New property tax 2022 what is coming to us

But that’s your own fault, because you didn’t find out whether something like that is even allowed. Buildings on someone else’s land only exist in exceptional cases. It was in the media for years with us that the grandfather rights for garage owners who had built on someone else’s land during GDR times would expire. That existed during GDR times, but not in the federal German Building Code. The only place where buildings on someone else’s land still exist, to my knowledge, is the allotment garden law.

If something like that isn’t allowed, I shouldn’t have gotten a building permit. I only had to submit a letter from my father stating that he agreed. And I received a separate property tax number from the tax office and pay it myself. Back then, we spoke to all kinds of people about it, including tax advisors and lawyers, and no one warned us about anything. We simply assumed that my father owned the land and I owned the house. How is a non-lawyer supposed to know that somewhere in the building code there is a paragraph stating that a house always belongs to whoever owns the land? Matthias

at some point I will also have to pay the much higher property tax for the entire plot because the inheritance event has occurred, and I might also have to pay inheritance tax on my self-built and paid-for house because it is counted as part of my parents’ estate, leaving me no choice but to sell the existing agricultural and forestry land, even though it was originally supposed to secure my income in old age. None of this looks good...

As long as everyone is still on good terms, I would try to get this on safe footing. So possibly consult a notary and/or tax advisor. Especially if it is currently unclear whether the house really belongs to you or not, but actually none of the parties involved has a problem with it belonging to you, then you should be able to get that properly arranged. Whether it’s better to divide the plot now or not or how best to proceed, I don’t know. But in my opinion, just blindly rushing into "we know the situation is unclear, but let’s see what the tax office says when the time comes" sounds very much like rushing headlong into disaster with open eyes.

I would try to get it on a secure footing as long as everyone is still together well.

I am very happy to do so. But it is completely unclear how a solution could even look. Presumably, you have to make a backdated contract in which my father allows me to build on his property and in which I commit to bear all associated costs. And then it seems important that it also states that my father undertakes to compensate me in the amount of the market value should the use of the house by me come to an end. Then one can probably sufficiently prove that I am the economically and fiscally entitled person.

At that time, I even received the homeownership allowance from the tax office for eight years. So it must have been clear to them back then as well that it was my house...

Matthias

No idea if backdating is necessary or if just a "I hereby confirm that this (back then) was built with my consent" or something like that is enough. But creating something legally binding from verbal agreements sounds to me like a typical task for a contract lawyer or a notary. Ultimately, you are currently going by "the house belongs to you, the rest belongs to your parents." Whether this can be recorded one-to-one or if other arrangements are "smarter," I don't know, but basically, gaining legal certainty sounds like a sensible concern to me.

If you take the current meter reading and the current assessment rate, our property tax would increase eightfold.

In our case, the property tax would increase fivefold. (However, the house built in 2022 is not yet included, as it was not standing on 01.01.2022. I could only enter this in the field "Notes" or something similar.)

But supposedly the total revenue is not supposed to increase...

@all: Is it known whether there will be a controlling authority for this? I can hardly imagine that the municipalities will voluntarily give up this sudden windfall.

All of this must be made transparent because eventually the Federal Constitutional Court [BVerfG] will have to issue a ruling on it. I hardly believe that none of the lawsuits will be admitted. And since the previous property tax was classified as unconstitutional, in the end, a comprehensive proof must be provided that everything is now much fairer than before. And I suspect that this proof is not possible, and in the end the new property tax will be overturned again. At least as far as the federal model is concerned. Presumably, there is nothing to criticize about the model of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. The rest is somewhere in between.

It is initially incredibly easy to declare people "rich" just because they own land that is supposedly very valuable, but with which no one can do anything.

Matthias