Budapest: Getting rid of a Bt. to become private owners of an apartment

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Pest

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My wife and I bought a lovely apartment in Budapest V in 2006. At the time we were advised to set up a company (Bt) in order to make the purchase. We did this and all went well. We use the apartment solely for our own use to visit this beautiful city.

This Bt. (company) has been very expensive - quarterly accountancy fees (despite no income nor outgoings), Governmental fees and taxes, solicitors fees, bank charges etc. We pay all this from our current account as we have no Hungarian income.

We seem to be paying for a 'company' that we simply did not and do not want. We would like to get rid of this Bt. and simply own the apartment as private individuals as we are looking at ways to simplify the situation as well as decrease our yearly costs. We think that this is our best option but are open to advice.

Has anyone else had experience of this and could advise us on the implications and indeed costs?
 
Unfortunately there was no need to set up a company to buy the property - particularly if you had no plans to buy any more (in which case, it might make sense in terms of expenses, etc.). You would need to sell it from the company to you and your wife as private people which would mean paying stamp duty again and legal fees.
 
Thanks for answering budapest.

Do you know if there is any way that we can reduce this cost as we seem to have been somewhat stung by this bad advice - it's cost us thousands over the years. It seems unfair that we have to pay stamp duty twice - we're guessing that this is 4% of the value of the apartment?

For example, can the company 'give' the apartment to us to repay our loans to it - we have effectively loaned the company every forint - can we not simply ask the company to repay us and walk away? Or, can we not sell it to ourselves for a very low price?

Secondly, failing this, how do we value the apartment for sale to calculate the stamp duty? It has almost certainly lost value and will be worth less than when we bought it (we're guessing at a premium). It is in our interest to get a low valuation.
 
You can potentially be pursued if you sell at a value lower than 'market value'. However, market value can be relatively low nowadays.

Bear in mind too that if the value is too low, you may have a much higher CGT tax bill in the future - assuming of course that you stay in Ireland and assuming that it increases in value. (There won't be a CGT bill in Hungary necessarily - but there would be in Ireland).

(P.S. This isn't legal advice. Just giving you my experience).
 
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