> The possibility of declaring undeclared areas of real estate, with the imposition of a surcharge on the debts from 1.1.2020, at a rate of +20% for the first half of the delay, and +5% for each subsequent half, just as it also applies to the settlement of arrears, and with a maximum limit of +50%, whichever is determined as the general maximum fine.
> In vacant and non-electrified properties the obligation to declare the owners should be abolished, and from the time of power cut, known to the Municipalities from the OnLine connection with DEDDIE), an automatic exemption from the municipal cleaning and lighting fees should apply , as long as they are also blank.
> The statute of limitations for the claims of OTAs, which will reach 20 years in 2030, must be legislatively returned to five years, as is currently the case for the tax claims of the State, so that citizens can respond to the payment them.
>If the transfer of ENFIA to the Local Self-Government is implemented, it should be done in accordance with the conclusion of the Pissarides Committee and the well-known study of the IOBE, but also the government’s line for a gradual reduction of this burden, as an annual horizontal fee and without the “supplementary tax” It is not understood a municipal “fee” that is imposed on an increasing scale or burdened multiple times in such a confiscatory way …
> The lifting of real estate commitments by the local authorities should be done automatically without the need for any diagnostic administrative procedure and for the released properties to be issued building permits with the applicable building conditions of the area and not special and punitively reduced conditions that devalue the property.
> Finally, POMIDA proposes that the properties of “unknown owner” should go to the relevant Municipalities, who know and can fully utilize the urban properties for the creation of “social housing” and other social uses and the rural properties for the rehabilitation of landless farmers and any other use beneficial for the OTAs and society as a whole.
The full content of the letter is as follows:
To the Minister of the Interior Mr. Makis Voridis &
the Deputy Minister of the Interior Mr. Stelios Petsa
COMMUNICATION: To the President of KEDE Mr. Dimitris Papastergiou &
the President of the Institutions Committee & Transparency of KEDE Mr. Grigoris Constantello
Inside Athens, July 19, 2021 p>
SUBJECT:Real estate contracts: Urgent re-operation of the municipal tax declaration platform!
Dear Ministers,
POMIDA becomes >daily recipient of intense protests from property owners from all over the country, who did not know and did not benefit from the favorable provisions that were in force with our proposal until recently, that today, in order to draw up any kind of transfer contracts, they are asked by the Municipalities for astronomical sums after fines for retrospective municipal cleaning, lighting and TAP fees for 12 years, for undeclared areas and for non-electrified properties, due to the fact that the provisions that automatically came back into force are “draconian” and completely unenforceable, and need immediate modification.
absolutely urgent and imperative is the need to re-operate the KEDE real estate area declaration platform, so that any citizens who need to correct the areas of their real estate surfaces in order to get the “TAP non-debt certificate” can do so without being found face predatory fines and surcharges of up to 200% on the 12-year dues, which will prevent any transfer of property until the platform reopens. In view of the above, we propose that there be legislative regulations with the following content:
- RESTORATION OF THE KEDE PLATFORM FOR MUNICIPAL REAL ESTATE FEES:Citizens strongly protest because due to the current measures against the pandemic, for any new declaration citizens need months to make telephone appointments with the Municipalities’ revenue services. Thus, it was an unprecedented inconsistency and setback that, while today a superhuman and particularly successful effort is being made by the competent bodies of the Government so that citizens are served exclusively electronically by all government services, the operation of the KEDE online application for the electronic declaration of undeclared persons was interrupted surfaces and non-electrified areas, and the declaration was reinstated with a physical presence at the OTA services.
During the short month and in through pandemic and quarantine, operating the platform created by KEDE based on POMIDA’s proposal to write off retroactive debts to those who disclose the undeclared area of their buildings, 2,754,563 area declarations were submitted about 70 million square meters, resulting in annual revenues for the local authorities that will exceed 150 million euros per year! However, a huge part of the built-up areas, especially in the periphery, remains undeclared due to the fact that it was not made informative campaign based on the sending of emails by AADE to all property owners in the country and the Greek diaspora, but also that the operation of this platform was unnecessarily interrupted.
>POMIDA requests the immediate and permanent reopening of the KEDE online platform, as a permanent channel of communication and service for the property owners of the country and the Greek diaspora with the Municipalities where their assets are located, to which should be added as many other services as possible online.
- DECLARATION OF UNDECLARED PROPERTY AREAS:Their inaccurate declaration for the imposition of municipal cleaning and lighting charges (usually five times higher for commercial use than for residential use!) today incurs a fine 60%, the overdue 100%, while for the imposition of TAP the fine is 200% on the original debt! The strength of these “draconian” regulations makes it impossible for citizens interested in drawing up transfer contracts to voluntarily declare undeclared building areas, who are necessarily waiting for the platform to reopen.
