Credit in the straight world 👑
In this episode, I answer Croatia questions about:
➡️ Which bureaus run credit checks?
➡️ How can we connect with other active seniors?
➡️ What are the tax benefits of renting accommodation through a company?
➡️ Why do I pay a holiday home tax?
➡️ Can a minor drive in Croatia with a foreign driver’s license?
⭐️ PLUS ⭐️
Lawyer Tip of the Week:
How to defend yourself with police
Every Friday at 5 o’clock Croatia time, I answer 5 questions from YOU about Croatia.
Want to see your question answered in a future episode? Drop your question below in the comments.
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Hey bks s p talk happy Friday I am Sarah vexp and Croatia and this is five question Friday every Friday at 5:00 ctia time I answer five questions about Catia that people have sent in on Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn xat andrea.com emails my Consulting sessions Cam’s Consulting sessions and people who
Stand in front of my window and hold a boom box in the air I love you k yeah so we’ve got five wonderful questions today uh we also have our loyer tip of the week which is a new segment that we’re going to be doing and
If you have any questions in real time drop them in the comments and I’ll answer them I love surprises so I have a few things to share with you today before we get started with the questions last Sunday I went and spent the day in tro gear it was super warm and
Lovely my my friend who does not like to be named so I will not uh is a very interesting tour guide he has a completely different approach to history kind of really digs into the details and if I’m being honest I’m a little ashamed because I’ve not spent a
Whole lot of time in tro gear split it’s very easy to think that split is the center of the universe when you live in split and even though tro is like 30 minutes away I have been there less than five times in 12 years so this was a really nice opportunity to
Actually spend some time there and kind of look around at all the historical stuff and they’ve got some pretty special things there I put up a ton of pictures on our stories I hope you got a glimpse of those uh I also want to say that I ran
Into a fan while I was there so shout out to Kelo uh ran into him on as we were leaving and uh he said I saw you were going to be in trure today and I was like oh cool hey so really nice to meet you Kelo uh okay what’s next what’s next
What’s next uh oh yeah we have a cool thing that’s going to happen soon two weeks from today we are going to have a live five question Friday in person so myself and split Tech City and Michael Freer frequent flyer over here at five question Friday we are doing a
Big collab in person so what we will do is have five question Friday at smart space which is a co-work in split and I’m going to be interviewing them about startups and Tech and investment in Croatia it’s going to be Mega fun you can come and hang out and
Ask questions or just watch and then right after that split Tech city is hosting this series that they have been doing for a long time called locals and Nomads where uh Nomads get a chance or not Nomads but foreigners get a chance to meet locals meet people who are from
Here people that have lived here a long time so that meet it’s going to happen immediately after and we’re going to do a mock five question Friday that’s going to be focused on digital Nomads now that phrase is not one of my favorite uh and I that’s for a variety
Of reasons one reason that I’m going to share with you today is because you know there we have this digital Nomad permit but are you really nomadic if you are living here for a year not really so in this context it applies to digital Nomads who maybe are here for a short
Period of time it also refers to anyone who would who feels like they fall into that bucket that works remotely you know or is interested in Tech or really just wants to come and hang out and meet some cool people so there’s actually going to be five question Friday times
Too uh only one of them will be here on Instagram but uh if you want to come and join us that’s going to be a smart space in two weeks we will definitely put up more promotions on the channel so that you can be reminded but everyone is
Invited so I hope to meet you there uh next also uh I have mentioned on a number of occasions that I’m part of this forum business Owners Association here in split and we are doing a fundraiser for UDA Dom in March and I’m not going to go into all the
Details right now of what we’re going to be doing I just want to give you the highlights because it is like still five six weeks away but just to like drop a bug in your ear so we’re doing a bake sale and our members and then other
People that we kind of gather from split we’re all going to bake some baked Goods with lots and lots of love and flour and sell them in also in front of smart space to raise money for UGA Domin which is my favorite UGA here they’re very
Near and dear to my heart and we expat ctia did a fundraiser for them a few years ago but they advocate for women’s rights inequality and also do a predominantly support for victims of domestic violence so we will be in uh expat and cral will be in cooperation with the forign business Owners
Association doing this fundraiser and I hope all of you will give something or at least come and buy one of my cookies I’m going to bake lots of stuff I’m super excited about it so that’s it we’re going to go ahead and dive into the questions
