Source: www.journalcr.com
(Infocom) — The appraised value of all of the country’s properties, including those in Guanacaste, will be updated during the next year, thanks to National Registry’s Project for Updating the Value Platform of Lands in Homogeneous Areas.
To carry out this new appraisal, the state institution contracted Roche Ltd. Consulting Group for $1 million. The firm has committed to having all appraisals done by April of next year.
The funds to pay for the project will come from a loan provided by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Justice Minister Laura Chinchilla explained.
The project began recently and will consist of appraising lands according to where they are located, as the country will be divided into regions based on the price of a square meter of land.
These regions will be called homogeneous zones, having an average square-meter price based on the properties contained within.
Each municipality will be charged with estimating the value of each individual property, based on the average land value of each homogeneous zone.
The project is of great importance to local governments, as it is expected that by 2009 it will help them double their income from real estate taxes. That means annual collection from this tax will climb to 60 billion colones ($115 million).
“Some 20 people will be working on this (appraisal) project, which will provide security to the owners of lots and better tax income to municipalities once the properties are appraised,” said Bernabe Leal, coordinator of the project for Roche.
According to Chinchilla, 90 percent of properties in Costa Rica report to their respective municipalities values much lower than their real values.
On some occasions, the difference between reported and real values are ridiculous, as some lots are reported for 1 colon — amount upon which taxes are paid. Claudio Ansorena, general coordinator of the project’s Executing Unit, said most Costa Rican properties are appraised for values that represent only between 20 percent and 25 percent of the actual market value.
In places such as San Rafael de Heredia, for instance, a square-meter in residential areas is sold for around $40, while the value reported to the municipality for taxation purposes is $10.
This project is part of a larger effort to update the country’s land registry, which seeks to make an official description of all properties here.
This will be the first time in 10 years that property values will be updated. The last time the Ministry of the Treasury conducted a study of property values was 1997.
And despite such update, today only 35 of the country’s 81 municipalities apply the current value platform for taxing real estate. The Ministry of the Treasury’s Technical Normalization Unit (ONT) will be in charge of supervising the new appraisals.
While the appraisals take place, firms Telespazio and Novotecni will begin performing a registry study of each property, that is, they will look into whether the physical characteristics of the property coincide with the information on the land surveys.
An estimate indicates that in 2002 there were 1.2 million lots in Costa Rica. The number has grown to 1.5 million in the past five years due to the increased real estate development experienced in the country — especially in some areas of San Jose and in Guanacaste.
The new appraisals will also mean that property owners will have to pay more in taxes, which could make these properties and construction more expensive, said Alexander Mora, administrative manager of Estrategia Inmobiliaria.
“This is a new cost that will passed on to the clients, who in the future will have to pay more in land taxes, and this will affect sale prices. People will have to think a little harder when trying to decide whether to buy a property,” Mora said. “Developers will also have figure out if they will absorb the new costs, as we cannot just get out of the market because of prices.”
The real estate sector is interested in seeing whether the increase in property tax collection will translate into more investment in infrastructure, which would aid in the development of new construction, said Felipe Sequeira, president of the real estate company Grupo Inmobiliario Tzion.
Sequiera indicated that, to maintain the level of development and the contributions large real estate projects provide to society, it is important that municipalities invest more in the infrastructure necessary to support new buildings, such as roads and water supply. He also said it’s important that municipalities invest some of the money collected in taxes to giving permits for construction of urban development programs.
“The country’s real estate growth has been large, but it will become unsustainable in about three years if we don’t invest more in infrastructure,” pointed out Sequeira, whose company is developing a housing complex less than one kilometer from Liberia, on the road to the Daniel Oduber airport.
Information about property values for each region will be available online, through each municipality’s Web site or through the Ministry of the Treasury’s Web site. Online, the municipalities will also be able to show the lot, its physical characteristics and the updated value as they talk about it with the owners.
The project also includes training for the municipalities.
Recuadro:
Each of the country’s 81 cantons has been assigned a beginning and end date for the appraisal work, based on the information provided by consulting firm Roche according to available information from each municipality and the number of lots in its jurisdiction. The following chart shows important dates for Guanacaste.
GUANACASTE
Date when the program’s cartography is available
Registry study (beginning and end dates)
Date when value platform updates will begin
Liberia
5/22//2008
11/1/2007
Nicoya
7/22/2007
11/01/07- 02/22/2008
12/01/2007
Santa Cruz
10/22/2007
09/01/07 – 11/22/07
12/01/2007
Bagaces
11/22/2007
01/02/08 - 02/22/2008
07/01/2007
Carrillo
12/22/2007
01/02/08 – 02/22/2008
09/01/2007
Cañas
12/22/2007
02/02/08- 03/22/2008
07/01/2007
Abangares
05/22/2008
08/01/2007
Tilaran
05/22/2008
08/01/2007
Nandayure
11/22/2007
12/01/07 -01/22/2008
08/01/2007
La Cruz
05/22/2008
04/01/2008
Hojancha
11/22/2007
12/01/07- 01/22/2008
09/01//2007
Source: Executing Unit of the Project for Updating the Value Platform of Lands in Homogeneous Areas.
Posted by Roger Vlasos
Broker/Owner
Century21 At the Beach
Playas del Coco, Guanacaste
Website: www.century21incostarica.com
Website: www.northpacificproperties.com
Email: roger@century21incostarica.com
