Official Information Request - 31 July 2018

Response:

Sent: Tuesday 21 August 2018 3.53pm

Subject: Official information request - unpaid rates

I refer to your email of 31 July 2018 requesting information on unpaid rates, and reply to your questions below:

1. How many properties are in default of paying their rates. (A breakdown of residential, Maori, commercial, farm etc is required).As of 21 August 2018, there are 10,317 properties in rates arrears of $0.01 or more. As the due date was 20 August, this figure may change as late payments are received and processed.It is not possible to easily break the figure down into the categories you have requested as the finance system does not have a standard report to do this. Also, the figure is constantly changing as rates are paid. It has been estimated that it would take a staff member approximately 6 hours to create such a report. Council is entitled to charge for this time and, as per the Ministry of Justice charging guidelines, our normal practice is to charge $38 per half hour or part thereof. Therefore to provide this information would incur a cost of $456 (excluding GST). This charge would need to be paid before the reports are created.
2. What actions you took to recover unpaid rates in the last 12 months (August 2017 - July 2018).For the 2018 rating year (1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018) the following was undertaken:
3. 21 new properties were referred to Baycorp to commence collection action.
4. 307 properties had a mortgagee demand issued to their bank.
5. We are unable to provide statistics on how many cases for this period were contacted and a payment plan introduced etc. As debt cases are constantly opening and closing due to payments made, we have no historic data available once the debt is paid. It is our standard action to send a letter to every property that had a balance outstanding and a penalty added after an instalment is due which is normally around 1500-1700 customers each instalment.
6. Our standard actions are to send out the invoices, send a letter when penalties are applied, make phone or email contact with customers where possible, refer debts to Baycorp where we have been unable to progress debt collection, request the bank to deduct funds under mortgagee demands in November each year. We also deal with our customers face to face if they come into Council.

As per the Act, we are obliged to advise that you may contact the Ombudsman at the address below if you have any concerns with the response provided by Council, by writing to:

The Office of the Ombudsman

PO Box 10 152

WELLINGTON 6143

Alternatively, you may email info@ombudsman.parliament.nz or use the online complaints form available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/make-a-complaint.

Regards