Now and if you have a question right now you can always drop it in the comments and I’ll answer it for you here live uh I don’t know I’ve kind of lost my tree all a sudden it’s Friday and I’m a bit giggly okay this one comes from cat here on
Instagram would you know what bureaus run credit checks in Croatia so I am going to make an assumption here about this question I don’t know if I’m right but uh for context I think it’s important I am from the United States and in the United States uh if you do
Not have good credit your life is destroyed it really prevents you from doing a lot of things like you can’t get a rental contract if you have bad credit it’s hard to get a job uh you can’t get a mobile phone you can’t get internet like
They really hold you back if you don’t have good credit in the states it’s big business to have good credit in the states and we have three credit bureaus there TransUnion Experian and the other one I don’t know but they are private companies and you can pay them to run a
Uh credit check a credit report you can also pay credit card companies and other services to monitor your credit and like lock down your credit so that nobody else can do anything with it so because she said bureaus I presume that that cat is from the US maybe not
I’m not familiar with the Credit Systems in other parts of the world just Croatia and the us but I wanted to set that context in case it didn’t wasn’t clear to anybody what she was referring to thankfully Croatia credit system is nothing like that it’s much more simple
And Humane uh so we don’t have credit bureaus here we don’t have private companies that manage credit like in that kind of sense to track credit what we do have is Banks and banks are the only ones who do credit checks and they only do credit checks when you’re trying to get
Credit that’s it you don’t have your credit check when you’re trying to get an apartment not buying not renting not when you’re trying to get a job not when you’re trying to get a phone or Internet there’s it’s it’s not it’s not it’s not a thing you don’t have to pay
To protect your credit actually identity theft is not really a thing here they uh so so yeah there’s no there’s no Bureau that that does that uh I do want to read this one thing to you that uh my colleague Daniela summarized so nicely
So I I can’t do I will I would butcher it if I tried to memorize it so in Croatia Banks Define their own conditions for determining the credit worthiness of loan applicants which can vary by nationality resident status and source of income creation versus foreign that matters in addition to the amount of
Income and existing assets so we have a few things we can send you about the credit system if you would like to know more there is a calculator for a credit check uh which we can send you that’s third party that’s not ours and then we have three guides so one how credit
Works in Croatia so we kind of go over the entire credit system in Greater detail we have a bank comparison of the seven largest banks and that also will show you the pricing and how many what their um what their services are were how many ATMs they have because some of
The banks are like everywhere like P and then some banks are not as um common in different part of the country like for example I have AA I love AA I cannot recommend AA enough but AA does not have a huge concentration in Split but it does up in Rea in istria I
Love going up there they’re fake everywhere it’s amazing uh and then we also have a post about who can get a home loan in Croatia so we called 15 banks in this case and we asked them what their rules were for consider considering applicants because some applicants they can only be croatians
And some will consider um everybody and uh some will only consider Creation in EU and it’s so it’s important to know and with with foreigners like um Third Country Nationals uh you have to have permanent residents we have not seen a case yet where they’ve considered somebody without permanent residence and
The rules have just gotten harder since Croatia entered the shenen I don’t completely understand why shenen made things more difficult for some reason uh it’s also made it more difficult to even open up a bank account I know I’m go going off in a tangent but
It really feels kind of valuable so you can tell me it was not but um we have seen some changes so now the banks like really want you to have some kind of valid proof that you need a bank account like you’re going to be paid a salary into that bank
Account because you don’t need a bank account to buy a home here you don’t need a bank account to rent an apartment so if you don’t have a salary going into one they’re they’re really circumspect about that um and it’s been very hard for people to do to open up bank accounts
Lately the other thing one more thing and then I will move on I promise uh it’s also harder for Third Country Nationals who are opening a business to get a bank account so you usually be able to do that like in a couple of days and now it’s like two months cuz they
Asked for so many more documents in fact we have clients that are using our lawyers because to navigate that bank process because it’s very involved very very involved okay we are going to move on now thank you so much cat for that question allowing me to go off on a tangent I
