Medieval Hungarian gold florin depicting King Matthias Corvinus. A piece of historical significance for Hungarian coin collections, a favourite among collectors.
There are no special regulations governing the inheritance of gold and other precious metals; the standard duties set out in the Duties Act (Act XCIII of 1990) apply.
A major advantage, however, is that in Hungary there is no duty payable on direct-line inheritance.
Gold and other precious metals have the beneficial property of being very easy to liquidate. The proceeds can be readily divided among heirs, and in certain cases the gold bars and coins themselves can be simply distributed according to their precious metal content.
Gold-backed loans and pawn transactions
Pawn loans secured by investment gold may only be offered by pawn houses that are supervised by and hold an activity licence from the MNB (National Bank of Hungary). The licensed status of a supervised institution can be verified on the MNB website. If the company's licence does not cover this activity, or if it holds no licence at all, you have most likely encountered an unlicensed pawn operation. This can be hazardous because there is no legal recourse if the company refuses to return the gold held on deposit, or if it applies grossly unfair pricing by, for example, retroactively raising the interest rate or handling fee.
If pawn loans are offered on behalf of a foreign company, that company must likewise hold a licence registered in the MNB database, just as a domestically domiciled company would.
From an anti-money laundering perspective, pawn transactions are very similar to cash-based gold trading transactions (identification required above 300,000 forints; copies of personal documents required and retained above 3.6 million forints). The pawn ticket itself is still not required to state the personal details of the ticket holder. However, if proceedings are initiated, the investigating authorities can retrieve from the pawn house's database the identity of the person to whom the pawn ticket in question was issued.
