Hi @reef-full , it was my impression to start a thread to express the financial questions/doubts we still have, related to buying a site (last full members meeting).
@Lee : if I misunderstood or you think better to handle this differently, go ahead 
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- We will be needing to foresee some parkings, with the aim to sell them at a later point => how are we going to prefinance that. Should we (some of us) foresee taking a bigger loan? Are there any ideas about this allready?
- I am doubting between a smaller apartment at average or higher price and a big apartment at average/lower price.
- I assume that if we would buy a site, the architects will make a more detailed plan with a clear division in units, the related m2 per unit and we will see where they will be situated on the plans.
- to buy the site we will need to start up our Sosi, and I guess define the shares per sosi-member. This shares will be calculated based on what we communicated in āLe Programmeā?
- I saw that Lee put in a question for the architects ā Would you be willing to indicate the value of every units in relation to the āaccordĆ©onā or price fork?ā => if we have this, we will also know the price of each unit on their plans
- I guess the next step is the āchosing of apartmentsā where the āoldestā (= the longest in The Reef) will have a first pick, ā¦
=> itās at this step - for me- that i will be able to make my decision āsmaller and more expensive apartmentsā vs ābigger and cheaperā apartment. But that decision might influence my āshareā in the Sosiā, no?
Is that how it will work? And does this mean we easily can update the shares of a SoSi member after the creation? Or should this be fixed (and then maybe go for a larger share from the beginning)?
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Two questions I have (for the notary).
Question 1. Post-deed enlargement of the group
If we buy JET-14, it looks like we will have to do the deed with an incomplete group (and pay notary fees and enregistrement).
Next, we will complete the group. New members will need to be added to the maatschap. Does this require another deed and another enregistrement? Normally yes, because the maatschap has no legal personality. So this means that a group of people is selling the land to a different group of people, though many of the members of the two groups are the same.
Can we get a step-by-step guide to do this?
Question 2. When do we need the maatschap?
Given question 1, is it necessary that we incorporate before the compromis? Could we not sign the compromis as a group of individuals, and then create the maatschap only later, before the deed?
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- Would it be possible to work with a 5% safety margin instead of 10%? If yes, does this imply certain consequences for the others?
- Until when can we change our individuel āprogramā (similar to Elsā questions above)? The surface of my apartment depends on the final price per mĀ².
- Do the confesseurs have an idea about the possible evolution of the interest rate for loans in the coming year?
- What if AND-28 would turn out cheaper than JET-14? Do we work with āfirst preferencesā in order to decide to move forward? Or how do we see this?
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A third question: I understood somewhere that it might be in our advantage to have as much as possible full members/sosi members when creating the maatschap => Is it an idea to ask some people - not planning to join the cohousing in the end- to become a sosi member and transfer their āshareā to the ones that will join later. Just to maybe have more advantages at the start-up of the sosi. (if i understood well, the risk linked to being a sosi member are very limited, unless we start to make debts, which we are not planning to do). (i know, real belgian girl talking here :-))
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Another question:
The Immotheker said that he thinks that we all have to take a loan with the same bank, but he was not 100% sure. Can somebody confirm?
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I donāt think so. Maatschappen have no legal personality, they are just a front for the people in it. So, when we sign a compromis (which means we acquire a legal right), all members at that point acquire a share of that right.
I think we are good to sign as we are, and then it would be optimal to complete the group before the deed. Until that point it is not too hard to add members. After that point I am afraid weāll have to basically do a second deed. Thatās my question 1 above.
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Hello @els, we had a first proposal last year on unit pricing and decided that the resale value will be an important factor when approaching prices of individual units. To summarise, it will be up to the Reef to consent on a āfair priceā of every unit when we have a full sketch from the architects and as you rightly mention, we will surely consult their opinion. There are also other factors than the size of an appartment that determine the resale value (see proposal).Lastly, I donāt think older Reeflings will have priority over newer Reeflings when it comes to the ditribution of units. Pricing and choice will be less favourable, however, for Reeflings who join after the deed has been signed.
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This is not clear yet, but based on todayās discussion, my intuition is that we will solve this with a bullet loan to pre-finance this. Reasons would be sharing the risk and the cost of the capital. Overall I would deprioritise this now, as this is a problem that all city cohousings have faced.
I expect we will be asked to provide more details on our wishes for our apartments very soon, including where you would like to be. There are all sorts of solutions to this, including just communicating your budget to the architects. The way I understand it, to the extent possible they will draw up the plans in a way that there is a ādream unitā for each household, or at least a second best. How this works in detail, and more importantly, what the architects will need from us, is something we should clear out ASAP.
For now, the capital we need in the sociĆ©tĆ© simple will only relate to the cost of the site, so to keep things simple I would propose to stick to the unitsā surfaces as the distribution key. In the next round, when we raise capital for the building, we could then envisage to also mirror the differences in the price fork.
The safety margin is a non-negotiotiable to me, just for the sake of ā¦ safety. That said, I hope to find time this weekend to come up with a proposal (to be decided on by consensus) on making an exception for a few household to only go for 5% instead of 10%.
We need to clarify with the architects how this will work in detail. I believe it wonāt always be possible to choose the surface of your unit to mĀ² precise, so I think it will be easier if you just communicate your budget and your wishes, and then they will see whether they can find you something.
Best to ask them yourself. The way I understand things, the worst is now behind us (but thatās a dangerous thing to say these days 
)
For myself I decided to not think about this scenario until I have more information. I donāt want to dismiss your question of course, itās just that I donāt have a ready answer, and so I prefer to wait it out a little.
I am almost 100% sure that everybody will be free to chose their own bank.
This is a misunderstanding Iām afraid, as this has been our policy since the beginning: once there is the final plan, people will be able to choose their unit in the order of becoming a Full Member. Itās specified in the āmembershipā section in the Governance Document, and the actual list is saved in Team Recruitment & Onboardingās admin folder (file name: āorder of priorityā (or something)). The reasoning is that several cohousings went through infernal levels of misery (dominant households claiming the best unit), and the system is borrowed from one of our sibling S&F cohousings.
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