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Drinking Water Regulation – Condominium Responsabilities

A new regulation recently came into effect regarding the responsibility of Condominiums to assure that the water that arrives in their building meets current legal hygienic norms. A recent High Court ruling assigns this responsibility in equal parts to the city’s public utility (in Florences case, the manager of Publiacqua) and to each building. Publiacqua is responsible for the water up to the point of the water meters (contatori) but, from that point to the faucets, the building administrator or each private owner must check the quality of the water.
In a nut shell, it is now each owners responsibility to check the water that comes out of the taps, since the pipes from the water meters into the various properties are not under the jurisdiction of City Council (Publiacqua).
This implies further responsibilities and duties for each Condominium administrator, although there are not yet any laws that force such controls on either the administrators or the private citizens. However, there are high fines and possible legal consequences if such controls are not made knowing that there could be some issues with the water system in the building or house.
Therefore, most Condominium administrators are starting to hire private companies to check the quality of the water directly from the taps in each house or apartment, in order to avoid any future claims or complaints against them. The cost of these tests will of course be borne by the owners of the properties, but it shouldnt be too high; probably in the range of Euro 150 (plus VAT) total for a small condominium.

Reference :

D. Lgs 31\2001 – art. 1 lett. b – and art. 5
Ministry of Health 10 June 2004
2015/1787/UE
D.M. 14 June 2017

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Property Owners, Short Term Rentals, Tourist Tax and AirB&B

As you may know, all persons that sleep over in the city and are not resident in Florence must pay a certain amount, that varies depending on the type of accommodation, to the City Council for each night they spend in the city, in a paid accommodation, for a maximum of seven nights. This is a cost (Tourist Tax) that must be paid by the guest, but it is the duty of the owner of the house, or company, to collect and pay this amount to the City.

This payment must be reported to the City and can be done using various methods like post or registered emails (PEC), but the simplest is by registering as an owner on the web site of the City Council Tourist Tax:

Tourist Tax Website

You will need to apply for credentials and a password, after which you will be able to access the web site and register your property or properties. Then, within the 15th of each month, you need to report on the website how many days and guests you had during the previous month and pay with a bank wire.

The interesting thing that not many owners know: the city council requires that every month there is a report of each property that has been registered, even if during that month you had no guest or rentals, in which case you will indicate a 0 (zero) for both number of guest and numbers of nights, and of course you wouldn’t pay anything, but still the system requires that for every month there is a report. This means that even if you have no guests, or if your guests have already paid for the first 7 nights, but continue to rent the apartment for some months longer, or you have a long term contract, untill the property is in the Tourist Tax database, you will need to do a monthly report.

If you do not make the report, there is a fine involved that varies from 150 to 500 euro for each month that a report hasn’t been filed, and they are now starting to check on this issue.

In case you use the AirB&B platform to rent your property, they take care of this directly charging the guest and paying the city council directly, but you will still need to submit a monthly report to the City Council, because they are starting to calculate the amount of the Garbage tax (TARI) of each house also based on the numbers of guests or rentals that the house has during the year.

You can find the full rules, and FAQ pages (unfortunately most of them in italian language) on how to use and pay the Tourist Tax here :

Rules of the Toursit Tax

Multi language for guests

FAQ

Price List per Accomodation Type

If you also use AirB&B platform

AirB&B Website page about the Tourist Tax

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New calculation tables for “controlled” rental Contracts

As of this year, new calculation tables have been agreed between the Florence city Council and the major Tenant’s and Owner’s Associations, with some minor adjustments regarding the applicable values per square meters and the zoning areas of Florence.

They also agreed on some more radical changes regarding the documentation and certification standards that the apartment or property needs, and the registration of the rental contract that now must be pre-screened and approved by one of the listed Associations and secondarily registered with the Agenzia delle Entrate.

As a reminder, these types of “controlled” rental contracts, called “Affitti a canone Concordato,” allow the owner to apply for a lowered income tax (so called Cedolare Secca) of 10% of the rental income, which is applied only to these types of contracts : 3 plus 2 years, Interim contracts (Transitorio up to 18 months) and student contracts (up to 36 months). All other type of contracts are subject to the normal taxation bracket of 21 % (Cedolare Secca), or the rental income can be added to your general income (IRPEF).

Here is the entire new agreement (pdf file).

A partire da quest’anno sono state modificate le tabelle per il calcolo dei canoni di locazione concordati tra le maggiori organizzazione degli Inquilini e Proprietari e che andranno utilizzate per il colcolo dei canoni di locazione per i contratti di affitto. Sono stati modificati alcuni valori di prezzi per metro quadrato a seconda delle aree in oggetto, e alcuni requisiti di certificazioni che gli immobili devono possedere per poter accedere a questa tipologia di locazione. Il cambiamento forse più invasivo riguarda la necessità di dovere avere una pre-approvazione del contratto di locazione e dei calcoli attraverso i quali si è giunti al quel canone di locazione da una delle Associazioni firmatarie dell’accordo e poi successivamente registrato presso l’Agenzia delle Entrate.

Vi ricordiamo che questa tipologia di contratti di locazione a “Canone Concordato” permette di usufruire di una tassazione agevolata del 10% (Cedolare Secca) invece della aliquota generale usata del 21% e si applica ai contratti di locazione cosidetti 3+2, Transitori (fino a 18 mesi) e per Studenti Universitari (fino a 36 mesi).

Qui l’accordo completo (file pdf)