Unequal treatment of appeals from individuals and agencies leads to dispute
The WOZ value is determined by the municipality and is used to determine the amount of taxes, including property and income taxes. Homeowners who disagree with the level of the WOZ value can seek help from special WOZ agencies, such as WOZwet.nl The agency discovered that the Best municipality treated objections from agencies differently from those of residents themselves. Therefore, the company initiated a lawsuit against the municipality. According to the agency, legal protection against the powerful government is of great importance. WOZwet.nl wants to achieve that everyone can be helped in a fair and accessible way if they possibly have to pay unjustly too much tax. Even if they are assisted by a WOZ advisory agency.
Photo: Joas Hollander (23), WOZwet.nl lawyer and spokesman
If someone suspects that the WOZ value has been set too high, they can file an objection with the municipality. Because this often requires specialized knowledge, many homeowners hire a WOZ agency free of charge. Municipalities are often skeptical about this practice because WOZ agencies generally pay insufficient attention to the objection, which leads to extra work for the municipality. Municipalities also feel that the agencies do not adequately inform their clients about the costs that municipalities incur as a result of an approved objection.
"Those complaints are not justified at all in our case," stated Joas Hollander, who works as a lawyer for thousands of private homeowners at WOZwet.nl and handles countless WOZ cases per year. "We carry out an extensive investigation for every application and carefully draft the notice of objection, we give the municipality everything on a silver platter and afterwards, moreover, we are prepared to explain everything in detail during the hearing." And about the cost to the municipality, Joas says the following: "Our service is free for our clients but of course we do not work for nothing, if the municipality restores the WOZ value after our request then the municipality has to reimburse our costs. If we don't succeed, then we take on the costs. We are open and honest about that." A crystal clear and fair story.
Best municipality lawsuit
However, many municipalities have the idea that WOZ agencies are only interested in the fee and do not put their clients' interests first. "In all WOZwet.nl's objections against the municipality of Best, we noticed that the municipality seems to treat objections from WOZ agencies differently than objections submitted by residents without the involvement of WOZ agencies." says Joas Hollander. "This is why we filed a lawsuit against the municipality of Best. If the appeal is upheld, the litigation fee goes to law store Best, so we don't earn anything from it." It is now up to the judge to assess whether there has actually been unequal treatment.
During WOZwet.nl's review of the rulings on the appeals, the unequal treatment stood out. The ruling states that the Municipality of Best does not find it necessary to respond to the views of WOZwet.nl. According to the municipality of Best, an opinion of the municipality has no added value because there are 'other interests' present. The municipality of Best is referring to the fee that WOZ agencies receive for a hearing when an objection is approved. To this, Joas Hollander responds, "By doing this, the municipality of Best actually prevents a proper legal procedure, which does not contribute to trust in the government."
WOZwet.nl 3rd largest consultancy in the Netherlands
"That, of course, is unacceptable," Hollander continued. "We stand for pleasant and sincere cooperation with municipalities in which transparency is central. We want to help municipalities precisely in the objection process and strive for good cooperation. The goal of our agency is to ensure correct taxes. That we are of significant added value is demonstrated by the fact that with WOZwet.nl we lowered over €40 million in WOZ values in 2022."
