“Commercials about property value are frustrating for municipalities”

The no cure, no pay-offices encourage homeowners to object to the property value of their house. The offices do not ask for compensation but receive a fixed legal compensation for costs of proceedings if the procedure ends in a well-founded objection, and the property value is, thus, lowered. The number of objections has increased over the last couple of years, and so has the number of objections submitted by no cure no pay-offices.

“It is frustrating for municipalities. As even in the case of minimal deviations, the objector is right. The no cure, no pay-offices often object to collect the fees”, according to Schep. The procedures that go hand in hand with the objection, among which are hearings and valuation reports, often entail high costs for the municipalities. Whereas a correction of the property value can easily be corrected by the municipality itself in case of incorrect taxation. Research shows that the success rate of private and professional objectors is virtually the same.

The supervisor of property value taxations, the Property Assessment Board, has mixed feelings about the offices: “The municipality can easily correct a property value after a phone call. At the same time, these offices offer a solution for citizens that do not feel like they can just go to the government.” Ruud Kathmann, who speaks on behalf of the Property Assessment Board, states that the compensation for costs of proceedings is rather high. That is why the Property Assessment Board requests the government to critically review the compensation fees’ purposes.