Enschede residents no longer required to send in interior photos for property valuation

Enschede homeowners no longer have to submit photos of the inside of their homes to the Municipal Tax Office Twente (GTB). The GTB agreed to drop a national experiment to determine homes’ property value more accurately after Enschede residents raised many objections to requests for photos of their kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms, RTV Oost reports.

The national experiment was set up because of the emergence of companies working for a contingency fee if they are able to reduce their clients' property tax. Called "no cure no pay" companies, they also get a reimbursement for the cost of proceedings when they win a case, even if they reduce the property tax only by a few euros.

The GTB expects to spend 1.3 million euros on reimbursement fees in such cases this year alone.

But after objections from locals, the city council of Enschede demanded that the experiment be halted. Due to the commotion, which also resulted in parliamentary questions posed to Housing Minister Hugo de Jonge, the GTB agreed to drop the experiment.