[Srisa Heffernan]

Hi Elizabeth – we are in a similar situation with a LALC applying for non-rateability for 28 of their properties. From my study of the case law – primarily Community-Housing-Limited-v-Clarence-Valley-Council-2015-NSWCA-327-Appeal &
Gumbangerri-Aboriginal-Corporation-v-Nambucca-Council.pdf My primary thoughts are:

1. Looks like they meet the non-rateability test for PBI (Public benevolent Institutions)
“ Examples of charities that may be PBIs include organisations that:
• directly provide relief to people in need, such as:
o some hospitals and hospices
o some disability support services
o some aged care services, or
o providers of low rental or subsidised housing, for people who cannot afford market rent”

2. based on previous similar case law we will probably need to make these non-rateable so we decided that the best way was to go back and ask them to provide more detail on how they “vet” applicants for their homes.
“ eg. As providers of low rental or subsidised housing, how do you ensure your homes are being rented to people who cannot afford market rent?”

Under section 525(4) of the LGA “If the council has reasonable grounds for believing that the land is not within the nominated category, it may notify the applicant of any further information it requires in order to be satisfied that the land is within that category. After considering any such information, the council must declare the category for the land.” So we are intending to ask them to furnish council with details on the following questions for council to establish the extent of their charitable activities and make a determination on non-rateability.

a. Can anyone rent these properties or must Aboriginality be confirmed by kinship?
b. Is rent capped or scaled for applicants depending on income?
c. How do you analyse income of the applicants?
d. Who makes the decisions about who is eligible?
e. Is the process of reviewing applicants an open and transparent process?

The majority of these questions came from the judgements of the above case law – the judge used these as points in favour of establishing that the properties in question were in fact non-rateable.

4. we will also ask for current photos of the dwellings proposed to become non-rateable – if the property is vacant land they would automatically become eligible for non-rateability.

I will let you know how we go.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 3 weeks ago by Srisa Heffernan.

[Srisa Heffernan]

Hi Elizabeth,

We have had numerous issues with our reconciliations not matching VGs supplementary list totals and VG land totals since VGs have started their transition to Val IQ. We would recommend you reach out to Tracy Walsh at VGs. She has resolved a number of issues for us.

Some of the early issues were due to syncing issues between ValIQ and ValNet. And information not flowing between the two.

We are also doing GVal this year and had discrepancies in supps prior but worked with Tracy to get it right in an additional Supp provided the week before GVal was provided to us. As far as we know GVal is correct (properties match) but there are discrepancies in the 1st supp after GVal – we did a quick recco of the ons and offs and discovered a $1,500,000 discrepancy – 2 properties that had been cancelled by VGs had been made current again (not the first time – so we knew what to look for). This was fixed by VGs in the next supp list.

Some of the issues we had included:

– Cancelled properties made current again – giving a discrepancy on the totals page and the total value (without additional WF being provided to show why they were current again)

– a $11,700 discrepancy. A Work Flow was provided to us on the 9/9/25 Supp List – it was provided again on a 12/9/25 Supp List. The net result of the ons and offs of this WF = $11,700. This was the only WF we received on the 9/9/25 Supp List and it was given to us without the WF event being updated to 9/9. The date completed was 25/7/25 so it came through again with the data to Council event date showing 12/9/2025.

– long delays in new values for subdivisions and un-amalgamations. With the child records still showing as PROFORMA in ValNet with no values.

-Boundary Adjustment DPs had not been actioned at all – for some time the new DPs didn’t exist in ValNet.

– not really an issue – but some strata children were not provided in GVal ( we delete these anyways) – we think this is because in ValNet they are connected to the cancelled parent property and not the new SP record.

– multiple issues with stratas- not significant just annoying delays and weird non consecutive PIDs

– my final bug bear is having to submit address updates – and not being able to do these ourselves – its time consuming and sometimes your submission gets completely ignored.

I hope that helps!

[Srisa Heffernan]

We issue them as normal – sometimes the parties conveyancer contact us to request that we refund the vendor as the purchaser doesn’t have the funds to pay out the vendor for the credit – in which case we make them get a new s603 after the refund.

[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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