Finance Act, 1997

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Provisions supplementary to section 57 .

58.—(1) In section 57 —

“certificate of reasonable cost” means a certificate granted by the Minister for the Environment for the purposes of section 57 , stating that the amount specified in the certificate in relation to the cost of construction or refurbishment of, the house to which the certificate relates appears to the Minister at the time of the granting of the certificate and on the basis of the information available to the Minister at that time to be reasonable, and section 18 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1979 , shall, with any necessary modifications, apply to a certificate of reasonable cost as if it were a certificate of reasonable value within the meaning of that section;

“house” includes any building or part of a building used or suitable for use as a dwelling and any out-office, yard, garden or other land appurtenant thereto or usually enjoyed therewith;

“total floor area” means the total floor area of a house measured in the manner referred to in section 4(2)(b) of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1979 .

(2) (a) A house shall not be a qualifying premises for the purposes of section 57 , in so far as it applies to expenditure other than expenditure on refurbishment, unless it complies with such conditions, if any, as may be determined by the Minister for the Environment from time to time for the purposes of section 4 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1979 , in relation to standards of construction of houses and the provision of water, sewerage and other services in houses.

(b) A house shall not be a qualifying premises for the purposes of section 57 , in so far as it applies to expenditure on refurbishment, unless it complies with such conditions, if any, as may be determined by the Minister for the Environment from time to time for the purposes of section 5 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1979 , in relation to standards for improvements of houses and the provision of water, sewerage and other services in houses.

(c) A house shall not be a qualifying premises for the purposes of section 57 unless the house or, in a case where the house is one of a number of houses in a single development, the development of which it is a part complies with such guidelines as may, from time to time, be issued by the Minister for the Environment, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, for the purposes of furthering the objectives of the Urban Renewal Act, 1986 , and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, such guidelines may include provisions in relation to all or any one or more of the following:

(i) the design and the construction of, conversion into, refurbishment of, or, as the case may be, construction or refurbishment of, houses,

(ii) the total floor area and dimensions of rooms within houses, measured in such manner as may be determined by the Minister for the Environment,

(iii) the provision of ancillary facilities and amenities in relation to houses, and

(iv) the balance to be achieved between houses of different types and sizes within a single development of two or more houses or within such a development and its general vicinity having regard to the housing existing or proposed in that vicinity.

(3) A house shall not be a qualifying premises for the purposes of section 57 unless persons authorised in writing by the Minister for the Environment for the purposes of that section are permitted to inspect the house at all reasonable times upon production, if so requested by a person affected, of their authorisations.

(4) For the purposes of section 57 , references in that section to the construction or refurbishment of any premises shall be construed as including references to the development of the land on which the premises is situated or which is used in the provision of gardens, grounds, access or amenities in relation to the premises and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, as including, in particular—

(a) demolition or dismantling of any building on the land,

(b) site clearance, earth moving, excavation, tunnelling and boring, laying of foundations, erection of scaffolding, site restoration, landscaping and the provision of roadways and other access works,

(c) walls, power-supply, drainage, sanitation and water supply, and

(d) the construction of any outhouses or other buildings or structures for use by the occupants of the premises or for use in the provision of amenities for the occupants.

(5) (a) For the purposes of determining, in relation to any claim under section 57 (2), whether and to what extent expenditure incurred on the construction or refurbishment of a qualifying premises is incurred or not incurred during the qualifying period, only such an amount of that expenditure as is properly attributable to work on the construction or refurbishment of the premises which was actually carried out during the qualifying period shall, notwithstanding any other provision of the Tax Acts as to the time when any capital expenditure is or is to be treated as incurred, be treated as having been incurred during that period.

(b) Where, by virtue of subsection (4), expenditure on the construction or refurbishment of a qualifying premises includes expenditure on the development of any land, paragraph (a) shall have effect, with any necessary modifications, as if the references therein to the construction or refurbishment of the qualifying premises were references to the development of such land.

(6) For the purposes of section 57 other than for the purposes mentioned in subsection (5) (a), expenditure incurred on the construction or refurbishment of a qualifying premises shall be deemed to have been incurred on the earliest date after the expenditure was actually incurred that the premises is in use as a dwelling.

(7) An appeal to the Appeal Commissioners shall lie on any question arising under this section or under section 57 other than a question on which an appeal lies under section 18 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1979 , in like manner as an appeal would lie against an assessment to income tax or corporation tax and the provisions of the Tax Acts relating to appeals shall apply accordingly.