The State Land Service has, for several years now, worked on a new system for calculating properties' cadastral values. These values have been frozen since 2017.
State Land Service head Solvita Zvidriņa said that the service will have worked out the new system this year but said it should be adopted only later. "Introducing a new methodology is important to calculate a cadastral value that is objective and fits the market, therefore changing the scope of the real estate tax," she said.
The cabinet has to adopt the new regulation by November 1.
Cadastral values are officially set property values that are updated automatically each year, taking into account such variables as the location of the property and its use.
The real estate tax and some other levies are calculated depending on the cadastral value and in particular people who own properties in Rīga would have a difficult time paying the tax if the cadastral value were tied linearly to the market value.
