is very much a fallback position.  Nearly everywhere is cabled here - it's a small country - but you will find  patches underserved. My own street being one of them.

Much of this goes back to utilities - if you have a house that already has a phone connection (and it's working), then the chances are you can have broadband.  How fast it is depends on the distance to the exchange and/or the street cabinet and if Telekom or someone is capable of delivering.   

Just to make sure certain other contributors understand what I said previously, we have cables for phone at our house - I can see the cable in the ground outside and the cable sticking out of our wall. But as I said, Telekom there's no capacity (spare slots) at the street cabinet to  physically connect their Telekom network to our house.  So our phone cable remains unused.  However, on the street lamp, there's a cable TV distribution system, so our alternative was to have Internet and phone via the cable TV.   It works fine although earlier on, we had problems with their crappy unconfigurable modem routers (we have far better equipment than they supply by default).

Regarding your water, you don't need tanks unless you really want them. As far as I know, everyone has mains water everywhere and unlike Australia, there's no shortage.  It rains a fair bit even though it's hot in the summer (it's not "Australia" hot).   You can even have a well if you want but you need to have the water tested for drinking and you need a license to extract more than 6m3 a day (here we do anyway).   

Water has been a recurrent subject here for a while - I myself intend to install a couple of water tanks to store rainwater runoff from my outbuilding.  It's  being "green" for the garden and the animals. I'm not intending to drink it. 

Others will contribute on water.

SimonTrew wrote:

Don't get one person's advice seems to be the finish of the thread. If you trust fluffy all your new electrics will be in the wrong colours cos that is acceptable, all your coax and fibre optic will be well fuck knows,seems to me fluffy is a bit of a cowboy builder whereas I do things properly. Sorry to say it fluffy but all the evidence is you fucking bodge the fucking lot rather than doing it properly do don't go handing your advice to others.

Simon Trew chartered engineer (CEng), I have a fucking duty as a chartered engineer to point out when someone is recommending bodge jobs. That is part of the fucking duty of being a chartered engineer. he isn't, I am.

Get out the wrong side of bed Simon?   Let's not get unnecessarily wound up.  You should turn off the computer, have a cup of tea, bit of breakfast, walk about a bit and calm down.  You don't know anything about me or what I do nor do you know my qualifications.   

Let's just objectively help the guy with his house purchase with our HU experiences. He can make his own decisions out there in Woop-Woop*..

* that's supposed to be funny.   Hungary has many of it's own Woop-Woops.

fluffy2560 wrote:

What I am saying is that the morons at Telekom do not have the physical cables in the ground or on the poles to go from the street box to the individual houses and moreover they don't want to do anything about it.

I assure you that those morons would be thrilled to have you as a subscriber, but currently it's not economical for them to build out the required infrastructure and there are lower hanging fruits.

More likely, that the house I bought is a right fixer-upper and I constantly have to go around checking wiring etc and gas and water and that because they got professionals in who do what professionals do, i.e. cut corners when you are not looking. I bought a fixer-upper and so I knew I had to fix it up, but it is like peeling layers off an onion. you say things like oh get it all rewired, well I have not the money for that and anyway they probably STILL would not wire it up to standard, I would do a better and safer job. Almost any job except gas I will do myself - gas is in theory simple but if I get it wrong not just me but the whole street gets blown up, so I just will not touch it, I am not competent. Water if you get it wrong, you get a drip or something and you fix it, with gas you will not know until the whole bloody place blows up.

So perhaps yeah I am a bit grumpy because of that. any two-minute job around here turns into hours while I have to unwind the crap that the previous owners, or the previous previous owners, did.

Maybe also because the chap across the street is selling his house/plot and asked us to take pictures and so on for it to put on the internet, lovely fellow, older guy just has never used or had the internet and wanted it on the internet obviously to attract interest. We did that for him took all the pictures and did the descriptions in Hungarian and English, put them on some websites. His place is fine but, for example, he has a gas boiler but bottled gas in the kitchen, you think hang on that is going to be a surprise, why did you not run a gas line. There are things like that you have to be wary of when you inspect a house. I knew what I was getting into, because I am eagle-eyed and flick on every light switch and turn on every tap etc as I am going around viewing, well actually i tend to let the missus keep them busy talking while I go round and see what's what.

we had a couple of peculiar ones, someone wanted to sell but keep hold of the cellar to put their stuff in. Er, no, you sell us the whole property, not can we then keep stuff in the cellar, no you can't. People who only want to sell half the property seems to be very common then you have a nightmare with the deeds. Oh. I want to keep this bit. Then why did you not separate it on the deed before you came to market, you have now just wasted my time because it is false advertising essentially. Look, I want a place of my own, not a place of nearly-my-own.

Buying a house in Hungary is just a bloody nightmare, then you find that the various companies have attached debts to the deeds, this is very common if you don't pay your bills, so you end up paying off the gas company and the electric company and water company and so on I think we had about twelve attachments we had to pay off from the previous owners, and one was really hard to get off, it wasn't a lot of money but the company had changed hands so to find out who the h- we actually now owe the money to, to pay them, took ages. That is usually a couple of day-trips while you go round their offices to pay in the money in cash and get a receipt, back to the lawyer etc, which is OK in Budapest but is a nightmare if you live out in the sticks.

So certainly make sure that the person selling has no attachment of debt to the property. We did know, because the sellers were next door to bankruptcy and it was part of the deal for us to settle all the outstanding attachments, but it is very very common that property owners let a bill slide and it then goes on the property and is a right sod to sort out when you come to sell/buy if you didn't know it was there.

Also make sure what fixtures and fittings are going to be left there as it is the usual case people strip out most of them,. they are not included in the price. My sellers went to the lengths of taking off light switches which seems a bit extreme.

SimCityAT wrote:

What is it with boundary problems? Are they no plans given in the deeds when you purchase the property?

None of my deeds came with a property map. I had to get maps special from the land office. And that costs money. Heaven forbid anyone actually spends a bit of money for a map! I am the only person I know who actually has maps of my property. Even so, the maps are rather tiny and pretty useless for real on the ground details. But they are a starting point. For example, all my properties are bizarre shapes. Not squares. Not even simple trapezoids. They have weird angles here and there. And houses walls are built straight. So someone just puts in a straight fence or hedge row parallel to their house wall (as just one example that happened to me). But that property line was not straight and the fence crosses over to someone else's (i.e. my) property. Mostly, because the prior neighbors who sold me the property also have no clue where their property lines are, there is no issue or conflict. It is when we expats come in with our fancy ideas of exactness when all heck starts to break loose.  Well, I do admit I was a bit annoyed by that, as it was over 30 sq m, which is not a trivial amount of space to me, among other issues.  

As already said, it is complicated.