Many countries with large sovereign debts have discussed and some have even adopted excessively high tax liabilities on the ownership of real estate property. During the meeting of its Executive Committee on 15 October 2011 in Brussels, presided over by its Chairman, Mr. Stratos Paradias of Greece, the International Union of Property Owners (UIPI) which represents the views and interests of over five million property and home owners across 25 European countries adopted the following declaration, which was sent to all competent european authorities:Read more...

To the EU initiatives relevant to Private Home Owners (PHO) and especially Energy taxation and the Capital Requirement Directive referred the UIPI Homeowners Committee during its last meeting in Dublin. Another matter was the status concerning national policies for the energy performance of private homes. Reports were received from France, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland and a report from Denmark on national energy investments. The Committee concentrated also in programming its future work and priorities and other organizational matters.

The EU's housing ministers agreed in Toledo on Monday to promote housing renovation and refurbishment policies in order to achieve greater economic recovery, generate jobs and improve energy efficiency and social integration. These aims were included in a final communique, which proposes to the European Commission (EC) that housing should make a contribution to energy efficiency, as well as to the renovation and rehabilitation of the building stock, Spain's minister Beatriz Corredor said during a press conference following the informal meeting of EU housing ministers.
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