News location:

Canberra Today 15°/19° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Queanbeyan Council says to ignore those supplementary rates notices

tim overall

AT tonight’s Extraordinary Meeting, Queanbeyan City Council agreed to formally withdraw supplementary rates notices issued to around 800 ratepayers.

“Council has received legal advice from Senior Counsel regarding the supplementary rates notices which has stated that there are grounds establishing ‘invalidity’ of the supplementary notices and that they can be treated as having no legal effect,” Queanbeyan Mayor Tim Overall said.

“This is a pleasing outcome to a distressing situation for many Queanbeyan ratepayers.

“Council regrets any concern and anguish caused due to the issuing of supplementary rates notices.

“As publically stated on a number of occasions, a resolution to this situation was always likely to take a number of months to achieve. Council was required to follow the correct process and consult with the relevant parties before this decision could be reached.”

Queanbeyan Council issued the supplementary rates notices following an audit of its property database which contains 16,800 properties. The audit showed that around 5% of Queanbeyan’s rateable properties had been undercharged for services over a five-year period. The audit also highlighted that more than 2,000 properties had been overcharged during the period – no action will be taken regarding any refund issued.

Any ratepayer who has paid the charges shown in the supplementary notices will receive a refund.

Council will be writing to all affected ratepayers in the coming days notifying them of the resolution.

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews