New service charge

WalterMitty

The government is bringing in a new service charge for house in new year to eventually cover water and rubbish etc and it is forecast this will rise to around a thousand a year after few years like council tax has in UK. Will apartments that already pay service charges to management companies face this as well?

athtrasna

WalterMitty wrote: »

The government is bringing in a new service charge for house in new year to eventually cover water and rubbish etc and it is forecast this will rise to around a thousand a year after few years like council tax has in UK. Will apartments that already pay service charges to management companies face this as well?

That's not correct. It's a household levy which is the precursor to water charges. Refuse is separate and will remain so, in fact many local authorities have already left refuse collection to private operators so it wouldn't be feasible to then try and centralise it again.

All households (with certain income restrictions) would be liable for the levy, homes in managed developments use water too.

JaneyMacker

if they do bring in a council tax each person living in an area will have to pay it. whether they own or rent their home.

The_Conductor

athtrasna wrote: »

That's not correct. It's a household levy which is the precursor to water charges. Refuse is separate and will remain so, in fact many local authorities have already left refuse collection to private operators so it wouldn't be feasible to then try and centralise it again.

All households (with certain income restrictions) would be liable for the levy, homes in managed developments use water too.

I'd further develop this.......
Technically, its a stop-gap measure, until such time as water meters are installed in all residential units (apartments included).

Its being used as a means of getting people used to paying a property tax- the intention is that there would be a totally separate water charge, based on usage, *ontop* of this residential tax, once we have the means to meter all homes.

Anyone who says the property will go up to é1000 within 3-4 years, is speculating, pure and simple. It may- indeed it may go a lot higher than this- but water and refuse are separate, and will have to be paid separately.

On a related note- apartment complexes and shared living arrangements (sheltered housing etc) are being strongly pressurised to do away with communal refuse collection systems and to implement the polluter pays principle. This suits many Management Companies who have been successfully fined recently for unsafe disposal of waste in residential waste units (most recently this week- used oil, car parts and batteries at one unit in Lucan).

People- we are going to be paying a hell of a lot more tax in the future.
These taxes will be part of the cost of ownership of a property- and should be factored into the calculations of anyone considering buying (or using facilities- in the case of refuse or water)

JaneyMacker

smccarrick wrote: »

I'd further develop this.......
Technically, its a stop-gap measure, until such time as water meters are installed in all residential units (apartments included).

Its being used as a means of getting people used to paying a property tax- the intention is that there would be a totally separate water charge, based on usage, *ontop* of this residential tax, once we have the means to meter all homes.

Anyone who says the property will go up to é1000 within 3-4 years, is speculating, pure and simple. It may- indeed it may go a lot higher than this- but water and refuse are separate, and will have to be paid separately.

On a related note- apartment complexes and shared living arrangements (sheltered housing etc) are being strongly pressurised to do away with communal refuse collection systems and to implement the polluter pays principle. This suits many Management Companies who have been successfully fined recently for unsafe disposal of waste in residential waste units (most recently this week- used oil, car parts and batteries at one unit in Lucan).

People- we are going to be paying a hell of a lot more tax in the future.
These taxes will be part of the cost of ownership of a property- and should be factored into the calculations of anyone considering buying (or using facilities- in the case of refuse or water)

you are right there.
yes the only way to get people to take care how they dispose of their rubbish or how much water they us is to charge the person using it. no point trying to get someone to reduce their usgae if somone else is paying fo their usage.

markpb

How would a non-communal refuse system work in apartment complexes? If you have a block with several units, each of them putting bins outside the door would be pretty unworkable.

I know some places restrict access to the refuse areas by swipe card so they can bill owners but it sounds expensive to implement, a lot of work to maintain and leaves you with the risk of owners leaving their rubbish outside.

Pappacharlie

WalterMitty wrote: »

The government is bringing in a new service charge for house in new year to eventually cover water and rubbish etc and it is forecast this will rise to around a thousand a year after few years like council tax has in UK. Will apartments that already pay service charges to management companies face this as well?

The proposed charge being introduced next year is not a service charge.
It is a property tax which will be extended to a value based property tax over the coming years. Water charges will be on the agenda next year. It is true that this tax will fund local authorities so just remember that it is not a service charge.

Victor

JaneyMacker wrote: »

if they do bring in a council tax each person living in an area will have to pay it. whether they own or rent their home.

For clarity, what are proposed are (a) service charges (b) some form of property / site valuation tax. There has been no suggestion of a UK-style council tax.

dardhal

JaneyMacker wrote: »

you are right there.
yes the only way to get people to take care how they dispose of their rubbish or how much water they us is to charge the person using it. no point trying to get someone to reduce their usgae if somone else is paying fo their usage.

Well, I'm not really sure about that. From my personal observation, it seems to me that people in Spain (where I come from) take greater care when disposing of their rubbish (which is, nearly free, as it's a public service provided by the cities, and paid from their budget) than here in Dublin where you already have to pay for every single waste bag you fill. Here in Dublin you can see how inefficiently waste bags are filled, for example, cans are not crushed to reduce volume, drink bricks or plastic bottles nobody seem to be taking care of bending / flattening them, so a waste bag can hold several times the amount of waste compared to disposing of packging as is. Paper, cardboard, etc. the same. And it costs more to a lot of people to put two waste bags for pick up than one. And yet, nobody seem to care.

With respect to water usage, were I come from it has always been metered, but being a rather dry country, it makes a lot of sense. Anyways, water in Spain (were it is a very scarce resource) is cheap: about 1€/cubic meter (1000 liters), up to 2€/cu.m. in some places. For a family of four living in a flat, so no garden to water, this amounts to less than 40€ every two months (average 20€/mn). And this is supposed to support all the water cycle, from storing (in big dams tens or hundreds of kilometers away), to distribution, to making water potable, to sewage treatment, etc. There is some infrastructure that is payed by the government, but there is no additional charge for water treatment or consuption. So to have a ballpark figure of how much the service should cost, although I understand in Ireland water should be much cheaper, as it is an abundant resource.

Take into account however that recently big cities as Madrid have seen the rebirth of a "waste tax" to support (well, the city is broke, and has to get money where it can) the service. As it is impossible to quantify the amount of waste every household generates, the tax is charged on the basis of the house estimated value. So a single person living alone in a big apartment in city center pays way more than a family of five living in a larger accomodation in a less valued area. As unfair as it sounds, but anyways, the tax ranges from about 30€/year to (can't remember the figure) 100 €/year. And you get nightly waste pick up in communal closed containers located on the street, different containers for different kinds of waste, and a fairly large number of big recycling points so people can dispose of bigger or dangerous items (electronics, kitchen appliances, furniture, batteries, used oil, etc.).

Unfortunately the figures that are appearing on the irish media are many times higher than the ones above. By the way, in Spain we have always had a "property tax" , charged by the cities, which amounts to a yearly percentage of the estimated accomodation market value. I'm paying twice as much now than I was paying just a decade ago, and the updates to the tax will make it more than triple by 2020. At current values, you pay from 200 to 800 €/year as owner of your house/apartment/whatever, so it's expected to raise to 600-2000+ a year by 2020.

All that said, don't forget that every country has a very different taxation structure, and maybe the amounts or taxes itself are not comparable. The only thing that we can be sure of is we are going to be squeezed for years to come, even more than the previous ones. If the country as a whole needs moneys it's going to take it from us, one way or the other.