[Cherie Muir]

Hi there
It’s Fees & Charges season! I’m keen to canvas how much councils are charging for an archival search of historic records (say as far back as 30 years, in the case of someone wanting to support their capital gains cost base).
We are looking to curb the volume of these (which seem to be increasing) and are exploring the true cost of the search, especially in light of the opportunity cost of these (the cost of skilled staff being diverted from other more critical workflows).

What’s the charging structure at your council? Does your charge work well for you?
For records pre 2000 we charge $211.85 per search. And for records post 2000 we charge $85.45 per search.

And while I’m here, has any council adopted a Rates Statement fee (for the provision of an Excel reconciliation of account from one year to the next)? Customer demand (and expectation) for these has grown significantly in the last 10 years. If so, how much do you charge?

Many thanks

[Andrea Dolan]

Hi Cherie,

We don’t have an archival search fee, but we do have an ‘information of rates & charges’ written advice fee. It is $60.25 for each year they request. We can only go back as far as 1997 due to the fire for any Bankstown records and 2017 for any Canterbury records. We don’t get very many of these once we let them know the charge. The only time there is no charge is if the reconciliation is required for court with our debt recovery agents.

Our rate notice reproduction fee is $29.60 for each year. And even those have quietened down, they are registering to our archive platform.

Hope this helps
Andrea

[Srisa Heffernan]

Hi Cherie,

We have also experienced a huge increase in the volume of these enquiries in the past few years- however we can only provide records back to 2004 as our rating data prior to this is inaccessible.

Current year -$70 per half hour (Usually $140 if both rates and water).

Proposed new fee $150 – per account.

The new fee is more reflective of the actual cost of providing the information.

We encourage customers to try and access their issued accounts through forms express archive to avoid the cost of the search, however the migration of our notice data for customers by forms has been abysmal and some of our customers cant access their notices prior to 2019/20.

Hope this assists,

Srisa

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