BUILDING PERMITS

In decentralised Denmark, if you want to carry out a building project, you have to pay a fee to the local authority in order to have it processed. The renovation of the local cinema, for example, cost us about £200.

All fair and reasonable. However, it turns out that some local authorities are not fair and reasonable, particularly when it comes to commercial buildings. My daily newspaper carried out a survey of all 98 local authorities of what it would cost to process a standard commercial building project of some 5,000 sqm. The range of costs was staggering. In a dozen or so local authorities, it costs less than kr.5,000 (roughly £500), the cheapest being the island of Ærø at kr.1,830. At the other end of the scale, the two capital city local authorities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg charge more than kr.800,000!!

As the building industry rightly point out, this is a tax by another name.

Walter Blotscher

PS I am off to the U.K. and Kenya today for a week, back blogging next Saturday.