Love tangents okay so this next one is from Barbara and Richard uh they came in through a Consulting session uh with I think cam but we are very outdoorsy active and social seniors how can we connect with other like-minded retirees like biking hiking clubs in Croatia excellent question we have not answered
This before so there are lots of options croati is very Community oriented so there are options both on the foreign as well as the creation side and even if you don’t speak creation joining the creation ones can work out sometimes you know that’s how you meet Creations one way that you can meet
Creations uh okay so they can join senior clubs and can go on activities organized by uh gerentology probably in creation of the gentology centers and projects financed by the EU but there also expats in the Facebook groups there are tons of expat groups I mean like seeven at least 70 expat groups on
Facebook uh not all focused on seniors but there are seniors and usually all of those groups we do have a post that has every single expat group on it so if you would like that shoot us a DM we will send it over to you that also includes the book club that I
Moderate and uh I’m also in a writer group here in Split that’s on there too and also I moderate the Americans in Croatia Facebook group uh there a lot of Facebook groups uh the advice from my team is the best best way for seniors to meet is to Simply strike up a
Conversation uh in my experience seniors are in Croatia are very talkative you know and easy to make friends with them there is going to be are going to be some people who um you know if their creation they they may hesitate because of language but not everybody
Will uh okay so we’ve got the expats group oh oh oh there is it’s not an X group it’s a it’s an event within an expat group it’s uh in Split they have a 50 plus group that I’m kind of jealous I’m not 50 plus it sounds like it’s a great group of
People they always show up they go on excursions I I’m in a lot of groups with people who are in that group and it sounds super fun so I would I would recommend that we have the direct link to one of the events they post it every week they meet at the
Exact same same time so it’s in the expats meet split group that’s under events you’ll always see them but we can send you a link if you’d like it there’s also something called clubbe pensionary I I butchered that pronunciation butchered but that’s that’s not a natural thing for me to say right
Now uh so they have those all over the country depending on where you want to settle and then there’s a list of Clubs uh which we can send you there’s a recreation for seniors that’s kind of on the nose I think so yeah oh there’s also the mountaineering club which I would
Actually like to do myself I love hiking around here it’s one of the best things to do all right so we have three posts for you on this one enrich your life in Croatia how to get to know croatians uh my colleague colleague Maria are at Chief she wrote that oh actually she
Wrote all three of these so we also have two post how to uh understand the creation culture Parts one and two those are really really nice articles I enjoyed reading those uh okay now we’re ready for our lawyer tip of the week which is the second week that we are
Doing this I had proposed it to our head lawyer and I wasn’t sure what she was going to say about it and then she got really Giddy and was like yes here are five so we are going to be doing this every week now uh this is a direct quote from
Her if you are contacted held or arrested for anything criminal never speak a word a word before your lawyer arrives you are entitled to a lawyer from the first question defend yourself with silence I thought that was great advice I mean I know what the Bill of Rights
Are for the US they’re kind of hammered into us from the moment that we’re born but as far as knowing what the creation equivalent is I think most of us foreigners don’t have any idea so it’s good to know what your rights are in these situations even if
You never think you’re going to get in that situation and most likely you will not but it is important to know what your rights are because sometimes crazy stuff happens and life can be surprising you never know so thank you to her for that uh we have had
Very very rarely but of course like I said sometimes things happen and we have been contacted on very very few occasions where people needed criminal help and uh yeah they just they needed they needed assistance and yeah so we’ve done that before it’s very rare but it
Happens okay so next our third question this comes from Rada on the five question Friday form I am an American citizen in the process for applying for cretian citizenship are there any tax or free benefits to renting the Villa through the do since that is the entity that owns The
Villa excellent question a doo is an LLC in case you do not know so the only benefit to O to using a doo to rent out an accommodation is if from a tax perspective is that you can deduct your expenses when you’re doing it as an individual you can’t deduct your
Expenses so you just kind of absorb that and it come so uh so yeah so that’s what that would be the benefit but you have to understand that there’s also cost associate just with running a doo you know you have to have an accountant you have to file taxes um after a certain
