One million property owners in for a nasty ENFIA surprise

Around one million property owners are facing a significantly higher ENFIA bill this year, with the hike coming to as much as 100 percent depending on the location and features of a given property, as notifications started going out on Tuesday night.

The plumper bill for this year's Single Property Tax – known widely by its acronym – arises from an adjustment in property rates, which resulted in increases in 3,792 parts of the country, or 37 percent of the whole.

In the majority of cases, the ENFIA hike will range from 3 to 30 percent, but there are a few shockers out there, such as the notices going to property owners in the downtown Athens area around Aeolou, Adrianou, Lysikratous and Vyronos streets.

In this area, the zone price per square meter used for tax purposes (known as “objective value”) has shot up to 3,050 euros from 1,750 euros last year.

Therefore, the ENFIA rate has also jumped from 4.5 euros per square meter to 9.2 euros/sq.m.

Similarly, in the town of Myconos and on other popular holiday islands, this year’s ENFIA will be 53 percent higher.

According to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR), known as AADE in Greek, 737,709, or 12 percent of property owners will have to shell out up to 50 euros more in ENFIA this year (with the average at 12 percent), 160,001 will pay between 50 and 200 euros more and 48,961 face a bill that is more than 200 euros steeper this year.

On the other hand, 1,470,962 property owners, or 23 percent, will see a reduction in their annual ENFIA bill.

These are mainly people with properties in upscale Athens suburbs like Filothei, Ekali and Palio Psychico, as well as in Panorama in Thessaloniki and several other areas in northern Greece.

For the majority, however, the ENFIA tax will be more or less the same as last year.

This is the result of an intervention by the Finance Ministry, which pushed for legislation broadening the first and third bracket by 50 euros so as to prevent hundreds of thousands of property owners from going up a category – and the political cost this would entail.