Homeowners had until 5pm last Wednesday to submit the valuation on which their Local Property Tax (LPT) would be based. The tax applies to all residential properties in the country and homeowners are obliged to submit a return on the basis of the value of their home as of November 1^st 2021. The government announced changes to the tax earlier this year in order to account for the sharp rise in house prices in recent years.

Katie Clair, Head of Revenue’s Local Property Tax Branch reported that 1.2 million returns have been filed by the day prior to the deadline. The LPT helpline took 16,000 calls on the 9th from property owners seeking information on filing returns.

“It is clear from the volume of activity that the majority of property owners are doing what they can to file their returns ahead of the deadline today at 5pm – we would urge anybody yet to file to do so today,” Ms Clair said on deadline day.

The Revenue website for dealing with Local Property Tax valuations crashed for a number of hours Tuesday the 9th, one day before the extended deadline for registering all properties for the tax. Homeowners had already been given a reprieve on a deadline for returning their local property tax valuation from November 7th until 5pm Wednesday November 10th.

A week before deadline a little over half of all properties had been registered. As a self-assessed tax, Revenue required homeowners to value their properties themselves. The structure of the tax is based on 20 valuation bands, so property owners didn’t have to value their home to a specific amount (unless their property costs more than €1.75 million).

To help find out which band a property falls into, Revenue created a valuation tool on its website, which allows users to submit their Eircode to find their property and select it on a map. Users will then be given a price band for their address. This tool is intended as a guide only. Revenue told property owners that they should consider the specifics of their property and assess whether its value falls within the band for their area. For some, the value may actually be less than what the tool says.

As a result of changes to the LPT system, properties were revalued on November 1^st, with valuations to be reviewed subsequently every four years. This year’s revaluation will be the first since the tax was introduced in 2013.

NB – This is a guide for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have an issue requiring legal advice, please contact any of the team at Nolan Farrell & Goff LLP, whose numbers can be found on our website www.nfg.ie, or email info@nfg.ie.