| Shine a light on your sale |
When a house goes on to the market, the owners
usually try to ensure that it looks its best. Paintwork is touched
up, carpets are shampooed, surfaces are cleaned and the garden is
trimmed.
But familiarity breeds…well, familiarity,
and long-time owners can easily miss one of the most important factors
in creating a great first impression on potential buyers: good lighting.
If a house is dark, buyers will be hard-pressed to notice how clean,
fresh or neat it is. The correct lighting, on the other hand, can
change the appearance of a room from dull and even a little gloomy
to bright and airy.
A small room can be made to appear much larger,
and localised lighting in a very large room can create comfortably
cosy areas. Down lighters will help to shorten very high ceilings,
washing one wall with light will visually push it away and illuminating
the wide sides of a long, narrow room will make it look shorter.
Accent or spot lighting will accentuate and attract attention to
the room's best feature, perhaps the fireplace.
And contrary to common perception, changing the
lighting in a home is inexpensive, especially when compared with
other home decorating or renovating options.
The range of modern light fittings available and
new systems such as low-voltage lighting, track-mounted spots and
mini fluorescent bulbs, which last much longer than normal bulbs
and use less electricity, means no homeowner needs to be in the
dark.
What's more, a little imagination and the correct
advice on what fittings to use to create the effects you want can
really boost the value of your home to a potential buyer.
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| You can't just pocket the rent |
Have you been declaring the rental income received on your investment
properties?
Non-declaration of rentals received - after deducting the appropriate
expenditure - is a contravention of the Income Tax Act. And with
the improvements in the efficiency of tax collections by the South
African Revenue Service, it is very likely that non-declarations
of rental income will be detected, says Paul Nelson, director of
Johannesburg-based auditing firm Nelson Financial.
"The Act allows revised assessments to be issued for three
years after an assessment is issued. However, where income has been
omitted, this three-year period does not apply, allowing SARS to
re-open any year of assessment for which income has been omitted,"
he says.
"But if you have not declared your rental income in past periods
it is advisable to approach SARS and settle the matter rather than
to adopt the wait and see approach. This will save you worry and
perhaps the cost of paying the additional taxes and interest that
SARS can impose."
It is recommended, though, that you make us of the services of a
reputable tax consultant or accountant to approach SARS on your
behalf - and to ensure that the net rental income received is properly
calculated and disclosed in your current tax return.
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| Clean-up coming for laundries |
The laundry, that utilitarian room at the back
of the house with the big sink, washing machine, tumble-drier, ironing
board - and assorted tools, surfboards, fishing rods and camping
gear - is due for a makeover.
Laundry rooms have now become a priority for homebuyers
in the US, according to the National Association of Home Builders,
with families being willing to shell out as much as $30 000 for
the extra accommodation.
The laundry is also taking on a new role as the
"family studio", with room not only for state-of-the-art
clothes care appliances, but also for crafts, hobbies and homework,
and a computer workstation for paying the bills or surfing the Internet.
And SA seems sure to follow the trend, as many
families dispense with domestic help and do their own washing and
ironing, and space for pastimes becomes harder to find in increasingly
compact new homes.
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| How to get the job done right |
A constant cause of concern for holiday homeowners
is how to get improvements or additions and even routine maintenance
completed satisfactorily while they are not on the spot.
Most families are unwilling to have their annual holiday disrupted
by a team of workmen coming in and out of the house and the mess
and disorder of work in progress. And in any event, many tradesmen
don't work during the main holiday periods over Christmas and Easter.
But if the work is going to be done during the
absence of the owner, special precautions need to be taken to ensure
that it is completed satisfactorily. Or you could end up in the
same situation as a Gauteng developer who recently arrived on the
site of his own new holiday home on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast
to find that work worth more than R100 000 had to be demolished.
Obviously for a major contract a local architect
or an established and reputable construction company should be employed,
and they should be capable of securing the necessary permits and
complete the work according to the plans. A professional contract
will ensure that grievances can be redressed.
A smaller job, say the conversion of a garage into
a granny flat, can cause more problems. Large building companies
are unlikely to take on such a contract and the owner will have
to rely on smaller, one-man operators.
The first step then is to seek local recommendations.
The estate agent who sold the house may have a list of reliable
builders, or friends or neighbours in the area may have used reliable
contractors. Before the contractor is engaged, ask him if he can
supply recent references and be sure to check them.
The homeowner can also check whether tradesmen
are members of the relevant trade association, which may also provide
some guarantee of professional service.
And finally the owner must insist on a valid contract
which stipulates who is responsible for securing municipal approvals,
the start and completion times of the job, the procurement and payment
for materials and progress payments. You should also ensure that
provision is made for the final payment to be held back until you
are satisfied that all the work has been carried out and that you
are satisfied with the quality.
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