Tomorrow we will hit another milestone with just 3 weeks till our day of departure. Having missed yesterday out, I thought that I better try and write something on my page today as I want the readers who have taken the trouble to read my notes so far, to keep returning especially for the main event the holiday itself.
As I have mentioned before, the summertime in Lapland is a little unknown to us, so for now i'm going to return to discussing some of the winter activities available in the resort of Akaslompolo, Yllas where our log cabin is located. Firstly, I must mention that I have also been replying to a few queries people have posted about the region on some of the Lapland discussion forums and I wish to cover some of the points they have raised.
I will start with some details for people wishing to travel independently to the region as most people opt for tour operator packages. I will start with flights to the region firstly, and say that these can be purchased through companies such as Finnair, Inghams, Ski Flights Direct, Monarch and Blue 1 and usually range between about £175 and £300 per person dependent on the route that you want and where you wish to arrive. Now I wish to mention cabin rentals, hotels and availability. In the resort of Yllas, there are a couple of hotels and many cabins to choose from and we even rent our own cabin out through agents in the resort. For those of you that may be interested, please email me at info@chooselapland.com
It is located just 500 metres from shops and ski bus and and has two bedrooms plus an extra loft bedroom (that for some reason in Finland they don't class as a bedroom) and it sleeps 6 people. It is fully furnished with everything that you need for a self catering break and also has a sauna and log burner (with a plentiful supply of logs) so that you can make the perfect fire for the family to sit around on those cold winter nights. Bookings start on a sunday and are for 7 nights and prices range between 960 and 1500 euros (including linen) for the week. With many tour operators charging close on a £1000 per person with little or no reduction for children, for a 3 night 4 day trip , i'm sure you'll agree that in comparison, our accommodation for around £1000 maximum (split between 6 people) and for 7 nights, represents great value for money. Also, all of the things you can do on an organised tour such as snowmobiles, husky dog sleigh rides, reindeer sleigh rides, skiing, snowboarding etc. etc.. are bookable locally and you'll receive a lot better value for money than buying these through the tour operators. For more information on the resort and our cabin, please visit our website at www.chooselapland.com
Finally, i'll wrap up by saying that this isn't going to be an ongoing sales pitch to get visitors and enquiries for my cabin and it will be the one and only mention I make of it being available, unless someone specifically asks me to post details on here about it in the future.
Over the next few postings, I will talk more about my family and what we are each looking forward to doing when in resort unless I think of something else to write in the meantime or until someone asks me to cover something specific.
That's all folks and please keep reading!
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Return to Lapland
After two consecutive days of incomprehensible ramblings and the fact that i've finally found time to think about what to write, I am today going to return to the subject of Lapland and continue the theme of what this blog was intended to be about.
My subject matter for today is about the purchase process from start to finish and how I see that our experience has differed from so many of the horror stories that i've heard and read about people and their overseas property investments. Firtsly, when I started looking for a property, I was advised to allow approximately 15-20% in addition to the purchase price to take care of all the incidentals such as solicitors fees, currency fluctuations, taxes in the country of purchase etc etc... and from some friends and acquaintances who I know have purchased have heard the real costs to be much higher in several instances. Try to imagine for a moment the possible increase in cost of a property on sale for approximately 200,000 Euros, i'm sure you can see that another 30 -40,000 Euros would for some people be the difference between making the decision to purchase and not.
Moving on, I am now going to detail the process for our purchase, firstly, we agreed a sale price for the cabin that was just short of 200,000 Euros including a sum for the furniture pack. We then sent an initial deposit to the seller of 2500 Euros and this secured the purchase for us (Our bank charge for this payment was £14 GBP). Next we appointed a Finnish Solicitor based in London in the UK who looked over our contract and mortgage (provided by Nordea Bank in Finland) and advised us accordingly. As we did this in conjunction with a friend, this cost us approximately £1320 GBP (It is probably fair to say that if we had acted entirely on our own then this would probably have been double). Next we had to pay a couple of small charges to Nordea Bank for arranging the mortgage loan but these amounted to no more than 200 Euros. Once the contract had been agreed, we had to make one large transfer payment (the balance of the monies not covered by the mortgage) to the seller and we did this through a currency conversion company in the UK and for getting the funds to them instantly, our UK bank charge for this was £25 GBP. Finally, the last stage of the process was to pay the property tax in Finland (a grand total of 1.6% of the property price, excluding the cost of the furniture pack) this cost us another 2824 Euros.
