Should IPT be a movable feast?

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fbg52
Posts: 3
Joined: 12 Apr 2011 14:12

Should IPT be a movable feast?

Post by fbg52 »

I was wondering if anyone ever gets a breakdown of the figures used to calculate their Immovable Property Tax?
We have been in correspondence with our developer for over a year now regarding the IPT and transfer of title deeds. He claims that he cannot give us a breakdown because it is too complicated to work out. The 1980 value is unknown and he has been charged for all the devlopment he has done and can't break it down. After many questions and requests for his figures he has reduced the IPT he is charging us from £400 CYP a year to £300 CYP a year so we seem to be in a bargaining situation rather than being any clearer on how the figure has been arrived at. Our lawyer is urging us to bargain more but without providing us with any 'facts' to base the bargaining on. Should we continue to bargain? Should we be considering paying at all? It's not a good time to be converting money to euros so it's tempting to leave it. But what would be the consequences of not having the title deeds? We have the deeds to the land I think (it's all in Greek) which we have been told means he can't mortgage our deeds so should we just leave it for a while?
Many thanks for any advice, comments or news on what others are doing.
Nigel Howarth
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Joined: 24 Oct 2007 14:38
Location: Erimi, Limassol, Cyprus
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Re: Should IPT be a movable feast?

Post by Nigel Howarth »

Hi fbg52 and welcome to the forum,

There have been several discussions on this problem. According to the law:

"The obligation of every owner of immovable property in the Republic of Cyprus is to pay annually a tax according to the market value of his property as assessed on the 1st January 1980, known as immovable property tax (IPT) governed by the Immovable Property Tax Law, No. 24/80 (the Law) as amended by Laws 60/80, 68/80, 25/81, 10/84, 33/87, 239/91, 120/02 and 147/04."

So your developer, or possibly the company's accountant, will be completing and submitting a tax return annually and will receive an IPT demand from the Inland Revenue. If he fails to submit a return, the Inland Revenue will impose a fine based on a percentage of the tax that he should have paid - and if he fails to pay for several years, that interest will be compounded.

(In one case that I was involved with, a developer tried to charge an 84 year-old lady more than €25,000 for what he claimed was Immovable Property Tax for seventeen years. Her lawyer managed to sort this out eventually and the amount of tax she was liable to pay was €430).

in 2008, the Cyprus Property Action Group sought legal opinion on this matter and produced a guide that you can read at http://www.news.cyprus-property-buyers. ... s/id=00517

I suggest that you also read a page on my website about this issue at http://www.cyprus-property-buyers.com/law/tax.htm

If the developer is proving unreasonable, I suggest that print the letter from the Interior Ministry that you can find at http://www.cyprus-property-buyers.com/f ... -Reply.pdf and present it to him.

Regards,
Nigel Howarth
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