What’s a ‘super luxury’ home?

LUXURY homeowners in Nicosia’s Aglandja municipality are upset that they are being charged more in garbage fees than owners of flats or normal sized houses.

The homeowners have questioned how the municipality had categorised the homes and what, for example, differentiated a ‘luxury’ home from a ‘super luxury’ home.

The issue was raised in yesterday’s edition of Greek-language daily Phileleftheros. Municipality representatives were not available for comment yesterday but initial reports suggested the calculation was based on the size in square-metres of the house.

Homeowners maintain they are being discriminated for having houses which they do not consider luxury or super luxury. They want to know what criteria the municipality used to categorise the houses and said it had acted arbitrarily.

By law, categorising homes is illegal, the paper said.

According to the municipality law, garbage fees do not exceed £100 for houses, £500 for shops, warehouses and coffee shops, £4,000 for orphanages, youth hostels or inns, tourist apartments and clubs, £8,000 for printing presses, clinics, factories and industrial businesses and £10,000 for hotels.

Although the law makes no discrimination, Aglandjia municipality has imposed the following rubbish fees: £48.84 for one-bedroom apartments, £74.37 for two or more bedroom apartments, £74.37 for normal houses, £96.57 for ‘luxury’ homes and £100 for ‘super luxury’ homes. Pensioners with an income under £500 per month are exempt from paying rubbish fees, as are pensioners over 75 years of age. Refugee homeowners pay £56.61 and students £29.97.

No one was yesterday available for comment at Aglandja municipality.
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