NLA to launch new land valuation survey

The National Land Agency (NLA) is about to embark on a nationwide land valuation survey, the first since 2003, but says the process will likely take a year or more to complete.

Edwin Wint, chief executive officer of La Maison Property Services Limited and immediate past president of the Realtors Association of Jamaica, said the NLA revaluation utilises "a mass valuation approach encompassing large land areas at a time."

Wint estimates that the new survey will reveal an appreciation of properties within a range of 25 per cent for marginal lands and 100 per cent or more for prime locations, "given that the period since last valuation has been over seven years."

The NLA valuations typically form the basis on which property taxes are assessed.

Meris Haughton, director of communications with the Tax Administration Services Depart-ment, says, however, that the new values are unlikely to be available for property-tax assessments for the 2011-12 period.

Property-tax rates are determined both by the value of the land and government set charges. The tax, which was hiked in 2010, includes a flat rate of J$1,000 applicable to property with unimproved value up to J$300,000, and a charge of 0.75 per cent for every additional dollar exceeding the J$300,000.

A property worth J$1 million now attracts J$6,250 in taxes.

The proceeds of the tax partially fund the operations of local parish councils, including street lighting and garbage collection.

Properties in arrears

On Sunday, as a prelude to court action against the owners, the Department of Local Government in the Office of the Prime Minister advertised a gazetted list of properties, some of which were in arrears for property taxes for at least five years, at March 15, 2011.

The owners or persons entitled to 421 properties have until April 1 to either pay up or forfeit the properties, which range in size up to 14.7 million square metres.

The majority of the delinquents, 75, are spread across Westmoreland, followed by St James 58, and Manchester 57.

And one-eighth of the lands, 52 parcels, were more than one million square metres in size.

NLA public relations officer, Adrienne Mullings, said prepa-rations for the new valuation survey are advanced. In the past, the survey has lasted two years, but technical improvements at the land agency may cut the timeline by as much as one year, Mullings said.

All land in Jamaica is valued for the assessment of the property tax on the unimproved value principle, as defined in the Land Valuation Act, which states: "Valuations are based on market value, that is the price the seller would expect to receive if an owner was selling the land alone, disregarding the value of any improvements on the land including buildings and crops".

The assessments take into consideration the size of the parcel, its development potential, topography, zoning, land use and soil classification.

At December 1, 2010, there were 784,036 parcels of land on the NLA's land valuation roll, with 417,301 or 53 per cent of them having a registered title.

St Elizabeth is said to be the parish worse affected, with just 32 per cent registration or 19,962 parcels of 61,836.

Kingston has the highest compliance rate of 89 per cent or 12,403 registered parcels on a roll of 13,875 properties; while St Andrew has an 83.8 per cent registration rate or 79,375 properties of the 94,606 on the roll.

To encourage more property registrations, the government, through its Land Administration and Management Programme, has hired Geoland Title Limited and Korea Cadastral Surveying Corporation to map and regularise some 30,000 unregistered parcels.

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