property tax
Property owners staged demonstrations in Estepona while 16,000 Vélez residents have applied for aid
01.09.08 - 09:05 -
Vélez-Málaga and Estepona are the two most recent municipalities to have updated the catastral values and consequently the IBI tax.
In Estepona the Town Hall asked for the register to be updated and then tried to cancel the new version. In March the council voted in favour of contesting the new values in order to prevent the updated register from taking effect.
This was the formula the former mayor Antonio Barrientos - now in prison for the Astapa corruption affair - found to reject the new document that increased the catastral value of the properties in the municipality by an average of 300 per cent. Nevertheless the government body responsible for the registers said that the local authority could not ask for a document to be withdrawn if it had already officially approved it.
Protests
Meanwhile a lobby group formed by Estepona residents staged a number of demonstrations against the Town Hall’s local taxation policy. The local authority responded by announcing that the higher values would not affect the home owners who were registered on the population census, as their IBI would not increase thanks to municipal subsidies. That leaves those not registered on the census who will have to pay IBI rates set at the maximum allowed by law (1.1% of the catastral value of the property).
In Vélez-Málaga the increase in the IBI has been very controversial. The update was ordered by former mayor Antonio Souvirón. In some cases the revaluation trebled the amount that appears on the catastral register, causing uproar among the different political parties. Proof of the general unrest caused by the IBI increase are the 15,903 applications made by local home owners in May and June, asking for the subsidies available to help pay the tax.
These subsidies cover up to 95 per cent of the difference between the bills before and after the revaluation. The Town Hall has approved 13,576 applications and has rejected 900 as the property owners in question have outstanding debts with the local authority.
