1,300 homeowners in Oslo have joined a class action lawsuit against the City of Oslo relating to property taxes in the capital.
The ‘Home Owners Association’ has sent summonses to the Oslo District Court, alleging that the property tax is invalid, and that illegally recovered property taxes should be repaid, reported the newspaper, VG.
In the writ, it points out that during the campaign, the Chief Commissioner, Raymond Johansen, (Arbeiderpartiet – Ap) said that only 22% of property owners would be affected by the tax. Because of rising house prices, more have been affected.
Tax Attorney, Bettina Banoun, who wrote the writ, said, ‘Oslo has exceeded its limits by firstly putting a basic allowance of 4 million, which means that only a minority of people would have to pay’.
Chief Commissioner, Raymond Johansen, isn’t worried.
‘We have done, in detail, what we said we would do during the election campaign; namely to introduce a property tax with four million in the basic allowance category, so most people were not affected.
We said that the tax would be two thousandths’ in the early years, and three thousandths’ from the second year onward’.”
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
