21 JANUARY 2019
The ACT government has ignored calls to immediately overhaul the city’s ratings system to help ease the burden of rising rates on Canberra’s apartment owners, owners say, but it will review the system in the next two years. The government has promised to publicly review the system and is considering whether any such changes may be needed in either the 2019-20 or 2020-21 budget, and intends to announce the new policy settings for the third five-year period of its 20-year tax reforms in 2022-23. But Owners Corporation Network head Gary Petherbridge said the proposed review came with no guarantee of actual changes in the future, and the government’s response showed it was simply ignoring the community. A raft of unit owners previously told the committee the changes made in the 2017-18 budget had sent the valuations of their units soaring, leading in turn to massive increases in rates in a single year.
> Full article at Canberratimes.com.au
Daniel Burdon