Vurderingsstyrelsen has confirmed that up to 100,000 final 2022 property valuations for owner-occupied flats were calculated with a faulty model, and no solution has been announced.
DR Nyheder reports that the error is present in all final 2022 valuations of ejerlejligheder sent out around the turn of the year. The broadcaster obtained data on more than 96,000 of these valuations and mapped them. According to DR, the tax authorities have known about the problem for several months.
The agency was warned in the spring by consultancy firms and by affected homeowners. It then halted the mailings, but roughly 100,000 final valuations had already been sent out. In total, 300,000 flats are due to receive a new valuation.
The fault arose while Vurderingsstyrelsen was fixing a separate problem in the data model behind the valuations. Newly built houses were being compared with older neighboring homes and received large add-ons. When the model was changed for the 2022 valuations, the calculation went wrong for owner-occupied flats.
The consequence is that some flats were valued too high and others too low. Agency director Anne-Sofie Jensen told DR she could not say what it means for individual tax bills. According to her, that depends on each affected homeowner’s circumstances.
The 20 percent rule
Vurderingsstyrelsen does not consider all 100,000 valuations to be wrong. Per the agency, 20,000 of the final flat valuations deviate by more than 20 percent, while the remaining 80,000 fall below that threshold. Politicians adopted a so-called valuation norm, under which deviations of less than 20 percent are still counted as correct.
DR gives an example of a flat assessed at two million kroner under the faulty calculation. In the agency’s view, that valuation would only be directly wrong if the correct model produced a figure above 2.5 million kroner or below 1.66 million kroner. If the agency keeps that line, some owners will retain valuations built on a different basis than current ones.
Final valuations are also used by buyers, sellers, banks and advisers during price negotiations and when assessing the finances of a sale. Anyone who bought or sold an affected flat in recent months may have relied on the figure. A flat valued today will not be assessed in the same way as one valued half a year ago.
The affected valuations have already passed through four weeks of consultation and a three-month appeal deadline. Jensen has promised that homeowners will be informed, but the scope of any fix remains unclear. She would not promise a solution this year, saying only that it will come as quickly as possible.
The final 2022 assessments replace the preliminary valuations that the tax authorities issued in September 2023 as a stopgap, which owners could not appeal. Successive tax ministers and the agency have argued that the final valuations would correct earlier errors. Vurderingsstyrelsen has now resumed sending out flat valuations calculated with a corrected version of the model, DR reports.
