West Tamar Council and Dorset Council to recover rates through property sales

It follows the high-profile sale of a property at Mole Creek, owned by honey farmers from Chudleigh, who believed they did not have to pay rates because the land was “owned by God”.

Meander Valley mayor Craig Perkins said the settlement of the Mole Creek home was now complete and the new owners had taken possession. 

“The Beerepoots still own the properties at Chudleigh and there is expectation that they will pay rates on those properties, but if you assume that they didn’t, we have to wait for three years before we could start action again on them,” he said. 

Cr Perkins said it was common to sell properties for unpaid rates but it was often vacant land or from deceased estates, not inhabited homes or businesses. 

The West Tamar Council voted to sell three occupied homes due to unpaid rates at its meeting on Tuesday. 

General manager Rolph Vos said the council wasn’t trying to evict people, it just wants them to do the same as every other ratepayer in the municipality.

Dorset Council has also voted to sell a number of properties in the region, including seven pieces of land owned by the Briseis Tin and General Mining Company. 

Mayor Greg Howard believed the company was no longer in operation. 

Local Government Association of Tasmania chief executive Dr Katrena Stephenson said selling properties to recover rates was a last resort.

Dr Stephenson said a number of properties at Circular Head were also due to be sold because the council had exhausted all options to find the owners.

“I have been doing some council visits lately and the properties have all been unoccupied, where they can’t even figure out who the owner is and a lot of them are deceased estates,” she said.

“The reason that rates lapse for so long is generally because you can’t track down the person to pay it because usually if the person is on-site, the council would negotiate a payment arrangement … for most people it would be a hardship thing.”

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Dr Stephenson said councils’ goal is to serve the community and “it’s never what a council would want to do”.

“But they have to think of the whole community, rates is the revenue source for council and there is a requirement to pay it under law,” she said.

Of the three properties to be sold in the West Tamar region, one has an outstanding rates total of more than $13,300.

The rates on the 766 square metre property on Pomona Road have not been paid in full since 2003. 

The council also plans to sell a property on Farmer Street at Riverside with outstanding rates of about $10,000. 

General manager Rolph Vos believes the house has since been sold, which means the rates would be recovered with the sale is finalisation.

The council was asked to vote on the motion in case the sale fell through. 

A property in Weld Street, Beaconsfield, will also be sold for outstanding rates of more than $5700. 

Mr Vos said the council had taken these steps before, but the rates always ended up getting paid. 

West Tamar councillor Rick Shegog said it was “unfair” people who didn’t pay their rates still benefited from the services the council offered.

“There are some people in the municipality that do struggle to pay their rates, but seem to do so,” he said. 

Dorset Council voted to sell 18 different pieces of land, including a number properties owned by The Briseis Tin and General Mining Company. 

Mayor Greg Howard said the council had not done it “for a while”. 

“We’ve been doing a bit of a tidy up and it came to our attention that we had all these blocks that rates hadn’t been paid on,” he said. 

“We’ve made every attempt to contact them and it’s been unsuccessful. This really is a last resort.”