The Government has announced plans to make it easier to register homes that have not been inscribed in the Cadastre, so they can be taxed properly.
There may be thousands of properties in Spain that have not been properly inscribed in the Cadastre, which means owners have not been paying the correct amount of local property tax (known as the IBI). Many of them will not have been paying any tax at all.
The Cadastre is a property register that is used for calculating rateable values for local property taxes.
To sort out this problem, and help town halls collect more tax, the Government has drafted a new amendment to the national budget for 2013 that offer owners a kind of amnesty for not paying local property taxes in the past.
Under the proposed amendment, owners who have not paid taxes on properties that were not properly inscribed in the Cadastre can now register their homes (and/or building changes) and avoid fines for back taxes by paying a penalty of just €60. Under the current law, the fine could be as high as €6,000.
Opposition parties have denounced the amendment as “unjust” and “indecent” for allowing potentially wealthy people to avoid paying the taxes they owe.
The amnesty will only benefit owners of properties that do not contravene any planning laws. It will still not be possible to register illegally-built properties in either the Property Register or the Cadastre.
Readers familiar with Spain will know that, in reality, there are many illegally built homes in Spain that have in fact been inscribed in the Cadastre, and whose owners pay IBI.
Geraldine Day says:
Then how come we in the Almanzora Valley are being charged IBI on properties that are deemed illegal and many are under threat of demolition. Maybe a copy of this ‘amnesty’ and your last paragraph should be sent to ALL the local Town Halls.
Mike says:
Hi Geraldine,
It’s called “screwing the foreign buyers whenever & wherever possible”.
This new “amendment” is just words – it hopefully sounds good, and it “may” persuade the Germans to throw another few billon across to where it’s needed.
Putting it into effective force is another matter entirely.
My cynical assessment.