Real estate registration started

Official Rentral Registration Office sources said for “Shqip” newspaper that has just started the application phase for reassessing real estate objects with a 1% tax of the total value, from the 10% that used to be with the old law.

The builders themselves were the ones who asked this taxation norm, since the past scheme was considered unaffordable from the financial point of view.

The old tax for purchasing and selling an apartment was 10%, while with the amnesty, the real estate assessment costs 1%.

For the apartments that were privatized in the early 90s or the ones that were bought a long time ago, this payment would be very high.

As result, this tax favors this category of apartments, the tax of which will be 10 times lower.

The apartment prices are based on the reference list for square meter, from which comes out the new paying obligation.

All individuals who own real estates can reassess their current value within 31 December 2011.

In the category of real estates are included lands and buildings. The process of real estate reassessment is as follows.

Real estate registration tax removed

The condition that withheld most of the new apartments at the registration phase is now removed, and owners are expected to flock the property registration offices with their files.

“Shqip” newspaper says that the agreement signed a few days ago between the Tirana Municipality with the Transportation and Justice Ministries has almost liberalized the process of real estate registration. The registration office for Tirana has had 130 objects who have submitted their files with construction permits, but that were not registered due to the tax and permission problems.

A builder could not register his object if he wouldn’t submit the verification that he had paid the taxes. This process lasted for many months, and turned into a nightmare for the subject, although they could have the other documentations in order.

But the agreement with the Ministry of Finances and that of the Justice has opened way to the apartment registration without showing the tax payment verification. However, the draft law must pass in Parliament after the final consent of the Minister of Finances.

“Since a good part of the citizens do not have a property title for capitalizing the estate and then using it as a guarantee later, we saw it necessary to ease the technical barriers for registration, thanks to a political will by the central and local governments”, Arben Qirjako declared.

The construction businessmen have supported the latest agreement that according to them would liberate billions of EUR in the Albanian economy. Directors of the Constructors Association say that the new pact solves the long lasting problem and it serves to the interest of 400 construction companies and 30.000 families.

The Association has calculated that this agreement will enter the market a total of 2 billion EUR, and the new law enters into effect by the beginning of October.

“This is a very important process that ends the unjust prevention of many families from having their property titles, which involves a total sum of 700 million EUR”, declared the Mayor Lulzim Basha before the agreement was signed.

Business: Amnesty failed

Albanian businesses say that the Amnesty law, passed by the Albanian government, does not fulfill the main goal of capital declaration; hence they asked the government to take measures for not allowing the amnesty to fail.

“There is still much to do. The Ministry of Finances must gather each sector so that the law will draw entrepreneurs and offer them security for applying it”, declared the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, Nikolin Jaka.

The Chamber of Commerce was one of the main initiators for planning the law of the Financial Amnesty. But the government did not fully accept the draft proposed by the business, changing the articles related with guarantees. Since then, the businesses’ approach to the process has been almost indifferent, and the numbers indicate a very low participation.

“We have no statistics about the participation level, because the Ministry of Finances does not periodically publish them. But our skepticism has accompanied the passing and implementation of this law”, Jaka declared.

While expressing strong reserves about the declared capitals, the head of the Chamber of Commerce greeted the initiative of the Tirana Municipality for unblocking the stalemate of the real estate registration for 400 apartment buildings in Tirana.

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