After calculating the costs of all the above, I would estimate that in addition to the purchase price of 189,000 Euros, we actually paid an additional 5000 Euros for taking care of all the incidentals. After the advice we had received prior to purchase, the fact that our incidentals only came to around an extra 3% suggests to me that we got a great deal by purchasing in Finland as opposed to making a purchase in one of the more popular european destinations. That's not to say that Finland or Lapland in particular is for everyone!
Purcahse Partners
Before finishing up, I want to make a few mentions of the partners used in the purchasing process as they were all of great assistance and support to us. They are all most definitely worthy of a mention as they played vital roles in making the purchase process run smoothly for us and they proved that the Finns can be trusted in these matters. Furthermore, they also enhanced their reputation with us that Finland is the least corrupt country in the world.
http://www.gmrlaw.com/ For Finnish legal advice (Practice based in London)
http://www.nordea.fi/ Bank for arranging mortgages in Finland (Best online banking facility around)
http://www.worldwidecurrencies.com/ For international currency conversions (great rates and service)
Finally, if there is anything specific that anyone wants to know about purchasing in Finland or about purchasing in any other destinations for that matter (we have many partners who can help find your dream investment) please get in touch and i'll try and help. For more information on our cabin check out the following site http://www.chooselapland.com
My subject matter for today is about the purchase process from start to finish and how I see that our experience has differed from so many of the horror stories that i've heard and read about people and their overseas property investments. Firtsly, when I started looking for a property, I was advised to allow approximately 15-20% in addition to the purchase price to take care of all the incidentals such as solicitors fees, currency fluctuations, taxes in the country of purchase etc etc... and from some friends and acquaintances who I know have purchased have heard the real costs to be much higher in several instances. Try to imagine for a moment the possible increase in cost of a property on sale for approximately 200,000 Euros, i'm sure you can see that another 30 -40,000 Euros would for some people be the difference between making the decision to purchase and not.
Moving on, I am now going to detail the process for our purchase, firstly, we agreed a sale price for the cabin that was just short of 200,000 Euros including a sum for the furniture pack. We then sent an initial deposit to the seller of 2500 Euros and this secured the purchase for us (Our bank charge for this payment was £14 GBP). Next we appointed a Finnish Solicitor based in London in the UK who looked over our contract and mortgage (provided by Nordea Bank in Finland) and advised us accordingly. As we did this in conjunction with a friend, this cost us approximately £1320 GBP (It is probably fair to say that if we had acted entirely on our own then this would probably have been double). Next we had to pay a couple of small charges to Nordea Bank for arranging the mortgage loan but these amounted to no more than 200 Euros. Once the contract had been agreed, we had to make one large transfer payment (the balance of the monies not covered by the mortgage) to the seller and we did this through a currency conversion company in the UK and for getting the funds to them instantly, our UK bank charge for this was £25 GBP. Finally, the last stage of the process was to pay the property tax in Finland (a grand total of 1.6% of the property price, excluding the cost of the furniture pack) this cost us another 2824 Euros.
After calculating the costs of all the above, I would estimate that in addition to the purchase price of 189,000 Euros, we actually paid an additional 5000 Euros for taking care of all the incidentals. After the advice we had received prior to purchase, the fact that our incidentals only came to around an extra 3% suggests to me that we got a great deal by purchasing in Finland as opposed to making a purchase in one of the more popular european destinations. That's not to say that Finland or Lapland in particular is for everyone!
Purcahse Partners
Before finishing up, I want to make a few mentions of the partners used in the purchasing process as they were all of great assistance and support to us. They are all most definitely worthy of a mention as they played vital roles in making the purchase process run smoothly for us and they proved that the Finns can be trusted in these matters. Furthermore, they also enhanced their reputation with us that Finland is the least corrupt country in the world.
http://www.gmrlaw.com/ For Finnish legal advice (Practice based in London)
http://www.nordea.fi/ Bank for arranging mortgages in Finland (Best online banking facility around)
http://www.worldwidecurrencies.com/ For international currency conversions (great rates and service)
Finally, if there is anything specific that anyone wants to know about purchasing in Finland or about purchasing in any other destinations for that matter (we have many partners who can help find your dream investment) please get in touch and i'll try and help. For more information on our cabin check out the following site http://www.chooselapland.com
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