Buying in Vanuatu seems a little daunting but this was day three and armed with pieces of information from many sources and new found friends we were starting to form the basic principals of land ownership here in Port Vila.

Firstly the Ownership part was cleared up, you don’t actually own the land as all land here is owned by the custom owner i.e. the indigenous peoples called the Ni-Van. The Government acts as a landlord and collects the monies paid for leasing the property. Usually a lease period is 75 years, this number was used as it’s the determined useful life of a coconut tree. If you buy a lease you can request that the vendor renews the lease prior to settlement.

Some might find the concept of leasing a property a little strange, but in many parts od the world this is a normal practice. If you look at Australia and think that the lands you buy can be taken by the local government for roads and mining then really how different is it. The government will always “own” the land.

The deposits for property are set at 30-35% for residential and 50% for commercial. These figures we considered high, but I remember as a young man in New Zealand in the 80’s the deposits were 20% and the interest rates were 19%. Here in Vanuatu the interest rate on a residential property is 8%

Westpac Vanuatu

We talked to two banks, the first was Westpac. Sala was so full of information for us. We explained that any transition to the Island for us was going to be a slow one as we both still have jobs in Australia and we would be looking for investment properties that had to make a profit.

This actually works in our favour as we could set up a loan based on Australia’s lending criteria. This little piece of information was gold to us as the rates and loan deposits are both lower, however as we all know the larger the deposit the lower the repayments and interest are going to be.

Bread Bank Vanuatu

One of the largest banking institutions in Europe also operates here. Bred is a French bank that has branches both here in Vanuatu and also in neighbouring New Caledonia. Bred banks also owns the majority share in the Bank of Queensland. The Finance Manager we spoke to was an Australian Ex Pat who was most interested in what our plans were on the island in both residential and our ideas in a commercial venture that we were considering for the future.

Between the two bank there are small differences. We aren’t going to advocate one bank over another as everyone’s circumstances are different. Both banks are extremely friendly and managed to find the time to accommodate us on our tight schedule.

bred

Both Branches are easy to find in Villa’s main street and are on the harbour side of the road.

Contact – Westpac – +678 22084

Contact –  Bred – +678 29111