ᐅ Property Tax / New Construction: How Is the Property Tax Calculated?

Hello, a quick question: Do I have to pay property tax only on the land price? We are buying the land from the city for 79,300 Euro and the tax rate is 433. That would be about 1,200 Euro per year. Or is the house included as well? Otherwise, the costs would be unbelievably high.

First, the unit value must be calculated, which has nothing to do with the actual value of the property (and the house). The tax office will take care of this and will contact you later, after the construction.

Here in Duisburg, we have a multiplier rate of (I am almost certain) 650% and pay only about EUR 450 per year for our house that has already been sold.

Oh, OK. But wouldn’t it be sensible to know this before construction? I do find that quite interesting.

Unfortunately, you cannot and will not know that before construction.

Property tax is an extremely interesting, though somewhat peculiar, topic. As already explained, the basis for the property tax is a standard value. This value is calculated using comparable rental income from around 1960 (yes!). Then, the potential achievable rental value is multiplied by a factor. This factor consists of several components: a house category and a key figure for your municipality (based on population size). The tables for calculating this factor are publicly available. However, I have not found the rental tables anywhere. There are reasonable possibilities to appeal the factor table, for example if you built a timber frame house (category C) rather than a concrete house (category A) — in that case, the property tax becomes cheaper.

In addition, your house is assessed as luxury / high quality / standard (roughly like that). This assessment is made based on a questionnaire sent to you by your tax office. The higher the quality of the house, the higher the rental value (and the property tax). You can also initiate this assessment yourself by having your house re-evaluated.

When your property tax notice arrives, you can look into it. The multiplier rates (called “Hebesatz”) are publicly known for municipalities and cities. The standard value (rental price plus factor) is then multiplied by this rate. For us, it is only 230%.

Wastl schrieb:
The multipliers are publicly available from the municipalities/town councils. The standard value (rental price plus factor) is then multiplied by the multiplier. Here, it's only 230%.

That's quite a bargain! I just checked, and since January, ours have been 695% – the highest anywhere else in Germany.