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> "And yet, the leftist government recently proposed adding further documents and costs to selling or renting property — a compulsory “energy performance” certi

> "And yet, the leftist government recently proposed adding further documents and costs to selling or renting property — a compulsory “energy performance” certificate and a civil engineer’s assurance that there are no illegal constructions." Not an expert, nor a citizen/resident, but these seem like a basic things to do. Parents back home had to provide same things recently just for renovation, and much more. There are laws to address this, albeit considered kind of a joke in southern Europe for a long time. People would build whatever they wanted, hack together unsafe constructions to cut costs, then bribe an official to validate all of that. Then earthquake comes and people die. Standards for buildings are reactions to disasters, I don't see anything wrong with it. Or am I missing something?

arethuza 10y ago
In the middle of selling/buying here in Scotland and energy performance certificates are mandatory and actually very useful - this was a significant factor in helping us choose a property. Similarly sellers have to get a professional surveyor to do a survey which is that available to all potential buyers.
liotier 10y ago
Energy performance certificate, non-toxicity certificate, surface certificate, non-pledge certificate... The basics of a real estate sale in France - they make the transaction more transparent and I'm glad they are mandatory, both as a former buyer and a former seller... They remove a lot of the friction that distrust creates. Framing it as "red tape" that “threaten to turn the country into an endless ‘property graveyard’ where nothing will be sold, nothing will be bought and nothing will be rented” is laughable !
- Spooky23 10y ago
  That statement is a little dramatic, but these sorts of things have severe impact. Upstate NY is a great example -- property taxes are oppressive, and while property does sell, the value is kneecapped because the tax costs are so high. In my city, a house in a nice area valued at $200k (which is a 3-4 BR, 1-2 BA house) is taxed around $6000-6500. So a typical homebuyer who needs a mortgage automatically loses around $550/mo in buying power. In a suburban area, those taxes are $4500-5000, which boosts the value. At the macro level, it's more insidious. With multifamily property, there's little incentive to maintain property, so the business model in urban areas is to suck as much value out of the property as possible, stop paying the taxes and let the county sell it at auction. The lower tier of scum landlord buys these properties, restores them to minimum code compliance and rents them to subsidized tenants.
  - chiph 10y ago
    $200k house, $6k tax bill, so about 3% a year on the value of your home. That's similar to what you'd pay in urban Texas where property taxes are the primary way that state/local government gets funded. Only NY State has income tax on top of this (plus city income tax if you live in/near NYC), and Texas does not.
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    The first part at least sounds like things are working like they are supposed to work. The same thing happens with interest rates. But we wouldn't say interest rates "kneecap" property value, would we? They're just a fact of the market, and mostly just alter where the money flows to. The buyer commits to $1,000/mo in payments- with high interest, the bank gets more and the seller gets less. With low interest, the bank gets less and the seller gets more. Why is there little incentive to maintain property? Just because it's worth "only" $200k?
ferongr 10y ago
More often than not, most high-rise construction (that means... anything above 2 floors when it comes to Greece) is good, especially after the changes to the seismic code after the 1999 earthquake. A small drop in building quality came during the 80s. More problematic are single homes where the owner of the land who contracts their construction decides to take shortcuts, as well as industrial buildings (the RIKOMEX building at the 1999 earthquake
deleted 10y ago
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emptyfile 10y ago
Seriously, I live in Croatia (so not exactly a paragon of bureaucratic efficiency, quite the opposite) and recently bought an apartment. Can't imagine how I would do that if energy certificates were optional, I would have to bring with me a construction engineer while looking for apartments?
- pjc50 10y ago
  In England, people somehow managed to defeat proposals for energy certificates and mandatory structural information; so, yes, every potential buyer has to commission their own structural survey. People usually ignore the energy question or guess.

arethuza 10y ago

In the middle of selling/buying here in Scotland and energy performance certificates are mandatory and actually very useful - this was a significant factor in helping us choose a property. Similarly sellers have to get a professional surveyor to do a survey which is that available to all potential buyers.

liotier 10y ago

Energy performance certificate, non-toxicity certificate, surface certificate, non-pledge certificate... The basics of a real estate sale in France - they make the transaction more transparent and I'm glad they are mandatory, both as a former buyer and a former seller... They remove a lot of the friction that distrust creates. Framing it as "red tape" that “threaten to turn the country into an endless ‘property graveyard’ where nothing will be sold, nothing will be bought and nothing will be rented” is laughable !

Spooky23 10y ago
That statement is a little dramatic, but these sorts of things have severe impact. Upstate NY is a great example -- property taxes are oppressive, and while property does sell, the value is kneecapped because the tax costs are so high. In my city, a house in a nice area valued at $200k (which is a 3-4 BR, 1-2 BA house) is taxed around $6000-6500. So a typical homebuyer who needs a mortgage automatically loses around $550/mo in buying power. In a suburban area, those taxes are $4500-5000, which boosts the value. At the macro level, it's more insidious. With multifamily property, there's little incentive to maintain property, so the business model in urban areas is to suck as much value out of the property as possible, stop paying the taxes and let the county sell it at auction. The lower tier of scum landlord buys these properties, restores them to minimum code compliance and rents them to subsidized tenants.
- chiph 10y ago
  $200k house, $6k tax bill, so about 3% a year on the value of your home. That's similar to what you'd pay in urban Texas where property taxes are the primary way that state/local government gets funded. Only NY State has income tax on top of this (plus city income tax if you live in/near NYC), and Texas does not.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  The first part at least sounds like things are working like they are supposed to work. The same thing happens with interest rates. But we wouldn't say interest rates "kneecap" property value, would we? They're just a fact of the market, and mostly just alter where the money flows to. The buyer commits to $1,000/mo in payments- with high interest, the bank gets more and the seller gets less. With low interest, the bank gets less and the seller gets more. Why is there little incentive to maintain property? Just because it's worth "only" $200k?

ferongr 10y ago

More often than not, most high-rise construction (that means... anything above 2 floors when it comes to Greece) is good, especially after the changes to the seismic code after the 1999 earthquake. A small drop in building quality came during the 80s. More problematic are single homes where the owner of the land who contracts their construction decides to take shortcuts, as well as industrial buildings (the RIKOMEX building at the 1999 earthquake

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

emptyfile 10y ago

Seriously, I live in Croatia (so not exactly a paragon of bureaucratic efficiency, quite the opposite) and recently bought an apartment. Can't imagine how I would do that if energy certificates were optional, I would have to bring with me a construction engineer while looking for apartments?

pjc50 10y ago
In England, people somehow managed to defeat proposals for energy certificates and mandatory structural information; so, yes, every potential buyer has to commission their own structural survey. People usually ignore the energy question or guess.