Wicklow’s new commercial rates are set to be revealed
COUNTY WICKLOW went through its commercial rates revaluation process last year and all commercial ratepayers in Wicklow are about to find out in the next month to six weeks their projected new valuations, Fianna Fáil Deputy Pat Casey told the Dáil.
As a commercial ratepayer, he said believed that everybody should pay their rates. He said the Bill was a start but everyone knew that the elephant in the room that has to be tackled is the valuation process for properties. ‘There is a huge mystery to it for all commercial ratepayers,’ he said. ‘There is not a great understanding of how it works and even after having been in the local authority for 12 years I still do not understand how my property is valued today.’
‘It is not just commercial rates but when one looks at local authority collection of finances across every section of finance there is a very poor collection rate involved,’ he said. ‘That is not reflected in this document where the local authorities are not taking their responsibility for their lack of professionalism in collecting monies due to them. A lot of this involves a mindset within the local authority which says that it does not matter because they can put a burden on the property. We can let it flow into eternity. As soon as the commercial operator goes to sell the property, all of a sudden it hits them like a bang.’
Speaking during a debate on a new Local Government (Rates) Bill, Deputy Casey said what has come to the fore in the light of the recent recession – this is a section in the Bill which disappointed him – is that some of the financial institutions took over commercial properties because the business was gone. ‘These institutions inherited the commercial debt that was on these properties,’ he said. ‘When they sold them on, they never paid that rates bill. Some financial institutions passed those bills on to the next owner, which put the viability of that business in jeopardy. I have some examples in my county were some person had a 10-year bill which they had to pay and it put that business in jeopardy.’