Amount of income you have to be in the vat system which stinks there are there’s more costs so with a if you can rent it as an individual then you should but the thing to keep in mind is only catian citizens and EU citizens can rent accommodation as
Individuals so if you are Third Country National you can’t do that which means you have to open up a company and if you don’t already have the right to work then you end up down that rabbit hole of hiring three full-time Creations it’s a lot to navigate it’s a
Lot to navigate so let’s return to Rada so Rada is currently US citizens which US citizen which means that they cannot uh do it as an individual so their only option would be a company in this case so we have guides on how to let out accommodation how to open up an Albert
Which is uh one form of self-employment and then how to open up an LLC types of businesses uh things to know before opening up a creation company and we can always put you in touch with a taxx adviser if that’s something that you need I highly recommend it if you’re
Doing business in Croatia you have to have a lawyer and you have to have an accountant and um I would say generally speaking anyone who’s living in Croatia at some point or another they’re going to be in a situation where they have to do that it’s uh it’s just it’s super
Common they save your life uh okay so the next question comes from Lynette on email I have been residing on schulta island in my own property on a permanent basis for 5 years and have paid holiday tax when I brought this up at my local Council in grot where I pay they said
That even though I was a permanent residents I resident I still had to pay as I was a non-citizen I have been issued bills every year in the month of May my electricity and water bills are proof that I reside here permanently so Croatia has a tax on second
Homes uh vacation home tax so owners of Holiday Homes have to pay a tax of between like 60 cents and 5 per square meter and that amount is determined by the local government it’s not based on nationality it is based on residents so too often people at the government
Will use use well you’re not Croatian as a reason for things uh when they’re just assuming that that’s the right answer some sometimes it is and sometimes it is not so how does creti know uh how often you use your home well it goes by your registered address so catian citizens EU
Citizens permanent Third Country Nationals they can have two addresses they can have a permit and they can have a temporary but not everyone has that option Third Country Nationals don’t have that option and if you are a catian citizen that lives abroad you don’t have that option you only have the
One so that’s how they determine it is whether or not you have a permanent address or you have a temporary address and that’s all based on residence permit or citizenship so in this case Lynette says that she’s a permanent resident so that means that she would be living fulltime
Year round on shter and if that’s the case and she’s being charged as tax she should not be being charged as tax that would not be right so I would say in her case going and trying to rebuild records of her travel in combination with her utility
Bills which she said she already tried to give them she needs to dispute it and if not then that’s when I would get a lawyer involved or use some kind of connection to try and sort that out because that I mean why pay a tax that you don’t
Know so it all depends on how long she’s here each year and that’s something I don’t know so we have a post about all the taxes that you could possibly pay in Croatia so if you would like that let us know it has all the rates and all the different
Taxes and uh yeah they very by very granular situations all right so this is our last question question I think yes yes uh Anonymous on a Consulting call our oldest uh our oldest will be able to get his US driver’s license before we move with this would he be able to drive our
Car in Croatia even if he’s not 18 I’m surprised that we have not gotten this one yet if I’m being honest uh in America we drive very young I had my driver’s license when I was 16 so if I was coming to Catia with my family would
I be able to exchange my driver’s license because people with foreign driver’s license can exchange their driver’s licenses so this is a really natural question so a foreign driver’s license for driving a D1 or DC category motor vehicle but will not be recognized for persons under 24 for c21 C1 and B what
Does all that mean like um C category I believe is the one for driver’s licenses so they need to be 21 to be able to drive that’s the bare minimum and B categor is 18 which I think is like scooters so that’s the answer unfortunately in this case we do have a
Source and that’s from mop so we go straight to the source on some things uh we also have a guide on how to exchange uh driver’s licenses foreign driver’s licenses and also all of the driver categories so that you know what they are and how long you can get a license for each
Okay I uh stick and fork in me I am done I am done this was a great week I got so much done I really loved it and now I’m going to rest and tomorrow I’m supposed to go to m Cara ex except it’s going to
Be uh raining all day and there’s going to be some serious youo why not drive down the coast uh thanks so much for being here this has been five question Friday I am Sarah byebye V