Benefits are settled in new buildings – Kommersant

Due to a decrease in demand for new residential buildings, Moscow developers are asking to exempt them for three years from the tax on unsold apartments and non-residential premises in buildings with a high level of energy efficiency by the time construction is completed. Such a benefit is already provided at the federal level, but it is not applied in Moscow. However, developers, having received tax breaks, will not be in a hurry to sell apartments, keeping prices at a high level.

At the disposal of Kommersant was a letter from the executive director of the Moscow Investors Club (KIM; unites city developers) Vladislav Preobrazhensky to the head of the urban planning policy department of the capital government Sergey Levkin dated April 28 with a request to exempt capital developers from corporate property tax during the construction of class A apartment buildings of high energy efficiency , B++, B+ and B for three years after the commissioning of the house. A similar proposal was sent to the Ministry of Construction. This measure is provided for at the federal level, but each region decides whether to provide such benefits to companies. Now only developers in the Republic of Altai, Omsk, Tomsk, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk regions and the Khanty-Mansiysk district are exempted from these payments for three years, says Andrey Kirsanov, deputy general director of MR Group. In Moscow, this benefit does not apply. The department of urban planning policy of the Moscow government did not respond to Kommersant’s request. The Ministry of Construction on Tuesday evening did not provide a comment.

The amount of property tax in each region is different, but should not exceed 2.2% of the cadastral value of the object. In Moscow, it is set at 1.9%. Housing developers pay this tax on apartments, parking and storage spaces that have not been sold by the time they were put into operation, explains Asterisk lawyer Vyacheslav Klimov.

According to the information system “Nash.Dom.RF”, now in Moscow, 611 out of 716 residential buildings under construction have a high energy efficiency class. Such houses are in demand: they allow residents to save 60-70% when paying for utilities, says Vladimir Mitin, CEO of DRHouse EcoSystem. According to Irina Izvekova, CEO of the MD Service management company (Mangazeya Group of Companies), class A buildings consume half as much energy and heat as class C buildings.

Developers in the capital are faced with a choice – to continue work aimed at improving the energy efficiency of residential new buildings, or abandon this due to the lack of incentive measures, the letter from KIM says. Designing housing with a high degree of energy efficiency requires additional calculations and the development of solutions for engineering systems, agrees Andrei Gulak, COO of DBC Consultants. The cost of design in the total construction estimate is only 2-5%, and “it is unlikely that these costs can be considered significant,” Oleg Malakhov, a member of the General Council of Business Russia, objects.

Demand for housing in new buildings is declining. Thus, according to the Moscow Rosreestr, in January-March 2023, the volume of transactions in the primary housing market in the city decreased by 22.5% year-on-year, to 20.5 thousand. to a decrease in the marginality of projects, which “already makes us think about savings,” says Andrey Kirsanov. If the capital’s developers are exempted from paying property tax, then even with only 500 apartments in their property, they will be able to save 150 million rubles each. per year, calculated Vyacheslav Klimov.

But such a benefit for developers may have disadvantages for potential home buyers: an excess supply will no longer provoke a price reduction. In 2016, when developers in the Moscow region began to levy a tax on apartments that were not sold by the time construction was completed, the regional authorities said that this would encourage developers to sell housing faster and, therefore, cheaper.

Daria Andrianova