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Land Sales to Non-residents in Fiji 09/08/2016 |
The Land Sales Act (Cap.137) in Fiji provides for the regulation of certain speculative and other dealings in land and the taxation of profits thereon. The Land Sales Act has been amended five (5) times since 1974. The most recent amendment, is the Land Sales Amendment Act 2014 which has made provisions for the purchase of land by non-residents.
The Land Sales Amendment Act 2014 is a restrictive legislation in that it prohibits non residents from purchasing State and Freehold Land within the municipal areas for residential purposes. However non residents can lease Native Land in the municipal areas and purchase Freehold and State Lands beyond the municipal areas and certain exemptions for purchases within the municipal areas for non-residential purposes are allowed.
Under the amendment, non residents will need to ensure that should they purchase vacant land in Fiji then they will need to complete building on the Land within 2 years of purchasing the property and the value of the building should be at a minimum of $250,000.00 FJD.
There has been some news in the local papers on the proposal to form a sub-committee to assess individual requests for extension of the 2 year period for building on the vacant land by non residents however this is yet to be confirmed.