Hi team: for some reason, I can’t reply all to this email, and this is one of the rare occasions when I think this is warranted - !!

So bear with me: Jeffrey will already have received this.

Hi Jeffrey: I’m no financial expert either but I’m coming to understand that the 5% levy is offputting for banks for several reasons.

From my recollection, the figure of 5% was plucked out of the air at the last meeting of the year in 2017. That meeting understood that Earthsong had been hampered by a lack of a fund to develop their commons and we hoped to avoid that.

Ie We had not thought through the implications of this being seen as a liability by banks in the future.  Last night, Min agreed with Rainer that banks will calculate that on an annual basis against any house that they support through a mortgage, and that it 'would look alarming', especially as regards the risk if there was a mortgagee sale.

Looking at it another way, in keeping with our Kaupapa, it makes more sense to plan our developments annually and calculate how to fund these as we go, including how much of our own labour we could contribute, potentially building that into the Body Corp fee, along with our existing 'maintenance levy', rather than end up with periodic ‘bonanzas’ if several units sell.

Right now, it seems from several sources that the 5% levy, effectively a ‘capital gains tax’, is an impediment to our project succeeding. From views expressed last night, that needs to be our first focus. We can then work out how we do the other bits.

!! we’re all learning here.

Regards,

Marianne

Marianne Quinn

Level 3, 115 Stuart Street, Dunedin

P.O. Box 20, Dunedin 9054

ph +6434773115 or 0211612050