Hi Michael, we’ve recently updated our hardship policy & on request of our Councilor’s have added some hardship provisions for farmland assessments. The new policy allows farmers affected by natural disasters or climatic conditions (drought, flood, etc) to defer payment of rates for the period of the drought plus a further 12 months or make an arrangement to pay outside of the usual instalments & then have interest written-off once the rate component of the account has been brought up-to-date. We take the initial request to defer payment or arrangement verbally as the Councilor’s wanted the process to be as easy as possibly but do explain that they would need to complete a hardship application & prove genuine hardship to have interest written-off once the rate component of the account is up-to-date.
We’ve also recently held any debt recovery against farmland assessments.
A copy of our hardship policy is available at http://www.wollondilly.nsw.gov.au/council/council-forms/?fid=3009 if needed.
Thanks,
Simone
