[Simone Fisher]

Hi Lisa, we’ve loaded the patch & have attempted to load the g-val file again. We managed to get it loaded but can’t get it to update so doesn’t appear that the patch has fixed all of our issues. I’ve referred it back to Civica but haven’t heard anything yet. Can you let me know how you go with yours?
Thanks

[Simone Fisher]

Thanks Andrew/Michael, we received our file on Friday and it also includes strata PID’s so we haven’t been able to load it. I spoke to Michael Smith this morning whose advised that we would need to go to our software provider (Civica) & request that they remove this field from their file or update our program to accept them. Did you have an luck with yours Michael?
Thanks,

[Simone Fisher]

Well done Suzi, a big win for all Council’s.

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Jeanette,

We had one similar to this a few years back. In our case rates had continued to be levied on a crown lease that expired in the 1970’s & the ratepayer had continued to pay the rates despite no longer using the land. The ratepayer submitted a request for refund of all rates paid back to the early 1970’s & we declined the request using the below reasons:

Section 574(3) of the Local Government Act 1993 provides that an appeal on question of whether land is rateable or subject to a charge must be made within 30 days after service of the rates and charges notice.

Section 2(1) of the Recovery of Imposts Act 1963. Section 2(1) provides:

2 Limitation on time for the bringing of proceedings to recover taxes

(1) No proceedings shall be brought to recover from the Crown or the Government or the State of New South Wales or any Minister of the Crown, or from any corporation, officer or person or out of any fund to whom or which it was paid, the amount or any part of the amount paid by way of tax or purported tax and recoverable on restitutionary grounds (including but not limited to mistake of law or fact):

(a) in the case of a payment made before the commencement of this Act, after the expiration of the time within which such proceedings but for the enactment of this Act might have been brought or the expiration of twelve months after the date of the commencement of this Act, whichever period first expires, or

(b) in the case of a payment made subsequent to the commencement of this Act, after the expiration of twelve months after the date of payment.

I did abit of digging at the time though & could not find any court cases where section 574(3) & The Recovery of Imposts Act had been tested in this type of situation. If the ratepayer had come back to us or if it had have proceeded to court we would have sought legal advice & I think in all probability would have negotiated write-off & refund for a number of years.

Hope this is of some help.

Regards,

Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Darryl,
I prepared a couple a few weeks ago which have been checked over by our solicitors. I’ll forward you my excel template now.
Regards,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Ian,

Wollondilly has offered email & BPay View for 3 years. We have 3.7% of assessments registered for email & 2.7% registered for BPay View. This has been increasing steadily each year & we advertise both options on our rate notices & have included a BPay View flyer with the notices several times.

BPay View is managed by PML & we managed email registrations in house.

Thanks
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Trevor,
Wollondilly accepts AMEX. Merchant fee is high (2.75%). We pass on a standard merchant fee for all credit card payments (1% for payments processed at our customer service counter & 0.60% for Post Billpay). Fortunately AMEX isn’t a very popular payment method here.

Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Tracey,
Interesting one. I haven’t seen this before but I think if we had the same situation I’d be going down the line that section 575(3)(a) allows pensioners to receive a pension rebate for each year that doesn’t exceed $250.00 & would give them the option to either receive a 50% rebate on each assessment or 100% on one assessment only.
“(3) The total amount by which:
(a) all ordinary rates and charges for domestic waste management services levied on any land for the same year are reduced is not to exceed $250”

I’d probably start this commencing from the quarter that was reversed & not backdate.
Thanks,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Anita,

Unless they had an approved residential use for the bank building I’d continue rating it Business.
We has a similar request here with a residential dwelling that was approved & converted for use as a doctor’s surgery. The owner claimed that they couldn’t find a tenant to fill the space & requested that we categorise it residential as it wasn’t currently used for the business purpose.
I argued that it was approved for business use, they were actively looking for a commercial tenant & as the property had been converted to be used as a doctor’s surgery it wasn’t equipped to be used for residential accommodation.
They advised me that they would be getting their own legal advice with intentions to appeal the decision but have since paid the business rates.
Regards,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Carla,

Last time we requested this Agency Services were able to assist.
NSWAgencyServices@auspost.com.au

Thanks,

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Dajana,

We had a couple of situations similar to this a few of years ago after a flood came through Picton & washed away several homes. In our case we did not grant the rebates & quoted sec 575 (land on which a dwelling is situated) & the LGA’s dictionary meaning of eligible pensioner (person who occupies that dwelling as his or her sole or principle place of living) when we refused the applications.

