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Monday, 18 July 2011

Buying a property in South Africa

If you are not a South African and want to buy a property here there are some requirements for immigration. When buying a property for commercial purposes in the tourism industry in South-Africa there are the following requirements:

  • Investment required of R2.500.000.
  • Employ 5 South-African citizens.
  • Apply for a business-permit (so the owners can also work in their own business).
  • Apply for a resident-permit. SA will first give out a temporary residence.
  • Submit a business, marketing and financial – plan.
  • Submit the required applications for immigration – to acquire at your local embassy or consulate.
Investment of 2.5 million rand
One can add all costs made

to find and acquire the property (air tickets, car hire, and accommodation). Also all the tools, camera’s, computers, kitchen appliances one brings into South-Africa can be valued for an amount and add to come to the R2.500.00,=

5 SA residents
One must employ 5 South-African citizens.

Business permit
More information can be found on the website of
Home Affairs.

Resident permit
A temporary residence permit will be issued for 2 or sometimes even 4 years, After this one must apply for a permanent residence permit. Do this in time since it can take over a year to get the permit. Sometimes Home Affairs issues an extension for another 2 years.

Business-plan
Together with the application for immigration one must submit a business plan. This should contain a marketing, financial and business – plan. All bank statements and financials must be audited by a Chartered Accountant of South-Africa (we used Price Waterhouse Coopers South-Africa who have a branch in the Netherlands
http://www.pwc.com/ ).

Application
From the local embassy (or consulate) one can acquire the application-forms. To submit your application it has to go through the embassy of SA in the applicable country.

General information
Intergate (http://www.intergate-immigration.com/index.php) is an organisation who assists in applying for business and resident-permits.

A bank from overseas will normally not grant a loan to buy a property in South-Africa. I had this already with 3 potential buyers from the Netherlands who wanted to secure a loan to buy a B&B / Guesthouse. The banks didn’t give a loan.

A bank requires surety and needs to know the market & economics, therefore a bank will stay with their own clients in their own country.


Regards from the bush
Corné

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