Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 6 July 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Proposed Changes to Local Property Tax: Discussion

Dr. Keith Walsh:

That is a really fair point. To stress again, obviously this is a self-assessment tax and everyone is responsible for valuing their own property. I fully accept it is difficult if you are trying to put a value on your property and you see a property down the road which was listed for a certain price and then there was a bidding war, with the final sale price coming in as double that. That final sales value, the double value, is not necessarily what I would expect to see on an LPT return. Again, I accept this is very difficult but I hope people will be able to look at their local area and be area to try to judge, at least to some extent, what properties have sold, which ones' prices might have been inflated and maybe what the true underlying value is. As I said, in the guidance we will put out over the next few months, we will try to address this as best we can to help property owners as best we can.