I propose to take Questions Nos. 925, 926 and 928 to 931, inclusive, together.
The Local Government (Charges) Act 2009, as amended, provides the legislative basis for the Non-Principal Private Residence Charge. The NPPR Charge, which has since been discontinued, applied in the years 2009 to 2013 to any residential property in which the owner did not reside as their normal place of residence. The self-assessed Charge is set at €200 per annum and liability for it falls, in the main, on owners of rental, holiday and vacant properties. Section 6 of the 2009 Act, as amended, provides that the owner of a liable property who fails to pay the charge, in addition to him or her being liable to pay the Charge, is liable to pay to the relevant local authority a €20 late payment fee in respect of each month or part of a month in which the Charge, any late payment fee, or any part of such Charge or fee, remains unpaid.
Part 12 of the Local Government Reform Act 2014 also deals with the collection of undischarged liabilities relating to the NPPR Charge. The Act provided for a period from 2 March 2014 to 31 August 2014 during which time no new late penalties were applied to existing liabilities. If payment was not made in full or if settlement terms were not agreed by the end of that period, an additional late payment fee of €120 per liability date applied on 1 September 2014. As the Charge applied in each of the years from 2009 to 2013, there were five liability dates – 31 July 2009 and 31 March for each of the years 2010 to 2013. In addition to this late payment fee to be applied per liability date, the entire NPPR liability is then increased by a factor of 50% and frozen; the legislation does not provide for further penalties to apply after this date.
As the NPPR charge is based on self-declaration and the onus is on the property owner themselves to register their property and make the payment, it is not possible to state with any certainty the level of non-compliance with the Charge. Section 11 of the Local Government (Charges) Act 2009 provides for the exchange of data between local authorities and certain bodies defined in the Act, being the Private Residential Tenancies Board, the Electricity Supply Board, the Revenue Commissioners, the Minister for Social Protection and any other person prescribed for the purpose under the section. I am confident that compliance levels are high as a result of data matching undertaken with other public bodies as provided for in the legislation.
The 2009 Act, as amended, places the Charge under the care and management of the local authorities and application in particular circumstances is a matter for the relevant local authority; my Department has no role in relation to enforcement of the Charge. The data requested in relation to the numbers of notices issued by local authorities, the potential liability for the Charge related to those notices, the numbers of persons who availed of the grace period, the numbers of certificates of discharge issued by local authorities and the numbers of payment plans entered into is therefore not available in my Department. The Local Government Management Agency coordinates certain matters relating to the NPPR, acting on an agency basis on behalf of the local government sector.
According to data provided by the Local Government Management Agency, NPPR payments in excess of €40 million were collected by local authorities in the grace period 2 March 2014 to 31 August 2014. An additional amount of almost €50 million has been collected since 1 September 2014.
