Council rates

Hi all,

I have a question... in the same suburb, would an owner with a nice and big house pay the same rates as a person with a small and crappy house?

Say house A is brand new and 4 bedrooms and has 800 SQM land. While house B is old, 2 bedroom and sits on 600 SQM of land.

Also the new estate area in Footscray, near Vic Uni surrounded by Marynbinong (sp?) river, are those places considered as houses or town houses?
 
Don't know about Vic, but in Qld rates are based on unimproved value of the land only (in the region I live in anyway - assume all councils are same or similar). Nothing to do with the house that sits on it.
 
In Ipswich we have a tiered rate system. Owners pay a higher general rate on a rental property as against owner occupied. This sneaked in a few years ago and most people don't seem to be aware of it. I don't know if it is the case in other Councils. I have asked a few people and they aren't aware of it, but then neither are a lot of people here in Ipswich.
 
As far as I know, in Victoria, there are 3 valuation bases for calculation of the rates, and different municipalities could chooses either one of them for the calculation.
(1) Site Value - land value only
(2) Capital Improved Value - land + building (most council chooses this)
(3) Net Annual Value - current value of a property's net annual rent

In general, the formula to calculate the rate is:

General Rates = Valuation of the property x Rate in the dollar

Usually most councils use the same rate in the dollar to apply to all properties, across the different classifications, but because different property would have a different valuation, so that would make different property has a different rate amount.

Super.
 
Hi Invest

The Local Government Website will tell you how their rating system works, and the Rate (in the Dollar) which has been struck for the year.

There is a threshold Municipal Rate, and the Garbage Collections (we have 3! Putrescibles, Green and Recycling Collections) are all the same charge (each) no matter the property, so the variance between what each tenement pays is due to the value of each individual property.

As has already been noted, municipalities also vary in how they levy the rate – improved or unimproved value of the property. One of my commercial properties also has a Special Promotional Rate which is levied on the properties to promote the shopping strip.

Hope this helps
Kristine
 
Where I am, I have several homes in the same postcode. They each sit on a different size parcel of land, yet their rates are identical. One of them even has two homes on the one - very large for the area - block of land.
 
In Ipswich we have a tiered rate system. Owners pay a higher general rate on a rental property as against owner occupied. This sneaked in a few years ago and most people don't seem to be aware of it. I don't know if it is the case in other Councils. I have asked a few people and they aren't aware of it, but then neither are a lot of people here in Ipswich.

In Brisbane my understanding is the owner occupied properties have a cap on them, whereas investment property rates can increase more due to to not having a cap.
 
Realy varies by area. Both of my houses are in councils that cover very large geographic areas in regional SA, and they both charge different rates in the dollar in different towns within their area. Both councils charge far less for vacant than improved land - there's a lot of vacant land around with many people owning a house with multiple vacant titles adjacent too - so people get charged a pittance for the vacant blocks. They use the full improved value otherwise.

The valuation I have in one council is more than 3x higher than the valuation I have in the other, and for some stupid reason the cheaper house attracts less services and higher council rates.
 
In Brisbane my understanding is the owner occupied properties have a cap on them, whereas investment property rates can increase more due to to not having a cap.

Interesting. Owner occupied properties are capped here as well but they are still two entirely different categories. Owner occupied category 1 and rental properties category 9. They are charged at a different rate per dollar value. It's a difference of $0.001242 per dollar of property value.

So while the cap keeps owner occupied properties lower they would still be lower even without it, maybe. I think the cap cuts in when the valuation of a property gets over a certain point but I'm not absolutely sure about that. It might in fact work the same way Brisbane does. I haven't ever thought about it like that. All I know is, that if I multiply the dollar value (as per rate notice) of my OO place by the amount mentioned on the rate notice it calculates higher than they are charging, therefore the cap has clicked in. The other property calculates the same as they are charging.

All other charges are the same, it is only the differential general rate that is higher for IP's.

Edited to add ... All this came into play when the valuations went sky high a few years ago. There hadn't been any need for a cap before then and IP's and OO's were charged at the same rate back then as well.
 
I have been wondering about this for a while.

We pay $300 pq for our PPOR council rates. Unimproved land value is around $300k and value is around $750k. 300 sqm of land.

We pay $500 pq for our IP council rates. Unimproved land value is $150k and value around $300k. 450 sqm of land.

So the two properties are in completely different places (but both in NSW). I always thought the IP council rates were really expensive considering the value of the IP?

Conversely I guess I could say that our PPOR rates are cheap, so I can't complain too much...
 
Back
Top