Canterbury Council and NSW State Debt Recovery (Dodgy Practices?) Fine for Not Voting & Late Fee

lonewolf on 11/10/2017 - 11:17
Last edited 11/10/2017 - 12:20 by 1 other user

Hello Ozbargainers,

I have a problem and was seeking some advice / help. I recently got married and moved to a new suburb with my wife. We are now in the Belfield suburb and hence Canterbury council looks after us while previously for the past 30 odd years I have been with Strathfield council. Apparently there was a local council election for the Canterbury council which we had no clue about, no letters in the mailbox or any information about it or when it was on etc.

The first thing we heard about it was when we got a fine in our mailbox stating that we hadn't voted. The fine was for $55, One of the options is to contact them and let them know what happened and why you didn't vote. That is the option we picked, we never heard any response to our response and assumed they are slow and still working on it (Canterbury council has always been very slow and inept from my previous dealings with them).

Anyway time goes by and suddenly we are now being asked to pay a late fee of an extra $65, on top of the standard fee of $55! We were bamboozled. We hadn't received any response to our query. As well as as the fact that according to the voting site, they are supposed to send another letter of reminder to pay before they can even send it on to State Debt Recovery and charge an extra late fee. Now we never got that reminder either and as far as we knew , we were waiting on their response or we thought maybe they accepted our comment and that was that.

To me this feels like a money grab as they made no effort to respond and haven't even been sending reminders or half the notices they are meant to as well as no responses to vote in the first place.

What should I do? As I think we have taken all the right steps. I think Canterbury Council is really inept. Neither I nor my wife have ever missed voting when we both lived in our old councils, it's only since we moved to this Canterbury council area. We have noticed even with some of their mail outs about council fees don't get to us and we have told them in their past that there is a problem with their mailing system as we receive all other mail.

Financial

Comments

  • blitz on 11/10/2017 - 11:40

    OK. Have you tried calling them? And what did they say?

    • lonewolf on 11/10/2017 - 12:03
      -1

      I called up council and told them what happened, they were meant to get back to us with a response but nothing happened and they never sent a follow up notice of reminder to pay either, next thing i knew months later was that it has been escalated to SDRO and they want to charge a 65$ extra fine because we didnt pay but we had no idea we still had to pay as i thought it was all done and dusted.

      My wife called up the SDRO and they said non receipt of any response or letters or notices to vote is not a valid claim.

  • [Deactivated] on 11/10/2017 - 11:43

    Northern beaches council was poor on the advertising front too. Had it not been that I went to the manly vs Penrith nrl game and seen ppl handing out how to vote reminded I wouldn’t have known to vote. There was no letter box drop or ads in the local paper. Seems like it was very poor advertising across the board no matter where you live.

  • Seraphin7 on 11/10/2017 - 11:59
    +1

    Council involved in a money grab? Never! hahahaha

  • SerbSoulja on 11/10/2017 - 12:23

    2191 <3

  • garetz on 11/10/2017 - 12:39
    +1

    The definition of council rates is a money grab, thats their whole purpose of being.

  • toniyellow on 11/10/2017 - 13:22
    +4

    They're not required to mail each individual a letter.

    You should be made aware by things like stories in the local paper…
    http://www.localnewsplus.com.au/story?ID=130449&stories=stor…
    http://www.localnewsplus.com.au/story?ID=130730&stories=stor…
    reminders on radio, TV, etc reminding people to check if their council is having an election

    If you don't read things like that you can sign up to the election reminder service so they do contact you but that is opt-in https://roll.elections.nsw.gov.au/NSWLookUp/nswelectionremin…

    I would stop trying to fight the not voting fine, and concentrate on fighting the late fee. They should have paused the fine until you received a response.

  • [Deactivated] on 11/10/2017 - 17:31

    What a dirty rotten council.

    First involved in corruption scandal, now this…

    I'm glad I don't live there, but I remember visiting a friend and I called them and they told me they had a stall outside of the council area or something for over a week to allow pre-voting and to notify people.

    I don't know if you will get away with not voting, but I haven't voted in any council election.

    If they send me a council voting fine; I usually tell them that is an investment property and I'm living elsewhere.

  • askme69 on 11/10/2017 - 18:36

    Did you confirm with council that they received your initial review after submitting?

    By the sounds of it, they didn't.

  • joungs on 11/10/2017 - 22:31

    Is local election voting compulsory in NSW?

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