Dr. Filomena

Binula and Dr. Fil

Some of my very favourite people seem to have their birthdays very close to one another, so it’s been a sort of a birthday season lately. You guys, I love you just the way you are.

Happy birthday!

A call for homeless folks to join soccer practice…

EDIT: Adding translation and links to the mobile post

Translation:

I’m looking for homeless people interested in playing soccer according to the homeless’ rules.
Dare! (Please note: Dare is a Slovenian first name 😉 )

Sign up!
(Those who have not signed up yet)!!

Those of you who’ve signed up for soccer, please attend the practice at Poljanska road. See you on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Dare

I guess what sums this up is: Dare to change your life with Dare!

Links:

• Homeless World Cup
• Slovenian Team
• Prime Minister of Slovenia supports Homeless World Cup

One of the houses included in the new public records
(sold in 2007 by GBD Nepremičnine d.d. / GBD Real Estate)

As of Wednesday, 21 November 2007, the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia (GURS) is allowing limited public access to the Real Estate Market Records. This allows the public to monitor the actual sales prices of real estate in Slovenia for the first time.

The real estate market records have been established as a joint effort by the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning and the Ministry of Finance within the scope of the national project of development a mass real estate appraisal system.

Centrally managed public records will allow long-term systematic monitoring of real estate price trends, equal access to information for all active and potential real estate market players and market transparency.

The real estate market records will be used primarily for the purpose of:

• mass real estate appraisal;
• national statistics and real estate market analyses and research;
• supplying information to the public.

The central database of real estate market records was established on 1 January 2007 and as of 15 November 2007 includes data on approximately 39,000 legal transactions in the area of real estate.

The records are accessible through the GURS portal. The public part of the records can be found at http://prostor.gov.si/jv_etn/index.jsp

GURS will publish six-monthly reports on the development of real estate prices in Slovenia, which will allow the public to monitor property market trends. The first such report is expected to be ready and presented to the media by the end of the first quarter of 2008.

Houses Sold in Slovenia in 2005 and 2006 (Source: GURS)

Memory Lane (photo by dr. fil)
where the Rog sawmill‘s timber railway used to run

Kočevski rog covers an area of over 500 square kilometres of Karstic terrain in Southern Slovenia. Human interventions in nature have been minimal over the centuries, so that the entire area is beautifully preserved in terms of nature and bustling with wildlife, including predators extinct in most other European countries. Bears, wolves, lynx and birds of prey abound. Hey, we even export them 🙂 Three of the forests have been completely intact for centuries.

The first WW2 resistance fighter groups in the area were formed in 1941 already, with the famous Baza 20 (Base 20) set up in 1943. Wooden boards were hewn at the Spreitzer sawmill in Stare Žage and at a sawmill in Soteska. Doors and already glazed windows were taken from the abandoned Götscher houses, but tools and other necessary material were procured in shops in the valley.

BAZA 20 provided home and working environment members of the Slovenian resistance. By the time of Italian capitulation on 9 September 1943, thirteen buildings had been erected. In addition to those accommodating the members of the leadership, a radio and telegraph building, a radio station, a kitchen and two dormitories for the kitchen staff and the guards were constructed. In 1944 a kitchen warehouse was built along with a separate kitchen and warehouse for the guard battalion, an electric power plant, two dormitories for the guards and propaganda activists and additional buildings for officials.

The population of BAZA 20 kept growing with the base accomodating almost 200 people by the end of 1944, but thanks to exceptional security and camouflage measures, it was never discovered.

BAZA 20 is the only such headquarters of a European resistance movement that remains preserved. It has become an important monument of the state. Together with the preserved hospitals of Jelendol and Zgornji Hrastnik it was declared a cultural monument in 1952. All 26 buildings still stand.

See the main source for the above text

At Lukov Dom, visitors can see a short film about Kočevski Rog and hire a guide. Custodian & Information: Dolenjski muzej Novo mesto (offers guided tours for groups and individuals, Phone: +386 7 373 11 11)

When you see a winking sideways smiley in a bookstore’s shopwindow, you know you undoubtedly live in the Information Age.

Translation:
Post title: Mice in the House?
Note: If you SEE MICE (white mice are the Slovenian version of seeing pink elephants) in this shopwindow, it’s high time you stopped drinking ; )

Long for a Ljubljanica riverfront property? You might need to borrow some money 😉

In the previous post on the subject of real estate in Slovenia we arrived at the question of: How does one handle all the local and imported real estate fuel and finances the purchase of real estate in Slovenia?

Ideally, you have money readily available and pay in cash you pull from under your personal or corporate pillow. This is the so-called “own financing” option. If you’re a mortal like Dr. Fil, however, several types of loans are available to you.

On the Slovenian financial market, you can choose between regular loans secured by insurance, guarantor or the property itself (mortgage), financial products that combine loans with life insurance or investment in mutual funds, or so-called lease-loans (hire-purchase).

