property owners hit with 900% increases – Portugal Resident
Roughly 1000 property owners in Matoshinhos have had a rates shock this year that has left them utterly dumbfounded.
Imagine having regularly paid €218 IMI (municipal property tax) on an inherited plot of land, to find this year’s rates demand is for €2,189. This is what has happened to Sara Magalhães, who told Jornal de Notícias that, at first, she thought she was being scammed.
But this is deadly serious. It is all to do with ‘zonas de pressão urbanística’, and a national law that allows municipalities to charge 10 times the usual IMI if land with ‘constructive capacity’ is left ‘vacant’.
In this case, the Matosinhos ZPU takes in the parishes of Matosinhos, Leça da Palmeira, Senhora da Hora and S. Mamede de Infesta.
As Sara Magalhães explains, her land in Senhora da Hora is taken up by mature fruit trees. “Since when am I obliged to construct? And is it the council who will give me the money to construct? This is ridiculous, and completely unsustainable,” she said of the new rule.
Sara is just one of hundreds of people in similar positions: suddenly staring at massive rates bills because their land is in a ZPU.
Matosinhos mayor Luísa admits the law has already been deemed ‘unconstitutional’ by a court of arbitration, because it compels people to construct on their land, when they may not want to, or have even the means to.
She told JN that the council will review the limits of ZPUs, but in the meantime, the IMI demands need to be paid – even if people seek to challenge them.
Mayor Salgueiro encouraged property owners to take their complaints to the Taxation Authority.
Source: ZAP citing Jornal de Notícias
