[John Norris]

Well said Andrew. Congratulations on a wonderful career Neil. Now enjoy your well deserved retirement.

[John Norris]

This is very sad news Andrew. I had quite a lot of contact with David over many years, both as a client and personally during my time as MC of the annual conference. David was a true gentleman and thorough professional. He had a unique depth of experience operating as a licensed commercial agent prior to completing his law studies and being admitted as a solicitor and forming SR Law. He’s been part of this industry for over 30 years. I would like to extend my deepest condolences to his family.

[John Norris]

Hi Dani, for rating purposes you need to look at Section 548A of the Act. This spells out the criteria that allows councils to aggregate the values for rating purposes. It might be worth while looking at the property files to see if there are applications on file. There should be some record as to why the aggregations were done as it should be requested by the ratepayer. Also check your Council policy register and confirm what is in place for your council and if there is no existing policy then create one for future use.
When you are checking any applications processed under Section 548A(1)(a)&(b) note that this is an “and” test not either or for (a) and (b).
There is also some goon information in previous enquiries under this topic in the current and historic forums. Just click in the archive at the top of the forum page to get back.

Hope this assists you and good luck.

John

[John Norris]

Finally a court decision to put the onus onto the property owner to request the change of category.

[John Norris]

Hi Adele,
If Council doesn’t have an aggregation policy, you can only assess the application by following Section 548A (1).

When I was at North Sydney, the policy was for a maximum of one residential or business unit to be aggregated with one car space and one storage cage/room. Note that when you assess the application, it must qualify using both tests in s548A (1) (a) & (b). How you assess is a matter for Council but when discussing with your Finance Manager, if a developer is prepared to pay for multiple lots in the plan it’s hard to believe that separate rate assessments would cause them any hardship. There are some good discussions on this matter in the historic documents as well.

Hope this helps.

[John Norris]

Congratulations John. I can say that retirement is a great role. I’m enjoying it immensely.

[John Norris]

While it seems logical to pay the surplus to the rate account, the purpose of sale of land is to pay the rates and charges that are due to the date of the sale. What is being proposed by offsetting the surplus against future rates is giving benefit to the ratepayers who have not paid their rates. Perhaps after all rates and charges have been paid the balance can be used by Council for whatever purpose.
I’m not saying it’s right but it’s another avenue of thought.

[John Norris]

Hi Trevor,

I’m afraid I don’t agree with the above responses. Whilst I accept that you could draw a long bow and make the comparison between 555(1)(e) & 555(1)(f) there are specific words in 555(1)(e) that define the land owned by a religious body that is to be exempt from all rates.
Section 555(1) states
(e) land that belongs to a religious body and is occupied and used in connection with:
(i) a church or other building used or occupied for public worship, or
(ii) a building used or occupied solely as the residence of a minister of religion in connection with any such church or building, or
(iii) a building used or occupied for the purpose of religious teaching or training, or
(iv) a building used or occupied solely as the residence of the official head or the assistant official head (or both) of any religious body in the State or in any diocese within the State,

Each sub-section refers to a building as part of what is to be exempt. A church or other building for public worship, building used or occupied solely as the residence of a minister, building occupied or used for religious teaching and building used or occupied solely as the residence of the official head or assistant head in State or diocese etc.

Section 555(1)(e) make no mention of land used for any other purposes in relation to religious organisations than those specified and for that reason I would happily not grant an exemption.

[Author]

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