Landlords hit out at tax hikes

PROPERTY ownership tax - taxe foncière - went up 22% in five years, a study shows.

With homeowners having just paid this year’s bill (up again in many cases), figures from UNPI, a national body representing landlords, have highlighted steep hikes from 2005-2010, with Paris the worst, at 72%.

On average over the period the tax, which is paid by people owning property on January 1, went up 22% in the period, or three times as much as inflation.

UNPI president Jacques Perrin said: “There must be an end to these excessive rises in the taxe foncière, which weighs down homeowners with a greater and greater tax burden that is more and more disconnected from their actual ability to pay.”

He said in contrast rents had gone up much less over the period.