[Cherie Muir]

Hi there
Wondering if any water authority councils have explored and/or implemented the issuing of separated certificates for 603 purposes, i.e. one application from a conveyancer, one payment, deliver back to 2 certs from council (1 cert for Rates and another for Water/Sewer).

With the wording of S.603 referring to “a” certificate, the ready interpretation is probably “singular” certificate, however I’m keen to know if any council has gone down this path by interpreting that “a” certificate can still be satisfied by receiving “a” certificate for Water/Sewer and “a” certificate for general Rates/Waste.

The automation of our combined Rates / Water certificate is very technical (and successful), but we’ve reached a point where, for simplicity, we’d like to explore separated certificates and wonder as a starting point if the separation of certificates would firstly be compliant with our Act? We have a lot of property related debits (both water/sewer and general property related) and our certificate is currently 4-pages and growing.

Has any council been down this road? Is any council already issuing separate certificates? Are there other considerations in the Water Sewer guidelines or regulations that speaks to this space? Any insight/guidance very much appreciated, thanks.

[Anthony Egan]

Hi Cherie

Gunnedah Shire is a Local Water Utilities (LWU) and we provide the amount of any water usage charges due and payable at the time of issue of the 603 Certificate as provided by section 603(3)(a) of the Local Government Act (the Act).

In addition, we also offer a “Special Water Meter Reading Certificate” under Section 608(2) of the Act. This certificate includes a special reading of the water meter at the time of application, details of the average daily water consumption for the meter, year to date water consumption and general information about Council’s Three Tier Tarriff System for residential properties. The price for this certificate is set at the price of the 603 Certificate.

We have smart meters installed across the LGA which makes this process straight forward, as there is no need to send a member of staff out in the field to read the water meter to complete the certificate.

Happy to share a copy of our Special Water Meter Reading Certificate if required.

Cheers

Anthony

[Cherie Muir]

Hi Anthony. Thanks for your reply and info. I should have mentioned the Special Water Reading Cert – it is a stand-alone certificate here as well.
I also should have mentioned that we are two very distinct and separate teams here at Shoalhaven. Shoalhaven Water has 300+ staff, including a Water Revenue unit that is an entirely separate team to Council’s regular Rates Revenue team. So, presently we coordinate the production of one singular 603, between the two very different Revenue teams.

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