Tag: property tax

Castilla & León Reclassifies 28,315 hectares of Buildable Land Back to Rural Use

6 October 2018 – El Confidencial

Torquemada in Palencia has 989 inhabitants and sufficient buildable land on which to construct 162,000 homes. Coca in Segovia has 1,863 inhabitants and sufficient buildable land on which to construct 114,000 homes. Valladolid capital has 299,715 inhabitants and sufficient land on which to construct 217,293 new homes. They are just three simple examples of the urban planning absurdity seen in recent decades that is still present in almost every municipality in Spain.

Since the 1980s, and especially since the beginning of this century, town halls, in particular those in rural areas, have reclassified thousands of hectares of rural land to buildable land, on mass, in the hope that, during the boom times there would be a bureaucracy saving for the property developers, which would encourage them to invest, in both homes and industry. But the bubble burst (…) and thousands of buildable hectares were left over, converted today in a kind of weird joke.

Now, the Junta de Castilla y León wants to recover all of that land to return it to what it always was, agricultural and forestry land without any pretensions of being home to long rows of terraced houses or enormous industrial estates. The regional government has established three phases for the change of its land uses on mass.

It undertook the first phase in 2016, converting 10,000 hectares, and on 18 October this year, it will undertake the second phase, affecting 28,315 hectares, equivalent to half of the island of Ibiza or more than half of La Rioja. In total, 87 municipalities including several provincial capitals with capacity for one million potential homes that will now never see the light. The final mass change is planned for 2022. Goodbye then to the reckless optimism of the past; hello to a different future, one characterised by depopulation, which threatens to erase thousands of towns from the map (…).

“This is not Marbella, it was never realistic to think that large companies or property developers were going to come here to build homes. We have an industrial estate with five companies and we have lost 100 inhabitants in the last five years. A town cannot work miracles”, explains Jorge Domingo González, mayor of Torquemada, the rural municipality most affected by this second wave, which will modify 208 areas in Castilla y León (only 45 of them are industrial plots of land) on the basis of the urban planning law approved in 2014. “All of that land was reclassified not to build homes but to facilitate investment (…)”, explains the mayor of Torquemada.

Even so, many mayors did take advantage of the change to approve large residential developments, always under the suspicion, and sometimes rightly so, that they were going to be built with the sole objective of speculation and receiving an illegal bonus. That is where hundreds of ghost urbanisations in the middle of nowhere stemmed from; many are half-built, some even lack roads, but all have now been converted into a burden for municipalities, which do not have enough money to demolish them (…).

The town halls will not see any great benefits from this measure, but the owners of the land will do, since they will save a decent amount by no longer having to pay IBI (property tax) on urban land but having to do so on rural land, which is much cheaper. “In this way, we avoid uncertainties that have no sense in being maintained”, said Marinero…..

There is no record of any owner submitting claims against this change of use, although they have had four years to do so. That in itself is a clear sign that times have changed and that no one in the towns expects to win the lottery. If anything, they now just dream of not disappearing, to avoid being dragged away by the rural exodus.

Original story: El Confidencial (by David Brunat)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Ministry of Finance Prepares an IBI Hike that will Affect 1,200 Town Halls in 2019

1 October 2018 – El Independiente

The Ministry of Finance has already prepared the list of town halls that will review the cadastral values of their urban properties in 2019. That list includes almost 1,200 town halls, equivalent to 15% of the total. That is according to an Order published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on Saturday, which also reveals that the update coefficients will be established in next year’s Budget Law, which the Government has not presented yet.

Therefore, despite not having published its annual accounts yet and with the threat that, once they are published, it may have to adopt a more restrictive public deficit path, thanks to the situation it inherited from the previous PP Government, the ministry led by María Jesús Montero has published the mandatory order proposed in the Law to apply possible cadastral value rises that will impact the amount raised by Town Halls through taxes such as the Property Tax (also known as the ‘Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles’ or IBI).

The town halls affected include Badalona (Barcelona), Cádiz, Santander, Guadalajara, Avilés (Asturias), Granada, Huesca, Lorca (Murcia), Coslada (Madrid), Las Rozas (Madrid) and Valencia.