> POMIDA requests the possibility of declaring undeclared real estate areas, with the imposition of a surcharge on the debts from 1.1.2020, at a rate of +20% for the first half of the delay, and +5% for each subsequent half, just as it also applies to the settlement of arrears, and with a maximum limit of +50%, whichever is determined as the general upper limit of fine imposition.
- AUTOMATIC RELEASE OF VACANCIES & NON-ELECTRIFIED PROPERTIES:The exemption from council tax of un-electrified properties is the biggest problem for property owners, the vast majority of whom, elderly and especially in the periphery, unknowingly consider that a power cut in a property, also interrupts the obligation to pay municipal fees, as long as they believe in good faith that with the interruption of the electricity, the cash services of the relevant Municipality are automatically informed, as should be the case and as provided for. But in fact today the declaration exempts the owner from municipal cleaning fees & lightingonlyfrom the date of its submission to the revenue service, and not from the day of power cut, unlike the previous order of 2005, for which our 20-year struggle preceded, which discharged the citizen retroactively and regardless of the time of filing the responsible declaration, as the Ombudsman had also given an opinion.
Today, in the year 2021, there is only one way to deal with this issue. Given that all the Municipalities of the country have connected or have the possibility to connect to the ON LINE application of the DEDDIE for municipal fees, it should finally be legislated that a power cut also interrupts the charging of municipal fees, as long as the corresponding non-electrified space is not used, and if it is used without electricity, the owner or user will be required to declare it from the start of use, in order to be charged the corresponding fees. The services of the Municipalities can check compliance with the above obligation, by carrying out autopsies on every place that is reported to the DEDDIE terminal as not having electricity, or by requesting the presentation of retroactive tax and lease or other five-year data.
> POMIDA therefore requests that the owner’s declaration obligation be abolished for vacant and non-electrified properties, and that from the time of power cut, known to the Municipalities from the OnLine connection with DEDDIE), an automatic exemption from the municipal fees shall apply cleaning and lighting fees, as long as they are also empty.
- LIMITATION TIME FOR CLAIMS TO OTA:Under the pressure of the “troika”, at the end of 2014 the most unbelievable was enacted: While the Public had begun to gradually reduce the statute of limitations for its tax claims to five years, which was then generalized by a series of decisions of the Council of State, for the OTAs it was legislated to increase the five-year statute of limitations for their claims to twenty years,when it comes on taxes, fees, rights and contributions to the OTAs that arise “due to non-submission by the debtors of the necessary data for their certification or submission of inaccurate or incomplete data or wrongly certified debts”, increased by the fines on the debts of last five years. This is the well-known provision – “carmaniola” of article 32 of Law 4304/2014, which constitutes a legislative anomaly, which is completely contrary to the philosophy and principles of the Rule of Law ! The statute of limitations for citizens’ obligations, while it is five years for debts to the State, cannot be twenty years for debts to OTAs, i.e. four times the statute of limitations!
> POMIDA requests that the limitation period for the claims of OTAs, which will reach 20 years in 2030, must be legislatively returned to five years, as is currently the case for the tax claims of the State, so that citizens can meet their payment. Otherwise we will soon be led to bloated debts, massive foreclosures and real estate auctions by the local authorities, especially of the residents of the region and the out-of-towners.
- ENFIA TRANSFER TO CITIES WITHOUT ADDITIONAL TAXwhich is the bane of the real estate market, of construction, but above all of the “demolition” of the value of urban private real estate! The abolition of the additional tax will bring to the State healthy tax revenues and employment and turnover in huge sectors of industry, craft, trade and liberal professions and will contribute to the restart of construction, but also of our entire economy! The approximately 500 million that the additional tax of ENFIA yields can easily be covered by the rational taxation of off-plan property, especially that which, due to its location and area, has or can be structured for residential and tourist development.
>POMIDA requests, if the transfer of ENFIA to the Local Government is implemented, that it be done in accordance with the conclusion of the Pissarides Committee and the well-known study of IOBE, but and the government’s line for a gradual reduction of this burden, as an annual horizontal fee and without the “supplementary tax” There is no sense of a municipal “fee” imposed on an incremental scale or burdened multiple times in such a confiscatory way…
- AUTOMATIC REMOVAL OF MULTI-YEAR URBAN PLANNING PROPERTY COMMITMENTS BY MUNICIPALITIES. It is known that many OTAs across the country have, for decades, pledged many thousands of private properties for the creation of public spaces and facilities, without any real intention and possibility for their implementation, and without ever actually lifting these pledges in any reasonable period of time, even after the issuance of final court decisions, since – in most cases – the competent services of the OTAs. they do not proceed with the immediate removal of the planning commitment, but they review the issue, requiring the citizen to get involved in new bureaucratic procedures, which almost always result in the re-imposition of the planning commitment!
