Billing A Local Council?

by Quackers Mon Jul 09, 2018 7:49 am

G'day from Australia.
I've just found this group and was on the GOODF forum a couple of years ago (different profile name tho) before it was taken over/sold, but only posted a few times.

I saw a suggestion on social media, that you can charge your local council for maintenance and upkeep of the nature strip (the piece of ground that exists between your property and the road, incase it's called other things in other parts of the world).
The suggestion was $20Au/fortnight was acceptable, tho personally I'd charge $30Au/fortnight ($720/yr).
Has anyone ever heard, read or have experienced with this?
It would certainly go a long way towards offsetting council rates.

Another thought that I had, was to charge the (my) local council for 'Maintenance, upkeep and operations of the local financial backbone of the city of where I live'.
Basically where I live revolves around a large local industrial works and the council (obviously) collects rates from people who draw an income from said business. Without this business very few people would have jobs and council wouldn't be able to collect much in the way of rates. The place would basically become a ghost town.
So council indirectly benefits from the local business and without people like myself performing my various roles, the business wouldn't exist.

I'm keen to read peoples input on this, as personally I find it a noval way to potentially offset council's attempts to extort money from people.

by Tom Bombadil Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:15 pm

Hullo Quackers!

In the US they call it an easement, over here it might be a verge.

In the UK, the council tax is paid for for the strip of land that runs from the center of the road to the EDGE of one's abode or land. We are paying for that piece of lands 'postcode'!

We are led to believe (were led) that a home needs a postcode to recipe mail. So we all started using it. Then the council tax came in, after a battle or two, and we were 'billed' for the postcode or home or land, and NOT the verge or easement. Suckered!

This is why, in part, that we are encouraged to apply for a formal address when a new house is built, or when a home is placed on a field and the whole field is post-coded!

In other words, a NEWLY coded area. Past or post tense! Nothing to do with postal. Which is all about standing notices being placed on a POST.

As for the nature strip, then I would go for any recouping of cash from those gits. If I were in or living on an area where folk are proud of being there, I might try to form a group first.

If the council does nothing, then dump a load of cars on it and tell them to move it! Then TELL them to repair it.

I have to say though that I know Jack about Aussi councils.

by Ausk Tue Jul 10, 2018 11:57 am

Quackers (and others)

I spoke to some neighbors a while back, who told me the local council was going to require us to maintain the verge at our expense.

I thought about this for some time and eventually i decided that if I got such a letter, I would send them a letter, accepting their offer to contract to maintain the verge on the condition that they accepted my Schedule of Rates.

My schedule of rates would have been worded or expressed in terms of a % of the annual rate bill for each maintenance activity. I would have used a % of the rate bill because that way they cannot just up the rates each year to cover, in your case, your one off price.

By expressing my costs as a % of the rate bill, the more rates they charged me the more I would be paid and so my rates would never have been eroded by inflation or their increases in my rates. They would have gained nothing by upping my rates.

Suggest you consider this way of doing it and getting others to do it the same way because if enough people agreed to do it BUT at their schedule of rates then the council would soon back off getting the home occupier to do it.

Remember, we agreed in a referendum in the 1980's to pay 6 or 8 cents more for fuel, per litre, to cover the cost of the provision and maintenance of all roads in Australia, inclusive of local council roads and streets.

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