10,000 pay second home fee in hours before deadline

MORE than 10,000 owners of non-principal private residences paid the new €200 charge on their properties in the last hours before the deadline on payment which falls today.

In just 24 hours, payments valuing €2,162,600 were processed by the system by 8am yesterday.

This continued a strong upward trend in registrations from early this week as a one-month “period of grace” after the initial deadline on September 30 came to an end.

County & City Managers’ Association chairman Ned Gleeson said: “Between 8am on Monday and 8am on Tuesday 1,954 properties were registered, an additional 6,385 were registered by Wednesday morning, 7,545 more on Thursday and a further 10,813 by Friday morning.

“This surge in payments reflects a terrific record of compliance and brings the total number of properties to 185,235.”

He added, “The money collected through this charge stays in the system and will be used locally to fund the delivery of services to communities.

“In these tough times for local authorities it is a much needed and welcome boost to our finances.”

In acknowledging that the sum collected is very encouraging, Mr Gleeson pointed out that there are still people out there who are liable and who have not yet paid.

However, confusion has continued over what properties are liable for the charge.

Estimates by Dublin City Council are that just under half the revenue due to it under the new charge has been collected.

This amounts to €5 million, which will go some way to covering the expenditure gap in the city’s finances.

More than 75% of properties have been registered using the NPPR website (www.nppr.ie). Properties can also be registered through the relevant local authority.

There is no exact figure on the number of properties liable for the charge, but the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has estimated that it stands at about 200,000.

Labour party local government spokesman Ciarán Lynch said he believes this figure underestimates the number of properties liable, which he says could be anything up to 400,000.