The Executive Council of the Planning Authority said that it has decided to extend the regularisation scheme by a further year without increasing the applicable rates.

The Planning Authority said in a statement that during the past three years its has received over 13,000 submissions from owners who wished to regularise their non-sanctionable property.

Of these, just under 12,000 submissions got validated resulting in nearly €29 million in revenue through this scheme alone, the Authority said.

It explained that up to 70% of the monies collected from this scheme are utilised for community schemes, including the popular Irrestawra Darek grant scheme. 20% is allocated towards the Development Planning Fund, to be utilised by localities in community improvement projects.

The Authority launched the regularisation scheme back in August 2016 with “the prime purpose of facilitating the sale of properties which were idle on the market due to irregularities that were not sanctionable.”

Regularisation can only be considered if a property is located entirely within the development boundaries and appears in the Authority’s aerial photos of 2016 – nothing after, it said.

The Authority went on to say that the illegality cannot be creating an injury to amenity and the use of the building must be according to current policies.

“If one of these conditions cannot be satisfied, then the scheme cannot be applied. The applicable fee is calculated on the total and combined roofed over area of each floor of the property being regularised,” the PA said.

The Planning Authority concluded by saying that property owners who wish to regularise their non-sanctionable property in the coming 12 months will not be charged a surcharge of 25%, as is prescribed in Legal Notice 285/16.

For more information visit www.pa.org.mt

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