It is a fact that with articles 87-91 of Law 4759/2020 an attempt was made once again to reform the process of lifting urban planning commitments, but these provisions do not seem to solve the problem , since for the most part they reproduce the legislation currently in force. Thus, the self-righteous removal of urban planning commitments is not applied in practice, since the competent agencies refuse to take the necessary actions, with the result that the citizen is forced to resort to the competent Administrative Courts in order for them to diagnose the self-righteous removal, while subsequently the case it is again referred to the Administration for the completion of the relevant procedure, which ultimately is never processed, especially if the citizen is not able to bear the cost of drawing up the required plans and studies which, according to the law, should be carried out diligently and expense of the Administration.
This practice creates an obligation for the Municipalities to show in their budgets reserved amounts for alleged compensation payments, with the result of distorting their fiscal picture, and the citizens endless and costly legal entanglements with the OTAs, which, due to the successive abusive re-commitments, last even longer than the duration of a human life! These cases have also concerned the International Court of Human Rights of Strasbourg many times, which has issued heaps of judgments against Greece (see from the particularly recent jurisprudence the case Pialopoulos 1 and 2 v. Greece , as well as Vlastaris v. Greece, in which the State is asked to pay compensation of €620,000, if the removal of the planning commitment is not implemented immediately!
> POMIDA requests that the lifting of these commitments be done automatically without the need for any diagnostic administrative procedure and for the released properties to be issued building permits with the applicable building conditions of the area and not special and punitively reduced conditions that devalue the property.
- NATIONAL LAND REGISTRY: INVESTIGATION IN THE OTA HOMES OF THE NOTIFIERS & UNKNOWN PROPERTY OWNER AND NOT IN THE PUBLIC: Article 9 of Law 2664/1998 on the National Land Registry provides that all undeclared properties of unknown owners, urban and rural, hundreds of thousands throughout the country, after the end of all deadlines for declaration and their legal claim, will fall to the Greek State!
This provision, the substance of which does not has ever employed anyone, is completely impractical and destructive since the State can formally order the land registry offices to transfer these properties into its name, but lacks any practical ability to do anything about it these, how to receive them, to guard them from encroachments, to preserve them, to dispose of them for any social or financial purpose, except for their inclusion in the Super Fund!
> POMIDA proposes the “Unknown Owner” properties to come to the relevant municipalities, who know and can fully utilize urban real estate for “social residence” and other social uses and agricultural for rehabilitation of farmers and any other use of their benefit OTAs and the community. of “social housing” (“social housing”) in the form of houses owned by local government or other bodies and are offered for leasing favorable terms to families Income, it is unfortunately an unknown concept in our country, as opposed to the whole of Europe. This is because there have never been housing local programs for the above purpose, since they never had the financial capacity for such a venture, and our state always kept its efforts to facilitate acquisition of a privately owned home to its citizens.
Today’s ongoing process of drawing up the National Land Registry is a unique historical opportunity that should not be lost, to obtain OTAs, essentially inexpensive , houses that can be organized to meet the above needs. Thousands of apartments and residences as well as any other “unknown owner” real estate will formally come to the Greek State in accordance with article 9 of Law 2664/1998, but no immediate and practical ability to exploit them, resulting in “ruins”. »Literally, at the expense of the roommates of apartment buildings, neighbors, society as a whole.
In this context, we believe that the conditions for changing existing legislation in terms of management of real estate left undeclared or “unknown identity” are better than ever , so that they do not come to the Greek State, but to the relevant Local Authorities. It goes without saying that OTAs will be much more likely to receive in their possession, to guard, maintain and make these properties briefly for the benefit of society and the economy, this will not be an important reform that will applaud the whole local government. And society in general! Home, utilizing existing building infrastructures so that they do not “ruin” the residential environment in the apartment building and the neighborhood where they are located, and on the other hand they can be used constructively and for the benefit of the residents of our municipalities. Social Residence »in the context of sustainable development! Issues please set out as soon as possible with the Bureau of our Federation. = “Text-Align: Justify;”> President General Secretary
Stratos I. Paradias Tasos G. Vappas
lawyer AP – President UIPI Lawyer AP – y.D.N.
