The Northern Tax Office is responsible, among other things, for the WOZ decisions of the municipality of Noordenveld. This year’s assessment for municipal and water board taxes will be arriving in the mail for many people these days, but the Northern Tax Office has not yet succeeded in handling last year’s objections.
The backlog has everything to do with the flood of objections that municipalities received in 2023. Due to the sharp increase in house prices, on average by 17 percent, the WOZ valuations (Valuation of Real Estate) also increased sharply in value. Many people were shocked by the WOZ value increase and the municipal and water board tax assessment based on it.
According to the Valuation Chamber, which independently monitors the WOZ implementation, the Northern Tax Office received just under 17,000 objections for a total of 182,000 assessments. There were more than ever. All objections must be resolved by December 31 in the same tax year, but 5,800 were still outstanding on that date.
Municipalities have the option to extend the period by six weeks, but on February 1 of this year there was still a pile of 3,600 objections.
The NBK collects municipal and water board taxes for the municipalities of Groningen, Noordenveld and Eemsdelta. The tax office also does this for the Noorderzijlvest, Hunze en Aa’s and Wetterskip Fryslân water boards.
The Northern Tax Office is not the only organization that has an unresolved stock of objections. Ruud Kathmann of the Valuation Chamber says that this applies to many municipalities. Throughout the Netherlands, 9.3 million objects have been valued for the WOZ and an objection was lodged against 730,000 valuations last year. About three times more than normal.
It was not only the sharp increase in home and WOZ values that prompted many people to object last year. Kathman: ‘During that period, a fairly large number of companies also advertised mainly to object to the WOZ value.’
In a letter to an objector, the Valuation Chamber reports that it will conduct additional investigation into the objection handling by municipalities due to the large backlogs. “We may have to reconsider the assessment of the implementation of the WOZ processes,” the organization writes. This could mean that the Valuation Chamber will take tougher action against municipalities that miss deadlines.
For the time being, the unresolved pile of objections has no consequences for municipalities, says Kathmann. The Valuation Chamber has told municipalities that the settlement of objections should not be at the expense of determining the new WOZ value for this year. “We were concerned about whether that would work. If you don’t do it properly, you will have another problem with the objections next year. The good news is that the new WOZ values for the three municipalities have now been drawn up.”
Kathmann expects that the number of objectors will be considerably smaller this year, because home values have risen much less.
The Valuation Chamber regrets that the government is not adhering to agreements with citizens. But, says Kathmann: “We think care is even more important than timeliness. This was the maximum achievable. It was not possible for municipalities to hire extra people to handle objections. Those people are not there.”
Citizens who do not receive an answer to their objection in time can declare their municipality in default. This may possibly lead to non-pecuniary damages. According to Kathmann, this will only be paid if there have been appeal procedures after objection procedures and the entire process has taken an excessively long time. According to Kathmann, the compensation is usually limited to approximately fifty euros.