(File image). Photo: Unsplash / Tom Rumble
More than 34,000 Aucklanders are behind on their rates as the cost of living crisis bites and later this month, Auckland Council is putting a home under the hammer because the owner owes $318,000 in overdue rates.
Rates haven't been paid on the derelict property in Otara for 19 years, however, after years of trying to get in touch with the homeowner, the council managed to make contact with a relative.
Auckland Council's chief financial officer Ross Tucker told Checkpoint that the situation was an extreme and unusual case.
"It's taken a long time, any rating sale is very much a last resort. We've tried over many years to try to contact the property owner unsuccessfully, we've had to go through court processes but the property owners hasn't responded to any communication," he said.
Tucker said he could not comment on the particular details of the case, but within the last few days the council had contact with a family member.
"It is very positive that they have finally reached out to get in contact. As we walked through court processes, there's been notices attached to the front door saying to get in contact or this process will happen or here is the outcome of the process," he said.
"Throughout all those things, we haven't had the contact until just the last day or so."
The council hoped to work with the family member to avoid the worst possible outcomes, such as a forced sale.
"At the moment, the property sale is is still set to go ahead," he said.
Tucker said originally the outstanding bill started at around $30,000 when the council first took action.
"Rates have continued to accumulate for penalties and costs, it's accumulated over time for all those things, and obviously we want to be in the situation of having to deal with forcible rating sales as a very much last resort," he said.
He said the council's advice for anyone that was struggling was to get in touch as soon as possible, so they could start working with people.
"We have a range of assistance schemes and things that we can put in place, we really need people to reach out and contact us early," he said.
The council was mindful there was a cost of living crisis and more ratepayers were struggling with bills, he said.
"We want people to be able to pay their bill. We don't like to take any kind of strong action. We really encourage people if they are concerned about their bills or they're getting a bit behind to come and talk to us."
He said at the end of the last financial year, 95 percent of ratepayers had paid their rates in full, however, 5 percent of ratepayers in Auckland, about 34,000, were behind to some extent in their rates.
"It's about a 2.3 percent increase from last year, it's a small increase, [with] more people struggling than the prior year."
He said it was less than what the council saw coming out of the Covid-19 period.
"We got to almost 50,000 ratepayers struggling with their bills at that point, so it's up a little bit, but it's not at those kind of extreme levels that we saw coming out of Covid," he said.
Tucker said the council sent reminder notices and automated phone calls when people missed a payment installment, they also sent people a reminder letter in June.
"We let them know the rates are outstanding and if they don't contact us or work through these things with us, we might have to take further action," he said.
He said however, usually after the council has contact with ratepayers with outstanding bills, the number of outstanding payments would go down.
"This year bills that are outstanding, we expect that number to come down to more like 3 percent by the time we get to the end of the calendar year."
