The original wording for which POMIDA expressed its satisfaction, provided for the abolition of the 20-year limitation period that applied from 2014 until now and the gradual reinstatement within two years of the five-year limitation period of all kinds of obligations of the citizens towards the Municipalities. The Ministry of the Interior even blatantly argued in favor of the 5-year statute of limitations in the accompanying texts of the bill, pointing out that with the previous regime “we observe the burden and the surprise of citizens who are called even 23 years later to pay amounts for a fine that they may have paid without they have kept the proof after so long, burdening the courts with many unproven and limited appeals, conflicts and constant tension between municipal authorities, collective bodies and supervisory authorities and ultimately legal uncertainty”.
The 5-year statute of limitations on debts is in line with the corresponding regulations recently adopted by the Ministry of Finance for taxes and the Ministry of Labor for insurance contributions following a relevant decision of the Council of State. But the Ministry of the Interior and the Municipalities seem to be another state, deciding and legislating not only not to reduce the debt limitation period, as they should, but also to extend it backwards, until the middle of the 20th century as the debts from any undeclared or incomplete property surface were excluded from the five-year statute of limitations, with the unprecedented in legal times formulation that they will be ascertained against the owners “from the origin of their obligation”!!! That is, up to and including 1958 for municipal fees and from 1993 for TAP!!!
POMIDA addressed a relevant letter of protest to the Minister of the Interior Mr. Makis Voridis, the Deputy Minister of the Interior Mr. Stelios Petsa, the General Secretary of the Interior Mr. Michalis Stavrianoudakis, the President of KEDE, Mr. Dimitris Papastergiou and the Mayor of Athens, Mr. Kostas Bakoyannis, requesting the immediate revocation of the unprecedented legal brutality of this regulation, i.e. the imposition of retroactive municipal fees dating back to … the previous century!
“>In the letter it is pointed out, among other things, that “With this provision, any unsuspecting citizen who, from the detailed measurement made today by an engineer for building identity due to a contract of parental provision or transfer of property, finds for the first time that some square meters of area of his property had not been declared to the relevant municipality, he will be charged with astronomical retroactive amounts of several decades, which, especially in commercial properties where municipal fees are as a rule five times the residential ones, will even exceed the value of the property itself, with end result its “confiscation” because it will be impossible to pay. While the public and the insurance funds, as well as the jurisprudence as a whole, adopt the five-year term, the mayors, with the blessings of the Government, will literally “scrape” the citizens with irrevocable retroactive fees even up to 30-65 years!!!”
The text of the letter follows.
To the Minister of the Interior Mr. Makis Voridis
The Deputy Minister of Interior Mr. Stelios Petsa
COM.: The General Secretary of the Interior Mr. Michalis Stavrianoudakis
The President of KEDE Mr. Dimitris Papastergiou
The President of KEDE Mr. Dimitris Papastergiou strong>
The Mayor of Athens Mr. Kostas Bakoyannis
Herein Athens, 3.3.2023
Subject: Immediate withdrawal of the imposition of retroactive municipal fees of the 20th century!!!
Dear Ministers
On 18.2.2023 you submitted to Parliament a draft law with title “Innovation System in the public sector – Regulations of the General Secretariat of Public Sector Human Resources – Regulations for the operation of the OTAs first and second degree and decentralized administrations and for the well-being of companion animals – Other urgent regulations of the Ministry of the Interior”, article 38 of which included a regulation entitled “Certification and collection of municipal revenues”.
With this provision, in alignment with the January 2018 special report of the Ombudsman on “Revenues of Municipalities and Rule of Law”, as your relevant report explicitly explained, as well as Decision 1738/2017 of the Plenary Session of the Council of Ministers on the five-year statute of limitations for debts to the State, the single addressing the issue with the“establishment of a regulation that defines specifically and only for municipalities, a) the conditions for revenue certification, b) a term for cash certification (five years from the following year of the certification in a broad sense) and c ) single, five-year collection period starting from the following year of the cash receipt. This shortening of the collection period becomes necessary, due to the modern perceptions of rapid settlement of financial outstandings, the wide possibilities of using digital applications, which facilitate transactions, and harmonizes with the more general logic that prevails for a five-year period in all debts to the state.”
This arrangement, which was a persistent request of our organization, which was accepted by both the KEDE and the leadership of the Ministry with which we have had frequent contacts, we publicly praised with our announcement, awaiting the publication of the relevant law.
You understand our astonishment when reading the text of this provision ( already article 39) in law 5027/2.3.23 (Government Gazette 48A΄), we found that the original text of the provision to which the above Advisory Report referred ” disappeared” and a completely different text was voted in its place, with which, in flagrant violation of every concept of law as well as simple logic, excluded from the five-year statute of limitations especially the debts from any undeclared or incomplete property surface which will be assessed against the owners “from the origination of their obligation” (!!!) while “the fines attributed to them on a case-by-case basis for the debts of the last five (5) years. »!!!
In other words, it is now established, in terms of the main debts of municipal fees and TAP:
- 65 YEAR LIMITATIONfor municipal fees for undeclared building surface, due to reduction of of their statute of limitations for buildings (residences, business premises, etc.) at the time of construction of each building, and with a maximum time limit for the oldest buildings in the year 1958, in which with the N.D. 24-9/20-10/1958 (Government Gazette A 171/1958) “Income from OTA activities etc.” municipal cleaning and lighting fees were imposed!
- 30 YEAR LIMITATION FOR TAP buildings & of plots of land, due to the reduction of the statute of limitations to 1.1.1993, the date of entry into force of Law 2130/1993 on Real Estate Tax!
Thus with this provision, any unsuspecting citizen who, from the detailed measurement made today by an engineer for building identity due to a contract of parental provision or property transfer, finds for the first time that some square meters of the area of the property of which had not been declared to the relevant municipality, will be charged with astronomical retroactive amounts of several decades, which, especially in commercial properties where council rates are typically five times the residential ones, will even exceed the value of the property itself, with the final result of its “confiscation”, because it will be impossible to pay!
In the same article 39 as well as in the transitional provisions of article 72 include other provisions which, instead of reducing to five years, even gradually like the original text, the statute of limitations for such obligations, extend it for another 5-10 years !!! In other words, while the public and the insurance funds, as well as the jurisprudence as a whole, adopt the five-year term, the mayors, with the blessings of the Government, will literally “scrape” the citizens with unwritten retroactive fees even up to 30-65 years!!!
Because all these provisions violate every principle and concept of law , are highly oppressive for citizens and practically unenforceable, and will be defeated from the first appeal to Justice, WE INVITE YOU with your immediate legislative initiative to revoke them, as imposed by the principles of Law and User Administration, restoring the gradual reduction of the statute of limitations of each claim of the municipalities in the five-year period, as was the case for decades until 2014, and as it should be the case today and in the future.
At the same time, we invite you to to restore to permanent effect the correct and beneficial regulations for the undeclared areas, through the operation of the well-known KEDE platform, with gradually escalating increments, as well as to end the ongoing entrapment of unsuspecting citizens who do not know that when the electricity supply to a property is interrupted, municipal fees continue to be charged to it, unless they declare the interruption to the revenue service of the municipality concerned, legislating their automatic interruption, strong> unless the municipality can document the use of the property in any way.
For the POMIDA Board of Directors
President General Secretary
Stratos Paradias Tasos Vappas
Lawyer A.P. – President UIPI Lawyer A.P. – y.D.N.