Loans:

Financial houses offer three main types of housing loans differing with regard to the collateral for the loan:

• housing loan (stanovanjsko posojilo) secured at an insurance company, with a term of repayment of no longer than 15 years (suitable for smaller loans, approved quickly). In case of default, the bank assigns the loan to the insurance company. If taking out this type of a loan, you may want to consider taking out a life insurance policy as well, which will cover the debt repayment in case of the borrower’s death and the debt will not be transferred to his or her heirs;
• real estate loan (nepremičninsko posojilo) secured by guarantors. The conditions are similar to those above;
• mortgage loans (posojilo, zavarovano s hipoteko); these loans usually allow the longest repayment terms up to 30 years (although some financial houses already offer the same periods for “leasing” loans), depending on the age of the borrower. Usually, the interest rates for mortgages are lower than in other types of loans. The rate will depend on the borrower’s creditworthiness (and negotiation skills). In addition to the principal and interest, this loan comes with the added expense of loan approval, attorney, notary and entering the lien into the land register. In case of default, if all else fails, the court seizes the property, auctions it off and uses the proceeds to pay the bank’s claim.

Combined financial products, for example:

• a combination of a loan and life insurance (repayment term up to 20 years) with the borrower paying only the interests on the monthly basis, which allows the bank to approve a higher amount as the monthly instalments are smaller. In addition, the client pays a monthly life insurance premium. In the end, the principal is paid from the investment life insurance sum or – in case of death – from the life insurance falling due;
• a combination of a housing loan and an investment in a mutual fund. This package is suitable for those with a high income who already own their homes, but would like to go into rental. The borrower pays the interests every month and pay the principal with the yields of the mutual funds. The borrower bears the risk of the mutual fund yields failing to meet the projected results and not sufficing for repayment of the loan.

Lease-loans:

Leasing is a contractual relationship between the lease-loan lender and lease-loan borrower (the buyer, i.e. you). The lender allows you to use the subject of the lease (in this case an apartment or house etc.) for an agreed term and surrenders so-called ‘economic ownership’ of the property in return for which the borrower pays monthly instalments for the agreed term of the lease. When the last instalment is paid, full title is transferred from the lender to the borrower and as of that moment the property is no longer owned by the bank or financial house but by yourself.

Since the lease-loan means that the financial house acquires ownership of the property, the additional security required is usually considerably lower than in case of taking out other loans described above. Financial houses can therefore require much smaller down payments (usually 20 to 30 per cent) on average than in case of other loans. Furthermore, when natural persons (rather than a legal entity) are concerned, the bank considers not only salary, but all types of income in determining one’s creditworthiness. This does come at a cost of a usually higher interest rate, but enables you to buy property even with minimal liquid assets. If the borrower can prove the ability to pay the instalments and can use another property or guarantors as security, the financing can go up as high as 100% of the property value.

Useful links:

• Banks in Slovenia
• Credit institutions of EEA countries in Slovenia

In the next post in this series, we will look into the expenses and taxes related to the purchase or sale of real estate in Slovenia. Unfortunately, Slovenian politicians have not yet been overheard saying “read my lips” but dr. Fil will let you read hers 😉

The new Ljubljana Opera House project presented at Ljubljana City Hall
(Novi Kolizej)

As the Bluff was called and all the main players took the stage on national TV last night, I couldn’t help but think of the Immortal Bard. The dethroned Lord of Bluff remains Slovenia’s Prime Minister. May he and his entourage serve the country well in the year that remains of their term.

All the World’s a Stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Golf Course at Donald Trump’s project in the Dominican Republic
(disclaimer: probably not a recipient of EU subsidies)
(photo source)

Financial Times reported on the findings of the European Court of Auditors that found EU aid for the poor had been misspent on golf clubs. Around 4 billion euros or at least 12% assigned to the European Union’s poorer regions were not properly accounted for last year, with some funds earmarked for agriculture ending up in the coffers of golf and riding clubs and railway companies.

The auditors identified unsatisfactory procedures in aid projects in England’s Merseyside, the Midi-Pyrénées region of southern France, the southern Italian region of Campania and Valencia in eastern Spain, as well as in Poland and Slovenia.

Thankfully (?), suspected fraud cases were rare with only four out of hundreds of investigated cases handed over to the anti-fraud office and only two of those being pursued further. Apparently, according to Hubert Weber, the court’s President, the usual reasons for error are due to neglect, poor knowledge of the often complex rules and… presumed attempts to defraud the EU budget.

The court said one effect of the EU’s switch from production-based subsidies to direct payments was to redistribute aid from farmers to landowners, some of whom performed no agricultural activities at all. Among the new beneficiaries are English railway companies, German and Swedish horse riding and breeding clubs, and golf clubs, leisure facilities and city councils in Denmark and England, the auditors said.

If we can secure some funds for Lipica, somebody please make sure they are spent on the horses and not the golf course? 😉

Photo of the Week in Mladina magazine; visit the author’s blog: Binula

While the Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša struggles to discipline his coalition partners, people still find it difficult to forget some of the recent statements considered to be in rather poor taste.

In our office‘s backyard, my dear colleague (meet Sabina) took a photo of a question posed by an annonymous voter or voter-to-be who apparently dug through the trash container for loaves of bread in vain. He or she most probably came across no milk and honey, either.

Today, Sabina’s photo of the container with the sign: “Janša, where are the bread loaves?” was published in Mladina magazine as the “photo of the week”. Incidentally, Barbara Brezigar, featured to the left of the photo used to share Sabina’s last name. And possibly a drop of blood or two. Hey, it’s a small country 😉

Bravo to Binula the blogger on becoming a published photographer!

This one’s for Luka 😉