The State’s annual accounts for 2019 are incognito and so it remains to be seen how this review of cadastral values is going to be instrumented.

Moreover, by virtue of the coefficient that is applied, the cadastral value of any given home may increase or decrease. The reason is that the coefficients are established on the basis of the year of entry into force of the last presentation of municipal values, which is basically the document that contains the criteria that are used to carry out the most recent valuations in the region.

Currently, the price per metre squared of private homes amounts to €1,587.9, the highest value since the second quarter of 2012, according to data from the Ministry of Development, which bases its figures on appraisal values.

From this perspective, in general terms, homes valued since that date will have increased in value, whilst those valued between 2008 and 2012, will have decreased. On the basis of the years of entry into force of the values, around one third of the municipalities included on this list belong to the latter group.

A decrease in the number of reviews

The cadastral value of a home is the reference value on which taxes are paid on it at a municipal level for purpose of the Property Tax (IBI), which is one of the main sources of financing for Town Halls.

In this way, unless town halls decide to introduce changes in the tax, bonuses or exemptions, increases in the cadastral value of properties typically mean a heavier burden on the pockets of citizens and, in parallel, more revenues for the town halls.

In order to carry out this review, the interested town halls must make a request each year to apply the coefficients that they establish. To do that, three requirements must be fulfilled: at least five years must have passed since the entry into force of the cadastral values resulting from the previous valuation; there must be substantial differences between the market value and those that serve as the basis for determining the cadastral values; and the town hall must file its request by 31 May.

Having fulfilled those criteria, 1,200 town halls have requested a cadastral review next year, which represents a 14% decrease compared to the number recorded last year. Moreover, that figure equals almost half the number recorded in 2007, when up to a third of all town halls, around 2,500, proceeded to apply new coefficients (…).

Original story: El Independiente (by David García-Maroto)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Can Spain’s Rental Price Hikes Be Contained?

6 February 2017 – El País

(…) A strong increase in demand and a shortage of supply have led to increases in rental prices, which soared by 15.9% in Spain last year, according to Idealista. Barcelona and Madrid recorded historical rises, with increases of 16.5% and 15.6%, respectively.

No-one in the sector is talking about a bubble, but rather about an imbalance between supply and demand. Nevertheless, this mismatch has raised alarm bells in the two hardest hit cities. The Town Halls of Madrid and Barcelona have asked the Government to change the Law governing Urban Leases (LAU) in order to regulate prices and prevent disproportionate increases.

And the Government of Cataluña has gone even further: it is going to punish landlords who charge expensive rents. The regional government is going to establish a rental price reference index in the Spring, which will establish orientative prices per square metre, based on the size of the home, age of the building, characteristics of the home and its location. Work will be performed on the mathematical formula over the next two months.

Carrot and stick

The tool will reward or penalise ownera through the tax system, in the form of the Property Tax (IBI), in the autonomous section of the Income Tax Return (IRPF) and in renovation work. Moreover, empty home owners may even avoid fines if they rent their properties out in line with the “benchmark price”. “If the rent is lower than the reference index, then the incentive will be positive and if the rent is higher, then the incentive will be negative”, explain sources in the Housing Department at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) – which (…) at the guidance of its director, Sergio Nasarre, has coordinated the working group whose conclusions form the basis of the Generalitat’s new initiative.

The rental market is gaining weight in Spain. “It has gone from accounting for 17.9% of the market in 2001 to 22.3% in 2015”, said José Peral, Director of Sales and Marketing at Solvia, who notes that the rental sector is undergoing a seismic change. Moreover, we are seeing “market convergence towards average volumes and prices that are more aligned with those observed in other European countries”, said David Calzada, CEO at the Socimi Vbare. Calzada expects prices to continue to rise in Madrid and Barcelona, at a sustained, albeit more contained rate. Oscar Bellette, CEO at Inveriplus, forecasts that rental prices will rise by 7% in both cities this year.

Despite this, the creators of the index consider that Spain still has the smallest residential rental market in Western Europe. Moreover, “it is dysfunctional, expensive and poor quality in nature; 46% of homes are rented on the black market and more than 3.5 million homes are empty”, says Nasarre. (…).

