Endless need of money, endless brilliant ideas… Owners of private or commercial property will need a new certificate, a so-called “Property Identity Certificate.” And it will cost them at least 400 euro every five to seven years, as it will have to be renewed.
According to daily Eleftheros Typos, this new “poll tax” regulation has been included in the bill about the settlement of (aythereta) drafted by the Ministry of Environment and expected to be submitted to the parliament by September 22nd 2016.
According to the draft, all properties will have to have obtained the “Property Identification Certification” within the next five years. The issue of this certificate will need the stamp by a certified engineer who will get a payment of 400 euros.
The certificate will have to be renewed every seven years and sealed with a new stamp by the engineer and a new payment of 400 euros to the engineer.
The purpose of this idea that in fact supports building engineers in times of crisis and absence of new construction, is that the state has a “clear picture about all public and commercial properties in the country.”
The certificate will have to be acquired by owners of home properties but also by those whose property is being used as: shop, pharmacy, hairdresser parlor, business office, bank, funeral homes, fitness center, dentist, clinic, laboratory.
Fines are juicy: they will start from 2,000 euro and might end up to 20,000 euros. If the engineer puts his stamp on a ‘false’ identity, he may have his license suspended.
Without the ID certificate, property owners will not be able to sell, to transfer or donate their property.
The point is that engineers will be mandatory involved in any property transaction – and in a social-minded state, they will also secure a small, medium, or large extra, now that the construction market in Greece has died.
What is interesting in the Eleftheros Typos report that has been copy-pasted and spread over all the internet, I read not a single sentence about what this Property ID Certificate is exactly about.
OK, I surfed the internet to find some Property ID posts, mostly British and Irish and yet i did not understand the issue. I read something like “Property identification involves labeling inventory and company assets” and “identification tags” and “ID labels to prevent theft and streamline processes.
So I practically have no idea what the Property ID is and will be. However I am practically convinced that the government will dig around the world, in the last village of Central Africa, Alaska or Mongolia to find out if there is any law or regulation that strips citizens of their last euro, yen, dinar, dollar. And so did all the governments since 2010.
By the way: the Energy Performance Certificate was introduced in Greece for every rental transaction in July 2011 and for every sell transaction in January 2012. The cost depends on the square meters of the property involved, it could be some 300 euro for a 120 sqm apartment.
The EPC cost came in addition to the Unified Property Tax (ENFIA) that was introduced more or less in the same time and cost the owner of a 10-year-old property of 120sqm in an average middle class suburb in Athens some 600-700 euro per calendar year. From 2011-2015, the ENFIA was some 200-300 euro higher. ENFIA is paid also for properties bringing no profit (first residence) and in addition to the Property Tax paid to Municipality every month.
I suppose, the next brilliant idea to burden Greece’s property owners will be something like a special tax to windows, balcony and inner doors.
PS Extra 400 euros? No problem! Oh wait! My euro-printing machine run out of ink…
This is a very clever way of extorting more money out of the Greek people. Even if you have gone abroad to find work you will still pay in Greece if you own any property.Furthermore in the current depressed market it isn’t even worth selling the property unless you are desperate.There is no escape 🙁
Yeah many people just prefer to rent properties and not pay their rent claiming they cannot pay it!
Oh yeah, how can we forget that in Greece 90% of the people are renting? Troll-army-members don’t get sacked?
The English at the turn of the last century used to tax the Irish on Windows and chimneys!
see? I knew such weird property regulations have existed before
The window tax in the existed in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was not English taxing the Irish at all: what racist nonsense is this?
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In Amsterdam they had alternative malakia: a width of property tax. Not the size of the property, or the number of rooms, or floors. No, the width. Which is why you can see in Amsterdam today so many old buildings that are very narrow (maybe only 2 or 3 metres) but very big in total size.
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You see, politicians have been arseholes throughout human history. This is their profession.
Window tax was actually imposed in England for far longer than in Ireland. It was abolished in Ireland in 1851 (after 52 years) and in England in the same year (after 156 years !). It was imposed on the French in 1798 and abolished in 1926 !!
it was a tax according to the number of windows?
Yes, the number (not the size). If you look at Victorian houses in England, you will find many with bricked-up windows (just bare walls, where there used to be windows) in order to reduce their tax bill. The politicians made people live in the dark, or alternatively pay a tax to have access to light. In England, where the light is poor anyway, this would actually be damaging to your health.
thank you. I get it: taxing the sun… Taking into consideration also the air quality in 18th/19th century… well.. the scheme was probably “get rid of all these poor people.”
Yes, which is why you often see 18th Century houses with ‘blind’ windows where they were either bricked up or had not been created because of the tax. There was also a hearth tax.
the ehalth tax is you were healthy or sick?
‘Hearth’ = the floor of a fireplace.
Basically it was a fireplace tax, or what someone called a chimney tax.
ah, sorry. need some eye glasses 🙂
Yes according to the number of windows. Which is why you still find bricked in windows in older UK and French homes.
Hi KTG,
sorry but I must correct your article. This Taxation is only a proposition at the moment and only for illegally built properties without planning permission. Normal legal houses with planning permission and all the other necessary “bits of paper” do not fall under this law (Yet).
you mean the Property ID? Because all the former illegal building (semi-whatever Hmypaithrio, no permission) has been able to be legalized for 40 years with paying a fine etc. since 2011.
Well maybe one day someone will work out that a countries wealth and health is determined to a great extent but it’s housing market….
If they were really good at robbing people they should be allowing anyone to open a bank account and making building licences cheaper to apply for…..
What charges apply to empty houses is of more interest to me, because like France, there are going to be a lot of empty foreign owned properties, especially on the islands like Rhodes…..
Also I think that we should have an animal tax here and not something like a window tax or indeed and more property tax bullshit, (you can still see the bricked up windows in many old houses in England)
This would make money and also save thousands of poor animals suffering at the hands of ?, well who do you know who’s horrible to cats and dogs…..
Communist praxis will give release for poor people here as if one gots anyway no money at all, citizens of neighbourhoods and villages can organize all their properties as owned by a commune that rents it foe one Euro to the former owners and so it’s only one time 400 per commune.
Communism is dead – even though nobody has seen its corpse