Revenue to aid buyers’ websites on property tax

Revenue has given guidelines to property websites on how property owners can assess the amount in property tax they owe following concerns raised about differing home values.

Owners were yesterday encouraged to use commercial websites to help assess property values as well as ask their neighbours for advice.

Home owners were warned that authorities would go into their pay packets and recoup amounts owed for the levy immediately after the payment deadline falls if it is not paid.

Hundreds of property owners have already paid their local property tax.

Revenue’s property tax project manager, Vivienne Dempsey, yesterday said authorities had been in touch with property websites Daft.ie and MyHome.ie.

“We’ve actually been working with myhome and daft and we’ve given them the revenue information to assist them putting that on their websites,” she said.

“All this is part of an offer of help and guidance from individuals to help them put a value on their property because at the core of this tax is self-assessment.”

Property owners have complained in recent weeks that tax estimates for their homes and others in their area are above or below values on property websites.

This is because Revenue’s assessment is mainly based on the area where a property is located and the age of the home. However, property websites take into account the number of bedrooms, and any extensions.

While Revenue’s website gives a broad assessment of a home, owners may be inclined to get more specific values in their area on commercial property websites.

Ms Dempsey added: “We’re saying that it [the property website] is another piece of information. We’re encouraging property owners to look at as many sources of information as they can.”

The Revenue official suggested said: “We don’t know whether you’ve built an extension in the back. We’re not in the property evaluation business.

Daft.ie has attached a property tax calculator to its website in recent days. However, it was not known until now that Revenue had provided websites with value guidelines and was encouraging owners to use the commercial groups to help assess properties.