If you overvalued your house when you filed your Property Tax return in 2013 – you can still change your valuation and apply for a refund or have any overpayment credited to your account.
Many homeowners just accepted the suggested valuation provided by Revenue when the LPT forms were issued in 2013. It was made clear at the time that Revenue were only providing an inidication of the value of homes in the area – and it was not a figure that had to be used for LPT purposes. Here is our article on Property Tax Self Valuations from 2013 .
It appears that many thousands of people just accepted the Revenue valuation and paid the corresponding amount of Property Tax. Maybe they just misunderstood the instructions or just felt rushed into getting the forms sent back.
Revenue always said at the time that homeowners should arrive at their own valuation based on any recent house sales in the area and any other relevant information such as the Valuation Map they provided on their websiteand prices in local estate agents.
Here at MoneyguideIreland we provided some figures on Irish house price increases since 1980 in the past 20 years which could also be used to estimate the value of a house based on the purchase price.
Revenue have now provided the facility to increase the property value for LPT online – but there is not an option to decrease the valuation band online.
If you now realise that the valuation band you selected in 2013 was too high – you can still write to Revenue to inform them of the correct (lower) valuation band.
It is important to understand that current sale prices in 2014 are not relevant – it is the value as at May 1st 2013 that the property tax is based on until 2016.
The advice from Revenue is that where a property owner has overvalued for LPT purposes, a claim in writing should be sent to the Local Property Tax Branch, Revenue Commissioners, PO Box 1, Limerick. You should explain the nature of the error or mistake and confirm your revised valuation band for the property. They also ask that any elevant documentation in support of the claim e.g. photos of the property, information from propertypriceregister.ie from the period close to May 2013.
Any overpayment of LPT will probably be credited against the 2014/2015 LPT – but refund cheques may also be issued in some cases
You can check the Property Tax Bands here