The Catalan method, the first of its kind in Spain, is based on a methodology that has worked in Berlin for years, where 95% of rents are open-ended. The index fulfils its objective in the German capital: indexed rents rise by between 2.7% and 3% per year, whilst those not subject to the index increase by between 5% and 10%, p.a., says Jutta Hartmann, from the Berlin Tenants’ Association. (…).

Nevertheless, the initiative is generating a lot of questions and concerns amongst agents in the sector in Spain. “It is a useless and counterproductive measure, which will lead to an increase in black market activity and in the number of empty homes”, says Sergi Gargallo, Director General at Alquiler Seguro. (…).

Nevertheless, all of the agents agree that the market will benefit from professionalization, thanks to the arrival of companies such as Socimis. “In Spain, 3.8 million primary residence homes are rented out and 97% of those are owned by individuals”, says José Peral, at Solvia.

Original story: El País (by Sandra López Letón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colau Approves 6% Rise In IBI For Homes Worth >€300k

18 November 2015 – El Economista

The fiscal policy of the mayoress Ada Colau has been up in the air since her victory at the municipal elections in May. But yesterday, Bcomú’s representatives approved new tax regulations, with votes form the PSC and the CUP, and despite opposition from CiU, the PP and Ciutadens, which initially resulted in a tied vote. Nevertheless, the mayoress’s casting vote allowed the regulations to go ahead.

The main impact of these new tax measures is a 4% increase in the rate of Property Tax (‘Impuesto de Bienes Inmuebles’ or IBI) for homes with a cadastral value of more than €100,000 and a 6% increase for homes worth more than €300,000. The Town Hall explained that 79% of the buildings in Barcelona are worth less than €100,000 (and will be unaffected by the measure).

Although the first fiscal policy adopted by Bcomú was to revoke the 10% increase in IBI that the previous municipal government, led by Xavier Trias, had proposed; shortly afterwards, Colau’s team proposed a property tax freeze. But following criticism from all of the opposition groups, Bcomú decided to negotiate with the other parties, ahead of the new cadastral review, which will apply from 2017. The Town Hall expects to raise €633 million through IBI.

Original story: El Economista (by Iván Gutiérrez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Madrid’s Property Tax (IBI) Will Decrease By 7% In 2016

22 September 2015 – El País

In October, the Town Hall of Madrid will approve a 7% decrease in the property tax (‘Impuesto sobre bienes inmuebles’ or IBI) for all homes and the majority of commercial premises, offices and retail stores. This decrease, accepted begrudgingly by the minority Ahora Madrid government following its enforcement by the other parties (PP, PSOE and Ciudadanos), will be passed with equal reluctance next month by the socialists, who were seeking a higher cut. The 7% decrease in IBI will be equivalent to a €25 reduction in the average monthly bill (€350).

Yesterday, a Councillor from the Treasury, Carlos Sánchez Mato (pictured), announced a 7% decrease in the rate of IBI for all homes in the capital (1,448,765 households) and for the majority of non-residential buidlings.

Nevertheless, the rate will increase by 10% for those non-residential buildings that have a “higher cadastral (land registry) value”. The Town Hall defines this threshold as follows: for individual buildings, the increase will apply only to those that have a cadastral value of more than €35 million (there are around 30 such properties in Madrid); retail stores worth more than €860,000 (around 3,000 of more than 97,000); buildings used for sporting activities worth more than €20 million (around 30 in total); and offices worth more than €2 million (1,760 out of almost 32,000).

These targeted increases to non-residential buildings with higher cadastral values will almost entirely offset the decrease in the rate of IBI for the rest of the city.

IBI is the main source of income from the Town Hall, and therefore any change in the rate significantly affects its capacity to provide public services: IBI will account for €1,279 million of the €4,388 million that the municipal coffers will receive this year (i.e. it accounts for almost one in every three euros). The changes proposed by Ahora Madrid will reduce this revenue by just 3.7%.

A new tax

This fall in revenues (€49 million) will be primarily offset by the creation of a new tax to be paid by the companies that generate the most waste. The other municipal taxes will remain unchanged in 2016, although there may be an as -yet-unknown decrease in the price of certain services (sports centres, kindergartens, etc). (…).

Original story: El País (by Bruno García Gallo)

Translation: Carmel Drake