When declaring in the Catastro for Council Tax on extensions in a property for constructions or parts of it not declared when built, like a new room, garage, etc., there could be a revision of the Council Tax of the previous 4 years.
Example:
– You bought the property 10 years ago, and there was an exisiting house of 100 m2.
– You have built an extra room in your property 7 years ago, of 15m2, and you did not declared it in Catastro.
During the 10 years you have been using the property, the Council Tax is calculated with the exisiting database in Catastro, whcih is a house of 100 m2. For example, 300 EUR / year
But now, due to the fact that you have decided to update the Catastro with the existing room (usually by the process of Declaracion de Obra Nueva, and with architect plans and certifications), the Catastro can make revision of the Council Tax in this way:
– For a construction of 100 m2, you paid 300 EUR/year.
– For a construction of 115 m2 (100 m2 house+15 m2 extra room) you had to pay 450 EUR / year.
Catastro can be then charge you 150 EUR difference of this estimation till the last 4 years after the declaration of the room.
The extra payment to Catastro can be then: 150 EUR x 4 years = 600 EUR.
Usually, these kind of updates in Catastro use to appear when the property is being to be sold or bought. So, please, pay attention being the seller or the purchaser to this very important matter.
In selling of properties, sellers use to leave update of the properties till completion. It is really common that owners of properties do not update their property records each time they make an extension in the property, like a garage, an extra room, etc. They leave the declaration of such extensions to the same moment of completion. And this is right.
The problem here is that, the buyers, when seller is not resident, must make a retention to vendors to cover the eventual updates and revisions the Council Tax office could make on the previous 4 years before completion.
Is really normal that buyers they do not retain to sellers for this concept when sellers present the Council Tax receipts showing the current year is paid. But, buyers should pay attention incase the vendor has updated the deeds on completion declaring previous extensions in the property. In these cases, even if the vendor presents the Council Tax payment for the current year, there will be high possibilities to recieve an extra payment for the difference of valuations as explained above in the future.
Ask your Solicitor to organize the proper retentions to the seller to avoid these situations.
