Have you seen our new look yet? Some of you may have already noticed that we have launched our new website last month! We felt it was time for a refreshing new site that will accommodate the modern internet user. It took us a couple of weeks to take out any bugs and other flaws that are common when you start a new project. We are now satisfied to say to the world: we are here and we are up to date As you can see it works perfectly on mobile phones and other mobile devices. It was time. Research shows that 60% of all internet use nowadays is done on other devices than the common desktop. That means that for us to be costumer friendly we needed to update our current website. Now we can accommodate all internet users, making it easy for everyone to browse through our listings and make appointments.

The flow of tourists that reach Ubud every day keeps increasing as the years go by. That means that the demand of accommodation is increasing as well. Hotels, homestays and villas are being built to keep up with the demand. Businesses are thriving and all seems to go well. If you are new to this business you might have come to realize that all isn’t as easy as it looks, and that keeping your villa clean, fixed and up-to-date for the next guest is a WHOLE lot of work! It takes time replying emails, fixing things around the house, making sure you have enough bookings, taking care of guest complaints etc. You may have tried with different staff members to get your way across and perhaps you have failed, or barely hanging on by a thread. That dream of living your much wanted relaxed and quiet Bali Paradise life is being splashed in front of your eyes every single day.

according to a new regulation imposed by Bank Indonesia, all values for goods or services, consequentially also for property, have to be displayed in Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) from 1 July 2015 on. If you want to find out more, please read the following publication. There are severe penalties being introduced, should a transaction not be made in Indonesian Rupiah, except for in a very limited range of exemptions. That leaves businesses with no choice other than to comply. That is why we have to display all the prices on our website in IDR, however it is still possible to see an equivalent in another currency (as all the zero's may be a bit too much for some of us). The actual payment transfer to overseas will also be more complex and may incur an exchange rate loss of 1.3 to 2%. However, as this is a new regulation we may have to see if that indeed is a feasible policy being continued by the Government - or not.

This article is meant as a follow up on the heated discussion around the announcement that was made earlier this year by the Indonesian Government relating to properties purchased by Indonesians for foreigners, using Nominee agreements. (Should this issue be new to you, please read more in our newsletter of 19 March 2015) Many Expats in Bali and Lombok where unsettled and frightened by the prospect to be possibly subject to legal proceedings and/or maybe even losing their investment following the Minister’s statement. I would like to say: The dust has settled,- maybe for good? Because since the initial statement, legal experts in Indonesia and overseas, as well as the Indonesian Government, had time to think –and we haven’t heard anything from them since.

This became almost a weekly ‘event’: Someone new to us comes into the office and asks our advice. "Sure", we say, "we are here to help". The person – let’s call him Peter, just to make the story easier to read-, starts telling his story. "Well, I would like to sell my property. I have lived on it for a few years now, but the time has come for me to move on and I’m ready to go. A bit of a problem is, I need to sell soon, because I don’t know if and when I may come back." "So far we understand", we would say, "and you would like to do that through us?" "Yes, I would like to, but there is some sort of a problem." Then comes the cue to the story we unfortunately almost know by heart now . . . “When I came here 8 years ago, I met a man –let’s call him Wayan- , and Wayan became my friend.