January 13, 2014
The South Burnett Regional Council will put 24 properties up for auction next month to recover unpaid rates.
The properties will be auctioned at the Kingaroy Customer Service Centre at 10:00am on Friday, February 21, unless the owners can pay the Council their outstanding rates beforehand.
The auction follows almost a year of efforts by Council officers to contact the owners and persuade them to come to some arrangement to settle their accounts.
The Council began recovery action against 39 property owners in October 2012 and has been able to make repayment arrangements with 15 of them since that time.
The December meeting of the Council was told the total unimproved capital value of the remaining properties was more than $2.28 million while the amount of outstanding rates was a little over $201,000 – less than 10 per cent of their net worth.
Mayor Wayne Kratzamann said that he was “very reluctant” to put the properties up for auction.
“That’s why Council has been making every possible effort to contact the owners and persuade them to enter repayment arrangements.
“However, all Councils are legally obliged to proceed this way if they’re unable to strike a repayment arrangement with a property owner, and beyond a certain point their hands are tied.
“All the same, this is heart-breaking and no one enjoys seeing something like this happen.”
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