We did remove the waste & stormwater charges though which in all cases reduced the total rates & charges payable by more than the rebate would have anyway. Fortunately each of the ratepayers were satisfied with this & no one took us to A Current Affair as I’m not sure how we would have gone politically if ours had have been taken further.

Regards,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Layla,

We currently have a Residential Town Centre sub-category. It was determined under section 529(2)(b) (land within a centre of population) many many years ago. Basically, a boundary was drawn around each of the towns in our shire where smaller lot size assessments are located. Any residential properties located within the town centre boundary were sub-categorised Residential Town Centre & pay a higher ad valorum rate that the larger lot residential assessments located outside of the town centres.

This worked well until recent years but we are now experiencing large volume growth in & outside of the historical town centres. A rate structure review has been on our radar for a couple of years now & I expect we may move away from this structure in coming years.

Please contact me if any further information is needed.

Regards,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Janelle,
I would have them supply details of their forestry operations. If the timber mill is running ancillary to the red river gum forestry operation on the property & the size of the forestry operation meets your minimum farmland rating policy criteria I’d be inclined to grant them farmland rating.
If all of the forest is now being conserved & not used for forestry but the timber mill is running independently with timber from off-site being brought in I’d be looking abit closer at recategorsing to business.
Do you know if a formal conservation agreement is in place? If there is & it is under the National Parks & Wildlife Act I expect that they may make an application for exemption under section 555(1)(b1) for the portion of the land under the agreement anyway.
We’ve also had a circumstance here where a large portion of a farmland property previously used for grazing became subject to a conservation agreement. Due to agreement the property could no longer be used for the farming activity but there was a small cottage located on the property. In this situation we recategorised the assessment to residential & the ratepayer was initially unimpressed.
In this particular circumstance the conservation agreement was not under the National Parks & Wildlife Act so there was no entitlement to exemption but the Valuer General did take the agreement into consideration when issuing a new rateable valuation & the new valuation came in significantly less than the previous valuation prior to the conservation agreement. This caused the rates to remain roughly the same despite the recategorisation anyway.
Hope this has been of some help.
Thanks,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Susan,

My understanding of section 496(1) is that Council MUST levy a domestic waste management charge for every parcel of rateable land for which the service is available. Therefore here at Wollondilly even if a residential property opts not to use the service if it is available to them we advise them that we still must levy a charge.

We do have several circumstances here where properties aren’t serviced by agreement. The usual circumstance for this is properties with limited access or located on a private road. The service is considered not to be available to these properties & no charge is levied. We also have a reduced vacant land charge for vacant land only but all other assessments are levied a full charge even if they don’t use the service.

If we had an opt in service I doubt that we’d get it past our auditors. As the cost of providing waste services is spread between all properties liable for the service unless something is charged on assessments that have opted out it would effectively increase the cost of the service for all other properties who are correctly paying for waste services.

Our waste area also added a new extended route here a few years back. Servicing (or at least charging) all properties on the new route was needed to justify it so all assessments on the new route have now been charged. They did give one year notice to residents to allow them time to end their contracts with other waste providers if they needed to though.

Regards,
Simone

[Simone Fisher]

Hi Mary,

Here at Wollondilly, unless the registered owner of the property is the pensioner we would not grant the rebate in any circumstances other than where documentation showing that the pensioner occupier is a life tenant or a legal deed of agreement showing that the pensioner occupier is responsible for payment of rates could be provided.

Thanks,
Simone

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