The Environment Minister is being urged to remove unfair guidelines from the Local Property Tax (LPT) which prevents homeowners affected by pyrite from being charged.

Homeowners who believed they would be exempt from the charge may have to pay back four years of LPT.

Sinn Féin Junior Spokesperson on Housing, Planning & Local Government Dessie Ellis

Deputy Ellis said: "One of my constituents had a certificate to say he was exempt from paying the local property tax because of significant damage to his apartment building in 2013. This month revenue have contacted him and said that due to the change in criteria, his apartment is not exempt from LPT and he needs to back pay it to 2013.

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"The reason he was removed from the scheme was his apartment was not on the ground floor. And in the Revenue's words:

"The Department of the environment, community and local government has determined the level of damage that constitutes 'significant pyritic damage' and has published the qualifying criteria. Revenue has been advised that such damage generally occurs at ground floor level and that apartments on higher floors are unlikely to meet the criteria.

"My constituent did not have a site visit, so the damage done could not be assessed. The whole nature of pyrite damage is the presence of the mineral in the foundations of a building and it expands to the floors, walls and structures of the whole building."

(CD/LM)