For some apartment owners, the payment for the use of land they do not own could increase
The Saeima conceptually supported the amendments to the law, which provides that the payment for the use of land not owned by them would gradually increase from 2025 for the part of apartment owners whose land will have a higher cadastral value.
The promoters of the amendments to the law “On the entry into force of the renewed Civil Law of the Republic of Latvia of 1937, the law of inheritance, and the procedure for application” stress that the proposed solution for payments for the use of land in shared ownership provides for a gradual increase in payment by 30% per year, so that residents do not have to experience rapid increase in costs due to higher cadastral value. The law plans to establish that if the legal use rights of the land apply to the owners of the residential building and the cadastral value of the land in use on January 1, 2025 is greater than its current cadastral value in 2024, then the corresponding payment for the legal use of the land from 2025 .from January 1 to December 31, 2028 will increase by 30% each year compared to the previous year’s payment, until the corresponding amount of the current cadastral value is reached. At the same time, the current land use fee amount of 4% of the cadastral value of the land is expected to be maintained with the specific draft law, the parties will also be able to agree on other land use fee amount. The amendments need to be made due to the previous judgment of the Constitutional Court (ST). The Chairman of the Legal Commission of the Saeima, Andrejs Yudins (JV), admitted to the LETA agency that there is no universal solution to the problem of forced divided property, and that these amendments, as well as the previously established regulation, can be challenged by one of the parties in the Constitutional Court (ST). Yudins has therefore called on the Ministry of Justice to prepare an offer for the termination of the forcibly divided property within a reasonable period of time. The politician also drew attention to the fact that not in all cases the property of the apartment will be affected by the above-mentioned gradual increase in payments, for example, according to the annotation of the draft law, the amount of payment would not change or increase only slightly in some populated areas. The justification for the amendments explains that from July 1, 2024 to January 1, 2025, the land use fee will be the same as until now, but the provisions of the draft law on support measures for land owners, which are aimed at reducing the legal use negative consequences of late payment of fees. It is expected that from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2028, the changes in the user fee will vary depending on whether the building is a residential building, and on changes in land cadastral values in the specific territory. From January 1, 2029 at the latest, the amount of the legal land use fee will also have to be paid in accordance with the current land cadastral values in residential houses. The annotation of the draft law explains that in order to reduce the burden imposed on the landowner and take into account the expenses of the landowners, thus ensuring that the legal user fee fulfills the function of compensation, it is necessary to adopt such a complex solution, which at the same time does not create a disproportionate burden on the building owner. Read the rest of the article here
